Request: controller card buyer's guide

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jebo_4jc

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - April 2011
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This would be incredibly helpful for the know-nothings like myself who are considering adding controller cards to their PCs.

I imagine, as media PCs become more popular, more people will be exploring the wide world of file servers to some extent (See: MS's new Media Server OS). The cheapest way to do this as we know is to simply add HDDs to an older box, which sometimes necessitates a controller card.

So, maybe a buyer's guide would be beneficial that would discuss the variety of options when it comes to controller cards starting with bottom-line $15 models to the upper end.
 
I'll concentrate on SATA-compatible cards for this writeup. For the most part, if it isn't included, it isn't recommended. However, if I don't mention something explicitly, ask me about it and I'll try to explain my reasoning for omitting it, and possibly add it with said reasoning.

For your reference and mine, here's how I'll try to format this post:
Manufacturer
=========
Card model number or name (linked to manufacturer's site) - N ports, host interface, hardware raid, software raid, or HBA. Misc features: OCE, ORLM, SAS, BBU, ETC. Price as of update.
My general recommendations on this card or series of cards. I try to give reasoning, but twenty thousand characters will quickly become a limiting factor here, I predict ;)

Highpoint
=======
1740 - 4 ports, PCI, software raid. OCE and ORLM. ~$120 as of writing.
Recommended for: Cheap small setups on PCI bus that will never grow and don't need performance. That's about it. Limited marked, obviously.
1810/1820/1820a - 4/8 ports, PCI-X, software raid. No OCE or ORLM. ~$210 for the 1820 as of writing.
Recommended for: Cheap big setups on PCI or PCI-X. No OCE makes this a bad "starter" card - move up to the 2000 series instead.
2210/2220/2224/2240 - 4/8/4+4/16 ports, PCI-X, software raid. OCE and ORLM. ~$250 for the 2220 as of writing.
Recommended for: For people with older PCI-X boards or desktop boards with no pci express. Start a small array and move bigger. Or just start big. Low price point makes these a good choice for medium budget array setup.
2300/2310/2320/2322/2340 - 4/4/8/8/16 ports, PCI Express x1/x4/x4/x4/x8, software raid. OCE and ORLM. $210 (!) for 2320 as of writing.
Recommended for: Newer motherboards with PCI Express; if given the choice between plain PCI and PCIe, pick these. They're cheaper than the 2220 and will be faster than PCI-based cards. Large storage, where speed isn't a great concern.
3220 - 8 ports, PCI-X, hardware raid. OCE, ORLM, and raid 6. ~$440.
Recommended for: Setups that need speed. Probably worth looking into an Areca or LSI instead; I haven't seen anyone using these in the real world. Especially interesting is the last LSI linked; Newegg and EWiz have them cheaper than this.

Areca
====
1110/1120/1130/1160/1130ML/1160ML/1170 - 4/8/12/16/12ML/16ML/24 ports, PCI-X, hardware raid. OCE, ORLM, raid 6, ethernet management for >=12 port cards.
Recommended for: High-end setups, and setups where CPU usage is a no-no. PCI-X only - putting this in a PCI slot would be a waste.
1210/1220/1230/1260 - 4/8/12/16 ports, PCI Express x8, hardware raid. OCE, ORLM, raid 6, ethernet management for >=12 port cards.
Recommended for: High-end setups, and setups where CPU usage is a no-no.
1231ML/1261ML/1281ML/1280 - 12ML/16ML/24ML/24 ports, PCI Express x8, hardware raid. OCE, ORLM, raid 6, ethernet management. IOP341 processor.
Recommended for: Really large setups - room for lots of disks.

LSI
===
LSI 3041 4 ports, PCI-X or PCI Express, intentionally limited hardware raid. SAS support, 4 ports, hardware raid 0/1/10E/1E (no 5 - this is really an HBA), expanders up to 122 (!) disks. $130 as of writing.
If you're interested in a small SAS setup for gaming or whatever this should make your shortlist. Only runs one array at a time - this is an HBA, the raid should be disregarded unless you're sure it's all you'll need.
LSI 8308ELP 8 ports, PCI Express, hardware raid. SAS support, expanders up to 16 disks, 128 megs cache, BBU support, IOP333, OCE, ORLM, hardware raid 5.
Hot deal - these are remarkably cheap. May be selling off excess stock now that the [8708|8888]ELPs are starting to make it to market. Those add raid 6 support, but are more expensive ($600 and $900, respectively) and less usable for the home user; you'd need an expander for more than 8 disks.

