RAID & HBA Card

The difference between Raid Controller and HBA card

RAID and HBA card

A host bus adapter (HBA) circuit board or integrated circuit adapter that connects a host system , such as a server, to a storage or network device.

The HBA also provides input/output (I/O) processing to reduce the load on the host’s microprocessor when storing and retrieving data , helping to improve the host’s overall performance.

The HBA associated disk subsystems are sometimes referred to as a disk channel,

While the HBA itself is often called an HBA card. An HBA typically characterized by the interconnect technology it supports, as well as its speed, port count and system interface.

Most HBA cards plug in to the Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) slots of the host computer, although they might come in other form factors, such as mezzanine cards for blade servers.

Although the term HBA can apply to a variety of interconnects, it is most commonly used with storage protocols, such as Fiber Channel (FC) , Small Computer System Interface, Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) and Serial Attached SCSI (SAS).

RAID Controller

The RAID card only a card that provides RAID functions, and is generally inserted into the server.

There are two types of RAID Controller cards. The card that manages the internal disk of the server and the card that manages the external disk cabinet.

Internally, the server own disks are all connected to this card, and then the card is inserted into the host motherboard interface.

When booting, we may build a RAID Controller volume by hitting the shortcut key to enter the card’s setup interface,

which will allow the operating system to recognize a virtual disc with RAID Controller functionality.

The external installed after the motherboard’s PCIE interface, which is then expanded to connect to the external disc cabinet.

From this perspective, this external connection card is similar to an HBA card, except it has RAID capabilities.

Manage the disc cabinet from outside the server by using this card’s configuration interface. But this card likewise placed into the server.

Raid Controller and HBA card

Raid Controller and HBA card are similar but not same.

A controller could be onboard as :

• A discrete device on motherboard .
• An additional feature inside chipset (like Intel’s RST) .
• A card, could be a controller (for internal connectivity) or HBA (for external connectivity) .
• HBAs are sometimes connected with motherboard using proprietary connectors, in space-constrained blade servers for example .
• But in those cases, HBA will have internal connectivity, as blades almost never talk to external storage .
• More recently, NVMe storage has given new life to the term HBA  .
• In the NVMe scenario, the intermediate device (between storage device and PCIe bus) is most aptly described as an HBA ; as it mediates traffic between a host bus (PCIe) and the endpoints (NVMe storage media) .

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