Product Reviews

Processor speeds are climbing ever nearer to 2GHz, which is all very well, except now the rest of your PC is having trouble keeping up. This means the chip spends more and more time sitting around waiting for the other components to send it some work. Your hard disk is a particular culprit, and a slow one can become particularly apparent with demanding applications such as 3D animations, and music and video editing, where every ounce of performance must be squeezed out.

RAID can come to the rescue. RAID (which stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) is a method for spreading information over multiple hard disks. Set up correctly, it can speed the passage of data from the disk array to the processor. The problems is, speedy RAID PCs have often had the price tags of small cars. But now, thanks to the relentless march of technology, RAID is moving within the reach of home users.

RAID can be configured to work in a number of different ways. Firstly there is 'striping' data, sometimes called RAID 0. This process makes for maximum performance as it spreads data over multiple hard disks. These can all be read at the same time, thus drastically increasing the flow of information.

For data protection and security

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there is a process called 'mirroring' or RAID 1. Here every drop of data written to the main hard disk is simultaneously written onto a second drive. If one fails, then you'll have the other to fall back on.

Next is 'spanning.' This allows you to combine up to 8 drives into one hulking behemoth of a hard disk. You can also combine processes too. You could, for example, build a system with striped and mirrored drives. The limits are only your needs, the number of hard disks you have and, of course, your budget.

To set up a RAID system you need to connect your disks to a special kind of disk controller. You've been able to buy these as add-in cards for several years, with prices now gradually falling to around £100. But as RAID becomes more popular, there are now budget motherboards appearing with RAID controllers built into them.

Abit's KT7A-RAID is one of the most flexible, aiming to provide all the features that a budding upgrader could possibly want. The board is clearly and sensibly laid out and due to its jumper-free design all the tricky configuration settings can be adjusted via the BIOS. The manuals are informative and clear and make the rather tricky job of motherboard installation a pain-free affair. The icing on the cake is the RAID support, which allows you to combine up to four disks into an array. You can attach a further four IDE devices on the additional two non-RAID connectors - catering for DVD, CD writer and Zip drives.

With the ability to house any flavour of Athlon processor and even the forthcoming Athlon 4, this board is as future proof as you can hope to get. An experienced tweaker will just love this board for its ease of use and its massive overclocking potential. The Abit KT7A-RAID is also a worthy foundation for a spanking new beast of home-brewed PC.