Supermicro
========
AOC-SAT2-MV8 - 8 ports, PCI-X, HBA. No SAS, no RAID, may support port multipliers (but not confirmed), same chipset as Highpoint cards. $93 (!) at eWiz. Under $100 many places.
This card is pretty sweet if you plan on running software raid on it. Linux support was quite shaky in 2.6.16, but has improved somewhat since. My personal setup was on one of these for a year or so. Ockie also uses these in Galaxy and has had good things to say about them.

Adaptec
=======
AAR-1210SA - 2 ports, PCI-X, software raid 0 or 1.
Overpriced ($43), oddly shaped, and with a fairly lousy controller (the silicon image one) this one gets a Don't Buy from me/
AAR-1220SA - 2 ports, PCI-Express x1, software raid 0 or 1.
This card is cheap... but you get what you pay for. Around $45 these days, but you can get the same thing elsewhere for cheaper.
AAR-1420SA - 4 ports, PCI-X, software raid 0, 1, or 10. Looks Marvell-based, but it does have an Adaptec logo on it. Eh, if it matches what you need and you're willing to spend the $90 on it, might as well. I'd recommend a larger/more capable card in general, but if it suits your needs then go for it.
AAR-1430SA - 4 ports, PCI-Express x4, software raid 0, 10, or 1.
Appears to be Marvell-based. Overpriced (at $85) IMO - buy a Highpoint 2310 instead and enjoy some semblance of raid 5.
AAR-2410SA - 4 ports, PCI-X, hardware raid 0, 1, 5, 10. OCE, no BBU, IOP302, 64 megs ram (not upgradeable).
Overpriced junk at $78. Two silicon image 3112s, an Intel 80302, do not add up to mega performance. If you really need to take the CPU hit away... maybe. Still not recommended.
SAS-44300 - 4 ports, SAS, PCI-X, software raid 0, 1, and 10, multilane SFF-8484 connector.
At $150, this has almost all the features of the LSI 3041 card linked above... which is cheaper. Buy it instead.
SAS-48300 - 4+4 ports, SAS, PCI-X, software raid 0, 1, and 10, one SFF-8470 and one SFF-8484 connector.
For $200 this is worth considering. A mix of internal and external ports is either very useful, or very useless, depending on what you want to use it for.
SAS-58300 - 8 ports, SAS, PCI-X, software raid 0, 1, and 10, 2 multilane SFF-8088 connectors.
At $300, this card is too expensive to even contemplate for what you get.
AAR-2420SA/AAR-2820SA - 4/8 ports, PCI-X, hardware raid 0, 1, 5, 5EE, 6, 10, BBU, OCE, ORLM.
Slightly less expensive than their Areca counterparts. They appear to use a Marvell chipset as well, so decide whose raid manager you like and buy that one.
SAS-3405/SAS-3805/SAS-31205/SAS-31605 - 4/8/12/16 ports, PCI-Express x4/x4/x8/x8, hardware raid 0, 1, 1E, 5, 5EE, 6, 10, 50, 60, 128MB fixed cache, OCE, ORLM, BBU.
Significantly more expensive than the LSI cards. No opinion other than that.
SAS-3085 - 8 ports, PCI-Express x8, hardware raid 0, 1, 1E, 5, 5EE, 6, 10, 50, 60, 256MB fixed cache, OCE, ORLM, BBU, 2 SFF-8088 external ports.
Fixed cache? At this price point?! You best be joking.
SAS-4800/SAS-4085 - 8+4 ports, PCI-Express x8, hardware raid RAID 0, 1, 5, 10, 50, 1E, 5EE, 6, 60, OCE, ORLM, 128 MB expandable DDR2, BBU.
Around $800. I don't know how the external and internal ports interact, but it's worth looking into.

