Need a true hardware Raid controller

M

ModBoyzz

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 29, 2004
Messages
215
Hey guys,

I'm on the hunt for a *true* hardware raid controller.

I need it to support Raid 10 with atleast 6 drives (Sata).

Budget is around $500 give or take.

Any recommendations?

Thanks guys!
 
If you want to spend $650 on a 12 port controller, I would get one the Areca ones instead. Personal preferences aside, the performance, upgradeable RAM, and out-of-band management can't be matched by that Adaptec card.
 
You can get those Adaptec controllers for much cheaper from eBay, but there are risks associated with such a path. I haven't personally been burned by shady eBay dealers myself when I got my Adaptec 31605, but others seem to have been after trying to flash their firmwares because their "OEM" cards were actually Evaluation cards, which aren't necessarily up to production specifications. I guess when going the eBay route to save some money, the concept of caveat emptor comes into consideration.
 
Robstar said:
I was under the impression areca had crap linux support.
Click to expand...

Areca has excellent linux support on the contrary. I'm not sure as of what version, but 2.6.25 has in kernel drivers for everything through the 1680 series under low level SCSI drivers. Areca also has driver disks available for a ton of different distros and of course, source code is available.
 
I went with an adaptec, as I had some western digital drives beforehand, and areca seems to be a bit picky with the brand.
 
Rakinos said:
I went with an adaptec, as I had some western digital drives beforehand, and areca seems to be a bit picky with the brand.
Click to expand...

Adaptec is the same way, but they are a little more tolerant of specific models which the areca would dump.

Great choice on the raid controller.
 
I was happy with the purchase, a bit more than I wanted to spend, but the live.com cashback helped ;)

My two complaints:
It runs hot- no active cooling, I had to rig a fan by the heatsink to keep it within range, kind of understandable though, as it is generally used in higher airflow servers than what I have.
Why does the 5th connector have to be external, I would have preferred one with all internal.

I am thinking about picking up one of those cheap 20 bays, but I'm waiting to ease the pain from my credit card statement.
 
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