HighPoint RocketRAID 2314 4-Channel PCI-Express x4 SATA 3Gb/s RAID Controller

by HighPoint

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 13.4 x 2.8 x 7.7 inches ; 1.4 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000NAXGIU
• Item model number: RocketRAID 2314
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: February 9, 2007

Product Description

Port Multiplier (PM) Ready, up to 20 e-SATA devices Compatible with eSATA enclosures

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great price/performance ratio and solid functionality, March 21, 2009

By 

Casey (San Jose, CA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: HighPoint RocketRAID 2314 4-Channel PCI-Express x4 SATA 3Gb/s RAID Controller (Personal Computers)

I purchased two 4-port eSATA cards for my Mac Pro so that I could compare their performance and user interfaces. One is the RocketRAID 2314 and the other is the DAT Optic (http://www.datoptic.com/cgi-bin/web.cgi?product=eSATA_PCIe8&detail=yes). The appeal of the DAT Optic is the use of Silicon Image's SteelVine 3124 processor.

I tested each card with the Icy Dock 4-bay port-multiplication enclosure with four 1.5 TB Seagate Barracuda hard drives.

In RAID 0 and Pass Thru modes, both cards offer similar performance, but in RAID 5 the RocketRAID wins hands down. Using the AJA KONA System Test program ([...]), the DAT Optic card produced a despicable 6 MB/s write and 8.5 MB/s read. At first I thought the card was still building the RAID5 array, but that was not the case. The array was in Online (not Reduced) mode following a successful (and time-consuming) build process. The RocketRAID, on the other hand, produced 150+ MB/s write and 150+ MB/s read.

The RocketRAID web-based GUI is also more powerful and more user friendly than the DAT Optic's Java-based GUI provided by Silicon Image. For example, the Rocket RAID web GUI provides continuous progress indication for RAID5 builds, whereas the Silicon Image Java GUI only states that Build is in progress...and once again when Build is complete.

The RocketRAID GUI also provides S.M.A.R.T. monitoring and reports temperature and status information for each drive, but the Silicon Image GUI has no such feature.

The RocketRAID GUI also allows you to choose Automatic Rebuild or Manual Rebuild, sends email messages for alerts, spins down the disks after a specified period of inactivity, etc.

As for a previous poster's comments about forgotten passwords, that is really a non-issue. The instruction manual even provides a procedure for resetting the password. In the worst case, just uninstall the driver using the uninstall script provided on the CD, and reinstall.

My only gripe with this card is that, unlike the DAT Optic, it fails to mount a CD or DVD that I insert into my Buffalo Technology 8x External Blu-Ray burner (model 816SU2). I've contacted Highpoint Tech Support and may revise this review pending a successful resolution.

** Update 3/25/09 **

After a discussion with Highpoint Tech Support, my fear was confirmed: The RocketRAID works only with hard drives. It will not mount other types of eSATA peripherals such as an external Blu Ray burner.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Raid 5 for $200, not bad., January 27, 2008

By 

M. Czerniuk "ukeyoner" (Evanston, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: HighPoint RocketRAID 2314 4-Channel PCI-Express x4 SATA 3Gb/s RAID Controller (Personal Computers)

I've been using this card for over a year now and it's been solid. I have the card paired with a EnhanceBox E8, which is an 8-bay esata port multiplier enclosure. Most of the video I do is in 1080p and I never experience any hic-ups. If your are looking for an alternative to some of the more costly HD editing setups, I highly recommend this system. I now have three of these setups.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars RocketRaid 2314 Raid E-Sata Controller, September 12, 2009

By 

Marvin Beasley "rohoryder" (Bedford, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: HighPoint RocketRAID 2314 4-Channel PCI-Express x4 SATA 3Gb/s RAID Controller (Personal Computers)

This product was purchased to replace the very poor controller board that comes with the Sans Digital T8R external drive system. The original controller is junk. Even Sans Digital agreed with me on that. They reccommended the Highpoint 2314 as a replacement.

The 2314 performs very well controlling a Raid 10 Array with 8 1.5TB Seagate Drives. This gives me 6 TB of storage. It has enough e-sata ports to control another raid array which I am building.

The performance is extremely good over a gigbyte network. The array seems to be faster than a dedicated Raid 5 system that is on line.

The card has audible warning if a drive fails. Put in a good drive and will rebuild the drive.

The documentation is extremely poor. Unless you have Raid experience, the instruction book is useless.
I haven't seen such poor documentation in a long time. It was written by an amateur and never updated.

This board is not cheap but its cheaper than the LSI Logic Raid boards I have been using.

Overall, I'm pleased with the performance of the 2314.