3ware
====
8006-2LP - 2 ports, PCI-X, hardware raid 0 and 1.
For $110 for such an outdated card, look elsewhere.
9500S-[4LP|8|8MI|12|12MI] - 4/8/8ML/12/12ML ports, PCI-X, hardware raid 0,1,10,5 (50 on >4 port cards), 128 MB cache upgradeable to 256, OCE, BBU.
Decent OS support, and these were the best thing going when they came out. But bus interface messiness (these are very picky about who they interact with) and the fact that these are bridged ATA->sata cards keep them from being recommended.
9550SX-[4LP|8LP|12|12MI|16ML] - 4/8/12/12ML/16ML ports, PCI-X, hardware raid 0,1,10,5 (50 on >4 port cards), up to 256MB cache, OCE, ORLM, BBU.
Basically, this is what the 9500 should have been, a generation late. I don't know if they solved the bus stability problems.
9590SE-[8|12|16]ML - 8/12/16 ports, PCI-Express x4, 256 MB cache, OCE, ORLM, BBU.
These appear to be 9550s bridged to PCI-Express.
9650SE-[2LP|4LPML|8LPML|12ML|16ML|24M8] - 2/4/8/12/16/24 ports, PCI-Express x1/x4/x4/x8/x8/x8, hardware raid 0,1,5,6,10,50 (where enough lanes are present - but no raid 6 on the 4-port cards), up to 512MB DDR2 cache, OCE, ORLM, BBU. Some multilane, as shown by model numbers.
As expensive as the Areca cards, and don't perform as well. Avoid.

PNY/NetCell/XFX
===============
SPU3100PPB/SPU5103PPB - 3/5 ports, PCI at 66 mHz (but will run at 33 mHz in most machines), hardware raid 0/1/3 or JBOD.
These go down as a definitive Do Not Buy. They're cheap enough ($30 or $40 as of writing) but you definitely get what you pay for. Many instances of these cards not recovering from drive faults have been mentioned. You're not *that* hard up for cash, look elsewhere.

Promise
======
SX4/SX4-M - 4 ports, 32-bit PCI at 33 or 66 MHz, hardware-assisted raid 0/1/5/10/JBOD. "Up to 256 (not included)"/64 MB of cache. OCE and ORLM, but I don't see any mention of battery backup.
Way too expensive at $170 for a not-really-hardware card. Skip it.
FastTrak TX4310 - 4 ports, 32-bit PCI at 32 or 66 MHz, hardware-assisted raid 0/1/5/10/JBOD. OCE and ORLM, no cache.
Not fully hardware, and $110 for what is after all a PCI card. If it's what you want, go for it.
FastTrak SX4100 - 4 ports, 32-bit PCI at 32 or 66 MHz, hardware-assisted raid 0/1/5/10/JBOD. OCE and ORLM, 64MB fixed cache.
Cheapest I can find it is $180. Pass.
FastTrak SX4300/SX8300 - 4/8 ports, 64-bit 133 MHz, hardware-assisted raid 0/1/5/10/JBOD, OCE and ORLM, 32/64 MB fixed cache.
Overpriced. Might as well look at the SuperTrak line below instead, they're the same price and more likely to work at full speed in your new motherboard.
SuperTrak EX4350/EX8300/SX8350/EX12350/EX16300/EX16350 - 4/8/8/12ML/16ML/16ML ports, PCI Express x4/PCI-X 64-133/x4/x8/PCI-X 64-133/x8. Full hardware 0/1/5/6/10/50/JBOD through IOP333. BBU, OCE and ORLM, 64/128/128/256/256/256 MB fixed cache.
Like the Areca cards above, these are using the Marvell 88SX6081 controllers combined with the Intel IOP333. I haven't heard much news about them other than that they run hot. Duh. Some people have also complained of drastic performance issues - like 7 MB/s sequential transfers.

Any suggestions for the guide? Complaints? Your favorite controller didn't make the cut? PM me and I'll take your suggestions into consideration.

