Before you spend the big bucks....make sure your motherboard is compatible with the raid card, i read certain high end motherboard have the PCIx slot only work with video card...
The main difference between the RE3 and RE4, is that the 1TB RE4 has 2x 500GB platters, whereas the 1TB RE3 has 3x 333GB platters. RE4 has 64MB cache and RE3 has only 32MB. Plus, RE4 is rated with twice as many load/unload cycles as RE3. ;)
I prefer not to....these RE4 are great for raid array that's why i prefer to sell them in bundle of 4 or 8, for RAID 5 or 6.
How many are you interested?
IBM M1050 (which is a LSI 9240-8i), you can find it on ebay for less than $100 if you shop around. Stay way from Highpoint or anything Marvell....they are junk.
I have 8x Brand New 1TB WD 1003FBYX - RE4 Enterprise drives for sale. These drives have 64MB cache and 7200RPM, rated at SATA2 (3.0Gb/s). They will be sold in 2 packs for $160, 4 packs bundle for $300 (4 drives) or 8 packs for $580. They are brand new and never been power on (you can verify...
If you haven't already, go get yourself some Kamachi SATA5ex cable, they are made in Japan. The VR version suppose to boost random read/write speed up to 5x, while the VS version will boost Sequential read/write up to 5x. The cable core are made out of a hybrid fiber/copper and Dickanium, and...