Plz recomend a good SAS RAID controller card

G

Germz

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 14, 2007
Messages
164
I wanted to RAID 0 2x 150GB Veloci but now I decided to go with the new 15.6K 146GB Cheetahs instead and i need a reliable RAID controller card that will work with XP Pro 32 and my nforce590 board. Problem is there arent any reviews by online publications for the cards i'vc seen at newegg so i selected a few based on reviews there. If anyone here is familiar with those or wants to recomend something else, plz do. I don't want to spend more than $350 on it. I'd prefer a PCI-e card as i have an empty PCI-e x16 slot, i can't use the x8 slot on my board since it will block the Duorb fan of my vid card. These are the cards i was considering:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115050
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16816118058
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816103050
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816103085
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductReview.aspx?Item=N82E16816116064
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118061
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118084
 
Go on eBay and find Dell Perc 5/i 8-port cards for around ~$150 or 8-port Adaptec cards for around $200-250 or so, Newegg's prices for SAS cards compared to Fleabay aren't so hot if you're willing to deal with eBay.
 
thnx for your reply. I don't mind ebay one bit as i've been buyer & seller for years. I found some Dell cards:

http://computers.search.ebay.com/de...QQfromZR40QQsacatZ58058QQsatitleZdellQ205Q2fi


In regards to Adaptec, I know they are a good brand, can you recomend some specific models? I'm going to look into Dell cards but i'd prefer to pay for quality and Adaptec and Areca are quality, though the latter is out of my budget.


Edit: I found this Adaptec on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Adaptec-3405-RA...oryZ3757QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

This is almost the same model i was considering on newegg but for $100 less. This is 2251900-R and newegg has 2251800-R, so i think this one is newer. Any thoughts on this one?
 
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Here's a pretty in depth comparison of a few. If you browse around their site, you'll see other reviews on SAS cards as well as on SAS drives.

http://www.treadlayers.com/PC_Hardware/Storage/SAS_RAID/1.shtml

It seems that the latest Adaptec series, the 5 series is possibly the top performers out there right now. The 3 series is a great series, but the Areca seems to be the speed king versus pre 5 series Adaptec cards. I'm currently using the 31605 and I've been completely happy with the performance. Although, this is my first Hardware Raid card, so I don't have a lot of experience to pull from.

I'm using 2x Cheetah 15k.5 drives in RAID 0 and pulling an average of 227MB/s with 5.8ms response times. The 15k.6 drives are supposed to be quite a jump in Read/Write performance.
 
thnx Griff, a useful review, i'll check it out when i have the time.
 
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