Views on the AMCC 3Ware 9500S-4LP ?

[Ubtree]

I am looking for a 4-port SATA RAID controller in under to set up a RAID 5 configuration, and I know that 3Ware has an excellent reputation. But according to the only review that I can find (gamepc.com (http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=9500s4lp&page=11) ) the RAID 5 performance of the 9500S-4LP is patchy.

Does anyone have any practical experience of this controller? Or can anyone point me in the direction of any other reviews that might cast more light on the issue?

Many thanks.

[drizzt81]

The grapevine and my gut feeling tells me that AMCC (3ware) lost their edge this round. If I were you, I would look at tweakers.net for some more detail. Maybe Anand has a review too?

[Rembrandt]

If you are running XP the board will be very good. I have had one for about a year and a half with no problems ever.

If you are running Vista “DO NOT” purchase a 3ware SATA raid card. The last beta drivers for Vista are dated back even before retail Vista came out. They have never updated the beta drivers and do not support any raid product that is running Vista. I have a 9500S/4 and a 9650SE/8 and they both work wonderful in XP but the 9650 keeps starting up and shutting down even when I am working from the drive while in Vista. Wait 15 seconds and it can boot itself down and you have to wait for it to boot back up to even save a small file. I even caught it making itself into three devices in the Device Manager. It showed the three separate partitions as three different raid controllers. As I am writing it has started up and shut down twice again in Vista. Needless to say, I use XP as much as possible.

[Ubtree]

Thank you for the advice, Rembrandt and drizzt81. It's very helpful.

I'm thinking that it might be better to wait until I can afford the 9550SX, which appears to have much better reviews - and a much faster write speed with RAID 5.