LSI vs Adaptec low end SCSI RAID controllers. Opinions?

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CJan_NH

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First off, thanks for looking as always :)

I am about to upgrade the Adaptec AAA-131U2 RAID controller in my video editing PC, and am considering either the Adaptec 2100S or the LSI MegaRAID Express 500. Both are single channel U160 cards, but the LSI comes with a battery backup and is substantially cheaper. Is there some horrid problem with LSI cards that should make me stick to Adaptec, or should I jump at the lower priced (and higher featured) LSI?

If it makes a difference I will be running 10k RPM Seagate Cheetah ST118202LWs in a three disk RAID5 setup in an external CRU enclosure with CRU Dataport VIIIs.

Thank you in advance for your help!

CJan
 
I've never heard anything good about the Adaptec U160 RAID cards.
As i've upgraded my machines, I've gotten rid of the adaptec's in favor of LSI/Tekram/AMI.

I'm currently running my workstation off of an LSI U320 w/ hostraid, one of the servers has a MegaRAID 1500, another machine is a regular Tekram U2W. All the Dell PERC's at work are LSI as well.

A friend of mine setting a server up was recommended an Adaptec ZCR controller for a RAID1 arrayof cheetah 15K's. The performance was terrible, all around about 1/2 as fast as a single non-raid'd array would have been. They ended up going with an LSI (?) controller
 
Thanks Ambit! I did some checking around on my own and your recommendation was pretty much the consensus of what I saw. I just purchased the LSI MegaRAID Express 500 card with onboard battery backup and onboard cache upgraded to 128MB. $164.95 seemed like an excellent price-especially considering the extras that came with it.

One of these days I'm going to have to find a socket A motherboard that has 64bit PCI slots onboard (or build some sort of Intel rig). It seems like my controller choices are pretty limited with the 32bit PCI slots on my trusty Abit NF7s and ECS boards.

Thanks again for taking the time to help-you just saved me a few hundred bucks :cool:
 
You can use most 64-bit cards in 32-bit slots, you just won't get the benefit of the extra 32 bits the cards support.
 
dandragonrage said:
You can use most 64-bit cards in 32-bit slots, you just won't get the benefit of the extra 32 bits the cards support.
Click to expand...
I didn't know that :eek: Thanks for the info!

The 64bit cards looked too big to fit in a standard 32 bit slot. Does a part of the larger card just overhang the smaller slot? If that's the case I could always cancel the order and order a larger U320 card with an eye toward the future. I'm looking at faster/larger SCSI HDDs anyway to replace the 18 gig ST118202s that I'm currently running.
 
Yes, it just doesn't plug in. As for the future, 64-bit PCI is not the future. Desktops are moving to PCI Express. I've been contemplating holding out on SCSI until we get that, but I may just grab a card and drive or 2 from Ebay because I'm impatient, heh.
 
dandragonrage said:
Yes, it just doesn't plug in. As for the future, 64-bit PCI is not the future. Desktops are moving to PCI Express. I've been contemplating holding out on SCSI until we get that, but I may just grab a card and drive or 2 from Ebay because I'm impatient, heh.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the additional info. I've noticed a reference to "PCI-X" on some higher end controllers. Is that the same thing as PCI Express?
 
dandragonrage said:
No, PCI-X is completely different. It's what you can get on server boards.
Click to expand...
Ahh, okay then. Since I just figured out the difference between SATA and PATA this PCI-X vs PCI Express is probably way over my head :D

If you can imagine a chimp assembling a 747 then you'll have a pretty good mental picture of me configuring my first SCSI RAID5 array...

During my very first HDD firmware flash I thought for sure that my Cheetahs were going to catch fire or something.
 
dandragonrage said:
No, PCI-X is completely different. It's what you can get on server boards.
Click to expand...

Well, that's kind of misleading to say too, as PCI Express will be replacing PCI-X on server boards as well.

PCI Express is a new serial protocol for expansion devices. PCI-X is an extension of the old PCI spec, which is completely backwards compatible with PCI devices.

PCI-X runs up to 133MHz (there's a 2.0 rev of the spec that goes up to 533MHz using a quad pumped bus, but I haven't seen this available on motherboards anywhere) at 64 bits.

PCI Express will uses what are called serial "lanes" to transfer data. Each lane is a set of two differential transmit pairs that operate at 2.5gigabits/second. Expansion devices will be available with a number of lanes depending on how much bandwidth they need. Low speed devices such as modems would use a x1 (one lane) connector, high speed devices such as video cards would use x16 or x32 connectors.
 
personal experience has put me off of LSI
the intigrated one i used to have (dual chanel u160)
was dodgy at best
the new adaptec dual chanel u160 card i have (64bit)
has worked day in and out without a single hitch
has internal raid 0 15k 36gb drvies
and external
12 x 18gb 10k segate raid 5 array
dont know the exact model number off hand
is a rebranded card with a SGI logo on it
but it comes up in the bios and in windows as adaptec
64mb cache
battery backup

best $72 i have spent on ebay in a long time
 
tiebird321 said:
personal experience has put me off of LSI
the intigrated one i used to have (dual chanel u160)
was dodgy at best
Click to expand...

Well, the problem is that it's hard to judge the stability of an entire company's product line based on a single chip failure. If that were possible, I'm sure I'd never use Adaptec controllers (or many, many other company's products...)
 
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