Changes: Added Adaptec summary (30 May 07).
Added 3ware summary (30 May 07).
Added Promise summary (4 July 07).
 
no it does not cost $120 to get in the game, but if you want 4+ sata ports, I think you will have a hard time finding any card for less.
 
Anything less than 4 ports for raid 5 is trivial. The widely-available, cheap Silicon Image chipsets (3112, 3114, 3132) will do it for a port or two or four, so there's no point recommending one card over another.
 
unhappy_mage said:
Anything less than 4 ports for raid 5 is trivial. The widely-available, cheap Silicon Image chipsets (3112, 3114, 3132) will do it for a port or two or four, so there's no point recommending one card over another.
Click to expand...

maybe he does not want to run RAID-5?
 
drizzt81 said:
maybe he does not want to run RAID-5?
Click to expand...

Sorry, that was badly phrased. What I meant was: If you don't need more than 4 ports, you don't need anything particular in controllers. If you don't want raid 5, you don't need anything particular in controllers.
 
So, in summary, if RAID isn't a concern, but you need 4 SATA ports it will cost you roughly 2.5x as much to save a PCI-e slot. (using two $25 2-port cards vs one 4-port card for $125).

Those two extra ports are expensive aren't they? Makes me wish I bought the "WS" version of my Intel 965 board that bumped the 4 SATA ports up to 6. Would have cost me $20 iirc.
 
jebo_4jc said:
So, in summary, if RAID isn't a concern, but you need 4 SATA ports it will cost you roughly 2.5x as much to save a PCI-e slot. (using two $25 2-port cards vs one 4-port card for $125).
Click to expand...
Nope. For $100, you can get 8 ports with no raid (presuming of course that you're willing to shop anywhere besides Newegg :p). 4 ports is $33. Or down to $20 if you're willing to shop at whatever that place is.
jebo_4jc said:
Those two extra ports are expensive aren't they? Makes me wish I bought the "WS" version of my Intel 965 board that bumped the 4 SATA ports up to 6. Would have cost me $20 iirc.
Click to expand...
Which is why I almost always end up buying the top-of-the-line item ;) Buyer's remorse, it's called - "Buy it nice or buy it twice".
 
unhappy_mage said:
I'll concentrate on SATA-compatible cards for this writeup. For the most part, if it isn't included, it isn't recommended. However, if I don't mention something explicitly, ask me about it and I'll try to explain my reasoning for omitting it, and possibly add it with said reasoning.
Click to expand...

Why no Adaptec?
 
That write-up is amazing - you've saved me a lot of research. I will add that the next gen Areca cards (ARC-1680 series/ARC-1681) are supposed to ship this month, in case people are interested. Sounds like they'll support upto 128 drives with port multipliers, upto 2GB cache via a DDR2 DIMM (512MB default), and an 800 MHz IOP348 processor for hardcore XOR crunching.

http://www.areca.us/products/pcietosas1680series.htm
 
Agree this info is great.

What about the super low end for IDE? What if I just simply want to add a couple IDE ports?

Bottom line, is there any particular brand of chipset or controller card that is recommended? Or should be avoided?
 
Mage, do you have any information regarding SIIG? I was looking at SIIG SC-SAT212-S4 just to add disks to my machine as my Rosewell RC-209 keeps dropping them :mad:
 
The main issue with older ATA controllers (or PATA if you prefer) is support and drivers. I've had very poor luck with SIIG ATA controllers on two fronts - two out of three have died (although thats happened with Promise controllers too) and the one that survived only works on my old PC (and that was after a firmware flash) - it has serious issues with my NF4 mobo. Support is horribly poor. Good luck finding Vista drivers.

Could be an isolated thing of course - you can never generalize based on one person's experience. I don't know if Promise is any better, but I would probably try promise if I needed an ATA controller (not RAID).
 
