Adaptec 4805SAS vs. Intel SRCSAS18E

[jcazes]

I have an Adaptec 4805SAS controller (8 port SATA, PCI-e) that seems to give me intermittent trouble. I have not yet figured out the cause, but sometimes when booting up my PC the card's "controller kernel" has trouble booting up (as in, it will not boot and hangs on that screen). The last occurrence seemed to happen when I turned the power off on the back of my PSU, but I am not sure if that is the direct cause. I'm too scared to try to repeat the issue again for fear of loosing my card/array/data, as I could not get the controller to boot for several days. Shouldn't the unit's backup battery (which I purchased separately, and seemed to be functional as per the Adaptec storage manager program) kick in when I turn the PSU off from the rear of the computer? Is power even the reason the card sometimes will not boot up?

I have been hesitant to call Adaptec's customer support because they have never been helpful with previous issues, but what do you guys think? Should I order an RMA and switch to another controller or stick with this one and try calling up? I have had my eye on the Intel SRCSAS18E, as I know a few places to purchase it for a reasonable price, so if it would be best to switch I wouldn't be too troubled (I also have a lot more drives laying around I haven't yet added to my current 4-disk array so the transfer should be seamless).

Thanks for any input on my issue or the SRCSAS18E, since there isn't very information out there about it.

 

[jcazes]

*crickets*

 

[UICompE02]

Well, the hardware on that intel controller is actually the LSI MegaRAID SAS 8408e. I'm not sure what they changed in terms of the software versus the LSI version, but the hardware is a very solid RAID controller.

However, you should at least give Adaptec's support a shot and see what they say...