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Recomend me a RAID controller

D

djBon2112

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Jul 29, 2006
Messages
5,279
Sorry, I know this topic has been done to death, but I need some solid answers.

6-8 SATA ports, PCIe interface, hardware* RAID 5. Recommend anything please.

*Unless a Celeron 420 is enough to reasonably do software RAID 5 on a 6-8 disk array streaming a bunchload of content (HD video, music, etc.) over gigabit ethernet, while running BitTorrent downloading/uploading on the server. In which case, I'm open to software RAID 5 solutions too.
 
Anything by Areca I swear by their cards. Although be ready to spend upwards of $400 on one of those.
 
Everyone swears by Areca, and I have one on the way, I also have a Highpoint 3510 on the way as well. The Highpoint uses the same intel IOP chips as Areca, so it should be good. The 3510 only has 4 connectors though. The Areca 1220 has connections for 8 SATA drives and can be found for around $450.
 
for the price you are paying for a single controller i find it better to just build a seperate PC that could work as a storage box + router + maybe even HTPC
 
I own a ARECA 1210. Works great. Some other names are LSI, 3ware.
 
risqu3 said:
for the price you are paying for a single controller i find it better to just build a seperate PC that could work as a storage box + router + maybe even HTPC
Click to expand...

That's what I'm doing... only it'll be a 4+ disk RAID5 array of 750 GB drives. And I need a RAID controller of some kind for that.
 
if your building a new box then get a board with a good onboard chipset
 
I've been looking at the Dell PERC 5/i. They can be had on eBay for about $120, minus the cables. Any opinions on them?
 
Dont get a dell card if you dont have a dell that comes with it, you will get stuck with proprietary drivers that wont get updated after they quit using that model system. bad idea.
like i said in my first post Areca is #1 in my book, followed by LSI, and 3ware. I had a dell card in my dell and I didnt like how it acted with certain OS's so i got a Areca that all i have to say about that.
 
That's a little disheartening. Any recommendations for software controllers with 6-8 ports? Oh, and for the record I'm going to be running Ubuntu Server on the box.
 
Those Dell PERC 5/i are just rebadged LSI cards. I was able to flash my PERC 5/i with LSI's bios. Now I can use 512MB ram on the controller (came with 256MB - and Dell's BIOS didn't allow for anything more) and use LSI's drivers. No issues so far for me :)

nitrobass24 said:
Dont get a dell card if you dont have a dell that comes with it, you will get stuck with proprietary drivers that wont get updated after they quit using that model system. bad idea.
like i said in my first post Areca is #1 in my book, followed by LSI, and 3ware. I had a dell card in my dell and I didnt like how it acted with certain OS's so i got a Areca that all i have to say about that.
Click to expand...
 
vannguyen0 said:
Those Dell PERC 5/i are just rebadged LSI cards. I was able to flash my PERC 5/i with LSI's bios. Now I can use 512MB ram on the controller (came with 256MB - and Dell's BIOS didn't allow for anything more) and use LSI's drivers. No issues so far for me :)
Click to expand...

Got a guide/thread on how to do that ;) my Perc5/i from ebay should be here Thursday, already got my SFF-8484 cables from Provantage (~$25 shipped for both cables)
 
vannguyen0 said:
Those Dell PERC 5/i are just rebadged LSI cards. I was able to flash my PERC 5/i with LSI's bios. Now I can use 512MB ram on the controller (came with 256MB - and Dell's BIOS didn't allow for anything more) and use LSI's drivers. No issues so far for me :)
Click to expand...

Sweet! If that's the case, I'm set with a Perc 5/i since I see them for about $120! You have a link to the flashing tutorial?
 
djBon2112 said:
Sweet! If that's the case, I'm set with a Perc 5/i since I see them for about $120! You have a link to the flashing tutorial?
Click to expand...

If it's the one that has a "best offer" they have it set to auto-accept at $100, but they denied my offer for $95...

They don't have brackets for your PCI slots, so you'll have to buy one off ebay (another $10 from another seller, find your own, or use a vented PCI Slot and Zipties (What I plan to do :D )
 
Blazestorm said:
If it's the one that has a "best offer" they have it set to auto-accept at $100, but they denied my offer for $95...

They don't have brackets for your PCI slots, so you'll have to buy one off ebay (another $10 from another seller, find your own, or use a vented PCI Slot and Zipties (What I plan to do :D )
Click to expand...

I've got one seller who does the bracket in a combo with the card for about $130 USD, plus I think $25 shipping to Canada which isn't that bad. But I still need cables for it. Better than $500 though ;)
 
Why not go for the Perc6 controllers then, i heard they were a huge improvement over the 5 series. Although you're probably not going to max them out so that shouldn't really matter.
 
I haven't seen any on eBay for cheap :p

But yea, I doubt I'll be maxing this thing out. Hell, the only reason I want a dedicated hardware one is so I can use the cheapest CPU I can find and not take a performance hit ;)
 
djBon2112 said:
Sweet! If that's the case, I'm set with a Perc 5/i since I see them for about $120! You have a link to the flashing tutorial?
Click to expand...