Just one note- the Areca 1210 doesn't run on a IOP333, but rather a IOP332. Similar, but the 1210 doesn't actually support RAID 6, despite that being printed on the box.
 
sethk said:
The main issue with older ATA controllers (or PATA if you prefer) is support and drivers. I've had very poor luck with SIIG ATA controllers on two fronts - two out of three have died (although thats happened with Promise controllers too) and the one that survived only works on my old PC (and that was after a firmware flash) - it has serious issues with my NF4 mobo. Support is horribly poor. Good luck finding Vista drivers.

Could be an isolated thing of course - you can never generalize based on one person's experience. I don't know if Promise is any better, but I would probably try promise if I needed an ATA controller (not RAID).
Click to expand...

My SIIG cards I have for my IDE drives have worked great, that is why I am looking at it for SATA.
 
protias said:
Mage, do you have any information regarding SIIG? I was looking at SIIG SC-SAT212-S4 just to add disks to my machine as my Rosewell RC-209 keeps dropping them :mad:
Click to expand...
The Rosewill RC-209 is based on the Sil3114. The SIIG page has, as usual, a picture of their Sil3112-based card with a nice SIIG sticker covering up the chipset so you can't tell who made it. Jerks. Nonetheless, their manual doesn't make the same pretense; you can see the SilImage logo on the card just fine. Not well enough to see the model number... but they used the same exact description material that every other Sil3112 card uses. Good cover, guys.

You might have better luck with a different driver; I would guess the generic drivers would work and, hopefully, not suck. What drives are you using?
sethk said:
Good luck finding Vista drivers.
Click to expand...
Well, not to restate the obvious: duh. Creating drivers for new OSes is a money-losing proposition for a business.
jebo_4jc said:
Agree this info is great.

What about the super low end for IDE? What if I just simply want to add a couple IDE ports?

Bottom line, is there any particular brand of chipset or controller card that is recommended? Or should be avoided?
Click to expand...
All of 'em ;) Almost all those $20ish sata cards are Sil3112 or -4 based. It's a decent chipset if you don't need reliability-in-the-utmost and your drives happen to like Silicon Image. The $20ish IDE cards are often based in the Silicon Image (formerly CMD 0680 controller. It's kind of funny, actually - the list includes Sil0680, Highpoint, and Promise under $100. Above that, 3ware and Acard enter the game. That's all the players. I can't recommend the 0680; I own one, and while it worked, it was very flaky from time to time, the Linux drivers mentioned a glaring error in the hardware that was corrected in software, and in general I didn't trust it. The old Highpoint chipsets are equally perverse - I have a 374 chipset onboard one of my boards - in being strange to configure, incompatible with ATAPI devices, and not having the greatest drivers in the world: I had several BSODs that I eliminated by removing that controller from the picture. Lastly, Promise: I don't own any, but I'm not planning to. I heard many, many horror stories about them in their heyday, which lead to not hearing any horror stories about their newer cards... because nobody's bought one to try yet. Onboard IDE is usually acceptably good, unless of course they used one of these chipsets on it instead of Intel's or nVidia's implementation.

Where does this leave you? Migrating to sata on decent controllers as fast as possible, I hope. IDE is obsolete, keep it that way.

Lastly, a general nose-thumbing at Newegg, who seem to block me from accessing their search pages whenever I go too fast. Fooey on you.
 
unhappy_mage said:
The Rosewill RC-209 is based on the Sil3114. The SIIG page has, as usual, a picture of their Sil3112-based card with a nice SIIG sticker covering up the chipset so you can't tell who made it. Jerks. Nonetheless, their manual doesn't make the same pretense; you can see the SilImage logo on the card just fine. Not well enough to see the model number... but they used the same exact description material that every other Sil3112 card uses. Good cover, guys.

You might have better luck with a different driver; I would guess the generic drivers would work and, hopefully, not suck. What drives are you using?
Click to expand...

The drivers that came with the CD. Thanks mage, I'll look into those generic drivers.
 
Sorry to bring this thread back from the dead, but I find this to be a handy guide. Would someone be willing to offer updated recommendations?
 
