I suggest you go buy a LSI SAS 8344ELP controller. LSI is a very reputable name in the SAS / SCSI industry. That controller has 128MB of onboard cache and the retail kit comes with cable ( 4 connectors ) that is compatible with both SAS and SATA drives.
There is a few for sale here:
http://search.ebay.com/search/searc...ftrt=1&ftrv=1&saprclo=&saprchi=&fsop=1&fsoo=1
Make sure you ask them if it comes with cables, as some sellers are selling the bare OEM card.
Be careful, the Highpoint RocketRAID 3520 is only a SATA controller. You will not be able to run a SAS drive with that controller.
I'd also recommend an LSI controller. If you need eight internal ports, the 8308ELP would be a better choice than the 8344 as wasserkool suggests.
(in the interest of full disclosure -- I'm biased towards LSI controllers as I'm a member of LSI's SAS controller hardware validation team...)
Are those LSI cards you guys speak of compatible with Mac OS X? Booting EFI-wise?
Also, coincidentally, I shot an e-mail to both ATTO-Tech and HighPoint-Tech with parallel questions, maybe I'll post up the transcript and responses from both. Then again, maybe I shouldn't since there's a disclaimer stating that all these e-mail responses are private.
Looks like the HighPoint RocketRAID 3520 is out of question, though I did some research on it today, it had some incredible benchmarks and reviews! I was sold to this card knowing that fact it came with cables as well.
Anyway, I guess I'll reiterate what I'm looking for, I'll list the requirements:
- Must have (2) SAS internal port
- Must have SAS controlling capabilities [For example: It needs to be able to run a 300GB Seagate Cheetah 15K.5 SAS Drive Primarily]
- Must be able to run 4-SATA Hard Drives [*no RAID necssary, JBOD will suffice]
- PCI-Express of PCI-X [preferably PCIe x8 at least]
- Must have Mac OS X Compatibility
Anything else I should include?