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The second possible way of avoiding such a significant performance drop is pretty radical. If each drive of the array is connected to a separate IDE channel, the prime cause of the problem will be eliminated: there will be no hard disk drives connected to one and the same cable and hence no simultaneous data transfers via one cable. This way the solution is evident: get more IDE channels!

In fact, the most frequently used IDE RAID array configuration is an array of 2 hard disk drives united either in RAID 0 array to increase the data processing speed, or in RAID 1 array to ensure higher reliability. Far not everyone can afford to build a four-drive array, and those who had the opportunity usually preferred a SCSI configuration. However, you will never find a SCSI solution today, which will be able to successfully compete with RAID arrays of IDE drives in terms of cost that is why we have every right to state that there is an objective need in high-capacity IDE RAID arrays.

Summing up all the highs and lows listed above I dare conclude that HighPoint solution would be more suitable for home-office use (work with video, archives, speeding up the overall disk subsystem), while Promise controller appears the right choice for IDE RAID servers due to excellent performance in RAID1 and RAID01. Of course, it will also suit for a home system :)