From my recent adventures with RAID cards, I'd actually suggest looking at cards that are on that list.
Adaptec 5-series RAID cards have problems with drives that the 3-series work perfectly with (I had to pull a 3805 from my WS to flash a 5805's BIOS to get it to work with my gaming rig and it dropped a few drives from the RAID0 array when I tried messing with it) and the 1680 Areca's don't like some drives that the 1280 had no problems with either
 
Like novadude just mentioned, cards based on the IOP348 (i.e. the newest stuff from Adaptec and Areca) seem to have all kinds of compatibility issues with SATA drives. I wouldn't get one of them unless you're planning to use primarily SAS drives. Otherwise, go for the last generation IOP341 cards, like the areca 1280ML. 3ware seems to be panned for speed, and Highpoint is kinda dodgy - their low end cards might be good in a pinch (all fakeraid generally), but their high end cards cost just as much as a more established brand.

Also, the IOP348 kernel or whatever takes forever to boot.
I have an Adaptec 51645 and I sorta wish I got an Areca 1280 instead.

The Adaptec 3 series is based on the IOP333 I believe, which has less
internal buses than the 348. So it won't scale as well as a IOP341.
 
Sorry for bumping this thread...I'm wondering about OCE speeds for these RAID cards listed? I felt this needed to be talked about a bit. I know OCE's a risky operation, but I honestly don't have the money to buy a whole new set of drives to set up a new array and dump data...but from my recent experience with Adaptec OCE times, I want something a bit faster (after reading statements enviously about people OCE'ing within 2-3 days, which is a far cry from Adaptec's 25-30 days! :eek:)

Also, I'm curious, my Adaptec 31605 gets around 200-250MB/s...what would a 5-disk Seagate 1.5TB array get under similar conditions with a 3ware 9590SE and an Areca 16-port card? I believe if I got this right, in terms of speed, Areca > 3ware > Adaptec. Am I correct, or are there simply more variables to this than that?
 
OCE is really dependent on the processor. Faster processor means faster OCE/rebuild. I think it took a bit over a day on my Areca 1280ML to go from 12 --> 16 1TB drives (RAID 5). You'll also definitely get faster reads speed than 250mb/s; probably double that. I can't really comment much on 3ware or Adaptec as I don't own controllers from either brand.
 
Blue Fox said:
OCE is really dependent on the processor. Faster processor means faster OCE/rebuild. I think it took a bit over a day on my Areca 1280ML to go from 12 --> 16 1TB drives (RAID 5). You'll also definitely get faster reads speed than 250mb/s; probably double that. I can't really comment much on 3ware or Adaptec as I don't own controllers from either brand.
Click to expand...

Heh, a bit over one day definitely sounds better than a 30-day expansion to me...it's a shame Areca's are a bit out of my price range for a nice 16-port card. :(
 
Syntax Error said:
Heh, a bit over one day definitely sounds better than a 30-day expansion to me...it's a shame Areca's are a bit out of my price range for a nice 16-port card. :(
Click to expand...
Check Newegg regularly for open box stuff. That's how I got mine for $300 off retail (and it was brand new).
 
for those that are just interested in more ports you can pick up 4 port pci sil3132 based controllers on ebay for about £5 the rocket raid 2320 look the sort of thing im after tho
 
What do you guys think about Intel RAID controller cards? In particular, the SRCSASPH16I model...I believe they are rebranded LSI Logic cards? How is LSI in general performance, reliability, and stability?
 
Bumping for the intel card info, I wanna know as well. I'm about to pull the trigger on a used SRCSATAWB myself! Just ordered my drives tonight :p.

From my digging around it looks like the SRCSATAWB is the same as the LSI 8708ELP. I could be wrong though.

What are people's thoughts on running your OS on a RAID5 array? I ordered a dedicated OS drive but the read speeds are tempting me.
 
SilverMK3 said:
Bumping for the intel card info, I wanna know as well. I'm about to pull the trigger on a used SRCSATAWB myself! Just ordered my drives tonight :p.

From my digging around it looks like the SRCSATAWB is the same as the LSI 8708ELP. I could be wrong though.

What are people's thoughts on running your OS on a RAID5 array? I ordered a dedicated OS drive but the read speeds are tempting me.
Click to expand...

For Boot drive Access times are most important. Get an SSD
 
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