Blazestorm said:
Got a guide/thread on how to do that ;) my Perc5/i from ebay should be here Thursday, already got my SFF-8484 cables from Provantage (~$25 shipped for both cables)
Click to expand...

Here's the thread:
readme if you are bored (12 pages)

It's about 12 pages of people moaning and complaining (myself included) about how the PERC 5/i is a pos because some of us couldn't get it work on Intel chipsets. Then I went to a 780i board and everything has been smooth since.

But then there's a work around if you have an Intel chipset (which kinda irks me that I didn't find it earlier; because I based my decision to go with the 780i on the fact the the PERC 5/i would not work with any Intel board). Read this link if you have an Intel chipset (P35, X38, X48)

readme if you have Intel chipset

Basically... you can re-flash the using LSI's 8408E firmware.
LSI link

Blazestorm said:
They don't have brackets for your PCI slots, so you'll have to buy one off ebay (another $10 from another seller, find your own, or use a vented PCI Slot and Zipties (What I plan to do :D )
Click to expand...

That's what I'm doing... I have a Rocketfish case and it has vented PCI slots ;)
 
Glad I found this thread and avoided some headaches, I bought a 965 board off ebay to go with it D= I really had no idea there was going to be any issues, but I didn't really do a whole lot of research either...

I'll read up on the thread and figure out what I need to do, thanks a lot :D
 
vannguyen0 said:
Here's the thread:
readme if you are bored (12 pages)

It's about 12 pages of people moaning and complaining (myself included) about how the PERC 5/i is a pos because some of us couldn't get it work on Intel chipsets. Then I went to a 780i board and everything has been smooth since.

But then there's a work around if you have an Intel chipset (which kinda irks me that I didn't find it earlier; because I based my decision to go with the 780i on the fact the the PERC 5/i would not work with any Intel board). Read this link if you have an Intel chipset (P35, X38, X48)

readme if you have Intel chipset

Basically... you can re-flash the using LSI's 8408E firmware.
LSI link



That's what I'm doing... I have a Rocketfish case and it has vented PCI slots ;)
Click to expand...
Looks good; since the mobo I'm getting is a G33 chipset (no other mATX mobos I've seen with 2x PCIe 16x slots for the riser I need [this card and an Intel dual gigabit Ethernet card]) I assume I'm going to need that mod ;) I like the nail polish idea, assuming that that is safe :p

As for the flashing, is there a way to reverse it if it goes awry? I've always been a little skeptical flashing BIOSes for different models etc., and I always like a fallback!
 
djBon2112 said:
As for the flashing, is there a way to reverse it if it goes awry? I've always been a little skeptical flashing BIOSes for different models etc., and I always like a fallback!
Click to expand...

yup... no problems reverting back to the Dell bios. You just have to do it with the NOCHECK (I forget the exact parameter) - basically tell the flash program to ignore the version number of the BIOS (the program will halt if it sees that you are trying to go back a version unless you specify the NOCHECK parameter).
 
I got my Perc5 today, my motherboard read it fine and booted fine... cables seem to work.

It says it finds 0 logical disks, but shows 4 drives under options once i dig deeper, I try to create a virtual disk but it just won't let me move over to OK even though it;s niot greyed out.

How did you flash to the LSI firmware, I'm thinking I should try that... do you boot from the flash program? I've been searching all around, can't find any clear answers for anything.
 
Good luck with the perc5 man, we have a couple at work and i personally don't like them very much at all. Maybe i should see if we should reflash them...
 
Figured it out...

I guess going into the OS and installing drivers and the MegaRAID software would have helped ;)

Flashed to LSI and have been building the Raid5 array ever since... 77% after a couple hours...

Didn't have to do the tape "mod" or anything, natively detected on my 945 Gigabyte board, it was bitching about a missing battery, but I might end up buying a BBU anyways, they're pretty cheap on ebay and I already got the cable.

Cables from Provantage work and even include an LED header for a backplane (which I don't have), although another website listed on cpu2 (I think) had them for $12 shipped and had locking cables (Provantage cables are Sata1 style, but feel secure))
 
Blazestorm said:
Figured it out...

Cables from Provantage work and even include an LED header for a backplane (which I don't have), although another website listed on cpu2 (I think) had them for $12 shipped and had locking cables (Provantage cables are Sata1 style, but feel secure))
Click to expand...

Glad to see that you got it working Blazestorm. Can you provide a link to those locking cables when you get a chance?
 
Sorry to resurrect this thread guys, just got a Perc 5/i from ebay and mine has what looks like a 4 pin power connector just below the heatsink,
Do i need to connect to this from my power supply? or is for the battery or something else.
 
It's not for power ;)

I think it might be to connect multiple cards together, but I could be wrong.
 
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