Question for 3ware 9650SE and 9750 Owners

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vabch22

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 5, 2005
Messages
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Hey guys,

I'm looking for people with experience with both controllers. I have the 9650SE and am looking to upgrade. Not sure if I should do the 9750 (how much performance increase?) or go another brand.. Areca 18xx series for example.

I'll be running Raid 0 (ssd) and Raid 5 (sata).

Thanks
 
The 9650SE is a horrible card upgrading to an areca 1880 would be a huge difference.

I don't recommend lsi or 3ware based on previous bad experiences with them in terms of reliability and performance they are by far the worst I have dealt with.
 
The 3ware 9750 is the LSI 9261 with the 3ware stack dropped on top. So really, think of it as 3ware 9750/LSI 9260 vs Areca 1880.

Going from a 9650 to a 9750 or 1880 would be a tremendous jump for most configs and use cases. Either card will serve you well, however, personally, (keep in mind I'm primarily a nix user that happens to have a Windows box just for gaming) I'd go with the LSI over Areca for the following reasons:

  • Better drive support (Areca has traditionally been picky regarding drive compatibility)
  • Better management interface. I wasn't all that impressed by the Areca web interface. Also, ArcHTTP doesn't even include an runscript for linux so I had to write my own back in 2008. Seems like a half assed effort on Areca's part.
  • Better driver support. The Areca 18xx series driver isn't even in the linux kernel yet (not as of my 2.6.37-r1 at least).
  • Better support. Being in the a related industry, I can just call up our FAE to resolve or report any issues. Areca is a rather small company and doesn't have the same level of resources. This probably doesn't apply to most people, but, again, this is all IMO.

There is also the case of Areca not having a single port 18xx card so you'd have to buy an 8 port card. If you were using an expander, you may not want to pay for the extra port (generally ~$150-200 more).

I didn't mention performance at all and that is because I haven't actually gotten to toy around with an 1880 card yet so I can't comment on that. Just based on specs, I'd imagine they're similar since the 1880 cards are using the LSI 2108 chip just like the LSI 92xx/3ware 9750 and that any differences would be attributed to firmware/driver.
 
Great points Volkum. I might bug you via IM since you have LSI experience. ;) I've read about people complaining in regards to their management software, but I don't know which gen cards that was for.

I know LSI bought 3ware, so I figured I'd stay with the 3ware line since LSI support said I could just plug and play basically (backwards compatible) the array.

With the 2nd gen 9265 LSI cards released, I may wait a bit for the reviews.

Thanks again
 
I have the 9750 and the performance is pretty good. However, it definitely doesn't work as well with hyperv running several virtual servers.
 
vabch22 said:
Great points Volkum. I might bug you via IM since you have LSI experience. ;) I've read about people complaining in regards to their management software, but I don't know which gen cards that was for.

I know LSI bought 3ware, so I figured I'd stay with the 3ware line since LSI support said I could just plug and play basically (backwards compatible) the array.

With the 2nd gen 9265 LSI cards released, I may wait a bit for the reviews.

Thanks again
Click to expand...

I have 3ware 9690SA-8i and 3ware 9650 with 2x Corsair F120 SSD as boot drive.
Works very well. Also, keep in mind that 3ware controllers were not made for random read/write. Their firmware only works well on sequencial jobs, and 3ware 9750 too, acording Crystal disk mark comparison to LSI 9260. This is why LSI corporation have 3ware controllers for video playback/streaming and LSI controllers for random data wich works better on windows environment.

However, 3ware controllers are excellent,very stable and works very well with BBU and default settings ( Read Ahead cache, write back cache , NCQ enable).
My 9690 touch 1gb/s seq read and write.
Wait a time to see. Don't buy a LSI 9265 (dual core).
Wait a little and buy a controller with a Super Capacitor Module (BBU substitute) like a ZMCP from Adaptec Series 6.
Well, at this moment if you want the Ferrari of controllers with BBU, is no doubt a Areca 1880ix-12 with 4gb DDR2 cache.
Regards
 
so much hate for the 9650SE...
I have one running 8x1.5TB drives for a few years now, no issues so far.
Works perfect in ubuntu, speed is good (limited by Gbit ethernet)
 
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