RAID Controller Recommendations

[402blownstroker]

I am looking for a RAID controller that can 6GBs or higher that has at least 1 external port and 2 internal ports. For some reason I am having trouble trying to find one. Does anyone know of one that meets this requirements?

 

[Blue Fox]

No sure what your budget is, but the LSI/Broadcom 9380-8i8e and Areca 1884ixl-8 have that. There are plenty of other models as well.

 

[sinisterDei]

No sure what your budget is, but the LSI/Broadcom 9380-8i8e and Areca 1884ixl-8 have that. There are plenty of other models as well.

Blue Fox knows his shit. Areca is my favorite brand of RAID controller.

That said, those are expensive cards. If they're outside your budget, you could go back a couple generations of LSI cards. In my home server, I run a LSI 9265-8i I got for $50 refurbished from ServerSupply (link here). You didn't specify exactly what you mean by "ports", but the SAS connectors on these cards support 4 drives each and support expanders. There's also a 9280-4i4e for around the same money here. It's basically the same card as mine, except it has half the cache and one of the connectors is external. Given the cache difference, I'd probably stick with the 9265-8i and either use an expander that adds an external port or simply convert one of the internal ports to an external one with something like this.

 

[tangoseal]

Any LSI megaraid card in 6gbps sas should meet your needs. Be sure to get a BBU addon for the card as well.