Tell me about the Dell Perc 6/i controller

M

McDeth

Limp Gawd
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Sep 26, 2002
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After hearing the stellar reviews and all the information on hand about the Perc 5/i controller from Dell, I was thinking about buying the next generation Dell controller, the Perc 6/i. As well as doing all the things the 5/i does (raid 0, 1, 5, 10) the 6/i supports RAID 6, 50, and 60.

The one thing holding me back was the price, at 700 dollars off Ebay the damn thing ain't cheap. That was until i saw this. From Dell WITH a BBU? Yes please.

Anyone have experience with these cards that can give some info on them, are they true desktop compatible cards or are they designed solely for Dell workstation and server use? Will they work with SATA drives (it's a SAS controller)?
 
What is wrong with this one?

This one has a PCI bracket on it. I don't know for sure, but I can't see how it would be Dell Server only. The usual Perc issues remain, you will need to get a SFF 8484 to 4 X Sata cable, less than 20 bux, you will need to provide some extra cooling, and make sure it comes with the BBU.

Don
 
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I was looking at the one....don't know if it has any issues or not, for that price I hope it wouldn't
 
Well, just do what I do. Pay on Paypal with your credit card, and if it is not as promised and the seller does not fix the problem, dispute the payment through Paypal. If they won't help you then I know American Express has no problem doing a chargeback if the item delivered is defective. But then again, with all of my traveling, I average about 5 grand a month on my AMEX card. They are always so nice to me when I call them for something.

Don
 
The PERC6 controllers are custom boards that are built around the LSI SAS1078 single-chip RAID controller.

They are pretty much the equivalent of a MegaRAID SAS 8708ELP.

Once you take the weird backplane thing that comes attached to it off, it should fit in a standard PCIe slot (But it probably won't have a bracket on it, I'm not sure where you can find those). Also, as with most MegaRAID boards, you may have to tape over the SMB pins on the PCIe connector depending on your motherboard.

The performance is a bit higher than the PERC5 series card. Although the LSI 1068 that is on the PERC5 shares the same SAS controller logic that is found in the 1078, the 1078 has a more powerful integrated IOP, and as you mentioned, hardware RAID 6 acceleration. Overall the RAID performance will be noticeably faster than the PERC5, but not extremely so.

Let me know if you have any questions... I have a ton of experience with the 1078 hardware (but probably not so much with the related MegaRAID software)
 
Well I bought the one off ebay so I'll update with pics/comments when it arrives :D
 
This is a top notch card, however it remains to be seen if it will work in standard motherboards with the tape trick like the 5i
 
I have a few in Dell Servers. Seems fast enough. Stable. Doesn't crash the system if a drive craps out. Never tried one in a white box, though.
 
When someone gets one of these and uses it (successfully or otherwise) in a non-Dell system, please update...
 
I've got a 6/i coming. Looking for advice on what drives to run (raid 6). I was thinking WD 640gb "blues."
 
okashira said:
I've got a 6/i coming. Looking for advice on what drives to run (raid 6). I was thinking WD 640gb "blues."
Click to expand...

For WDs, nothing but the RE series.
For the Seagate, ES.2's.
For Hitachi's, the E7K1000's.

RAID editions all around. A few bucks is worth it.
 
The Perc 5 likes to hover around 350-400MB/sec depending on your drives and type of array for the max sustained transfer rates, does anyone know how well the 6 does?
 
lizardking009 said:
For WDs, nothing but the RE series.
For the Seagate, ES.2's.
For Hitachi's, the E7K1000's.

RAID editions all around. A few bucks is worth it.
Click to expand...

So you reccomend enterprise class drives? My application is not for a always on server. more like performance/large volume/redundancy, with short bursts of heavy usage.

I would like to run those drives, but the difference in cost may be $300.

I could get 5x WD 640's for $300 mabye. A similar sized array with "E" class drives would cost double. Do you still recommend such drives?

I will use an SSD as my main boot drive and the array for misc everything else.
 
As the man said, RE really, or google TLER (which will lead you back to this forum) if you choose not to.
 
Megalomaniac said:
As the man said, RE really, or google TLER (which will lead you back to this forum) if you choose not to.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the post. From what I gather I can enable TLER on the cheaper WD blues and this problem will be solved. Correct me if I am wrong.
 
okashira said:
Thanks for the post. From what I gather I can enable TLER on the cheaper WD blues and this problem will be solved. Correct me if I am wrong.
Click to expand...

From what I understand, its not just TLER - there's increased vibration and heat tolerance, rated for 24/7 use, etc. The RAID series drives tend to have better compatibility with RAID controllers - the firmware fixes/workarounds don't always make it into the desktop drives.

Lots of people use the desktop drives successfully, but the RAID series are more likely to be hassle free. Its worth the premium to me.
 
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