SAS Raid controller for VMware ESX

[axan]

I'm thinking of building an ESX server and I need a sas raid controller for it.
It has to be 8+ ports and low profile.
So far I'm considering:

Adaptec 5805
Areca ARC1222 and ARC1680ix-8 (can't find the 1680 in stock anywhere)
3ware 9690SA-8I

The controller will be used with SAS Drives so any sata incompatibilities are not an issue

Should I look at anything else? anyone have any experience with esx and those sas controllers?

Right now I'm leaning towards the adaptec card because of the built in drivers into ESX.
Price isn't really an issue I just want something reliable with good performance. Also something that I can easly manage while esx is running without having to reboot and go into bios or anything silly like that.

 

[Blue Fox]

Since Areca only has beta drivers for ESX, you might want to skip them for now.

 

[jasonlitka]

I believe 3ware cards require some manual driver loading as well. Have you considered a Dell PERC 5/i?

 

[axan]

dell perc sux ass, i have poweredge 2950 with perc6i running vmware esx at work, only way to do oce or things like that is to boot into windows xp/2003/2008 and install dell Open Manage. You can't even do functions like that from bios.

 

[jasonlitka]

They don't suck at all. They are reliable and do exactly what they are supposed to do.

 

[axan]

ok all you have to do is look how many firmware revisions there are for perc controllers to see how "reliable" they are. Seems like there is an update every month and they are all marked critical, aside from that the bios is very limited it only has basic raid functions, and for anything more then that you need to install dell open manage software on compatible os.