Conclusion

Well, according to the benchmark results, Promise FastTrak TX4300 controller proved a pretty good solution. RAID 0 arrays demonstrate very good scalability of the array performance on the number of HDDs in an array.

The controller performed very stably in some tests, however, we would really like to run the tests again with a new version of the driver before making any final conclusions.

Speaking about the innovations introduced in the new controller, we have to admit that FastTrak TX4300 is not dramatically different from FastTrak TX4200. so if you are a happy owner of a TX4200, you do not need to rush and upgrade to the TX4300 modification. And if you are considering of getting yourself something to enhance and speed up your storage subsystem, then Promise FastTrak TX4300 is a good choice at this time.

Some of you believe that contemporary mainboards offer sufficient number of SATA ports and can allow you to build RAID arrays from the connected HDDs. However, since computer hardware migrates so rapidly, a chipset implementation of a RAID array may not allow you to move all the software from the old system to the new one that easily. In this case an external RAID controller with the forever-young PCI interface may be the right choice. Unless you enjoy reinstalling Windows once a month, of course :)