Adaptec 52445 - 2 different mfg. #?

[Thuleman]

Looking at the Adaptec RAID 52445 (http://www.adaptec.com/en-US/products/Controllers/Hardware/sas/performance/SAS-52445/) I came across two different manufacturer numbers:

There is 2258700-R (http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1418300) priced at $1,215 at CDW, and then the 2258700-R (http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1418301) priced at $1,356 at CDW. It's unclear to me, from looking at Adaptec's and CDW's web page what the difference between the two units is.

Anyone able to shed some light on this? Thanks in advance.

[JonTa]

Are u really going to fork out 1.3k on a raid card? other than that, i think its misprint on one of the sites

[alamone]

Cheaper one probably does not include the miniSAS breakout cables, just the card.

[Rakinos]

If you want to save a couple bucks, pick it up on ebay with the live cashback discount (15-35% back). Go to the hot deals forum for more info.

(That's what I did for my card)

[Thuleman]

It's really annoying that Adaptec's site doesn't provide more info on what's what. There are two different manufacturer's numbers for each of the Series 5 products, but even at the better retailers don't have any description of what's what.

I need to connect 20 drives. I think I may just get two 12-port internal ones instead and have some spare capacity in case one of the controllers goes down.

[Pocatello]

What OS will you be using? What is the purpose of your boxen?

[Blue Fox]

Are u really going to fork out 1.3k on a raid card? other than that, i think its misprint on one of the sites
That's the going rate for a 24 port SAS controller card. Nothing out of the ordinary to be honest. Some people spend $2k on video cards that are obsolete within a couple years. These things tend to last considerably longer and retain their value. Now I have an HD4850 and a fancy RAID card instead.

[Thuleman]

What OS will you be using? What is the purpose of your boxen?

It will be an ESX based box, half a dozen VMs max, light load by any consideration. I doubt that it would exceed a couple hundred IOPS across the entire system.

I would have 2 drives mirrored for the ESX, one hot spare, and the rest bunched into one big raid 5 array if I go with one controller, or 4-disk raid 5 arrays if I go with two controllers.

Large contiguous storage isn't necessary, I just need a bunch of space in general.