I'm looking at doing a TB raid config soon and I was wondering what the state of "real raid" (read SCSI) and SATA raid technology was. I know that if you want the real deal you go with 3WARE or some wacky expensive stuff. Are the highpoints and stuff like that worth a damn? I know at one point I was told that on-mobo raid was flakey and not to be trusted. Can I trust these $60/$100 cards?
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SATA RAID Questions
- Thread starter SuperPhly
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unhappy_mage
[H]ard|DCer of the Month - October 2005
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Areca > 3ware any day 
I have a lot of confidence in the Highpoint 2220 and 2320. Other than that... you're better off getting a plain-ol' sata card with no raid and doing software raid, Linux or otherwise. I have a Highpoint 1640 in my care, but I'm using it as a sata-only card, for which purpose it is fine. It's a bridged design, as I imagine many of the >$200 cards are, and while there's nothing wrong with that (indeed, it makes driver support eleven times easier!) I'm glad I've moved to other alternatives.
I have a lot of confidence in the Highpoint 2220 and 2320. Other than that... you're better off getting a plain-ol' sata card with no raid and doing software raid, Linux or otherwise. I have a Highpoint 1640 in my care, but I'm using it as a sata-only card, for which purpose it is fine. It's a bridged design, as I imagine many of the >$200 cards are, and while there's nothing wrong with that (indeed, it makes driver support eleven times easier!) I'm glad I've moved to other alternatives.
hokatichenci
Gawd
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unhappy_mage said:Areca > 3ware any day
I wouldn't go as far as to say that, I think that Areca has a ways to go still to prove themselves in the SATA market in regards to stability. Sure we all know Areca whoops the competition in performance, in open-source ability and platforms supported (32 + 64bit linux and windows)... but I still think that when a drive died on my raid5 array when the system went unstable its just unacceptable. Maybe other cards are the same but I was amazed that I couldn't even pinpoint the problem and the system thought it was normal until I physically removed the bad drive after a 6 hour offline disk check using Areca's utility.
</rant>
My roommate used the highpoint 1810a on freebsd with a 3 drive raid5 and has yet to report any problems.