Cheap SAS controller recommendation

[VaultDweller]

First, the question:

Can anyone recommend a PCI-E SAS controller that:
- Supports tape drives
- Is quickly available in Canada
- Is as cheap as possible

If absolutely necessary, I could go with a PCI controller instead. Those are my only criteria, any other features like RAID support are completely irrelevant.

The cheapest option I can find is a Promise FastTrak TX2650 for $87.49, followed by a SuperMicro AOC-USAS-L4i for $162.49. I've sent inquiries to Promise and SuperMicro regarding SAS tape drive support, because I can't find any compatibility info to confirm or deny it. I need the controller right f***ing now, though, so if their response time is bad I can't wait for them. I absolutely cannot delay ordering past Thursday, so if I don't have a cheaper alternative by then I have no choice but to by the cheapest card that I'm certain works, which is an HP SC44GE.

Now that the question is out of the way, here's the background:

At long last I have my tape drive, my Areca SAS controller, and a SAS breakout cable (the latter item taking weeks to arrive). Now I'm cooking with fire... or so I thought.

I couldn't get my tape drive to work on the ARC-1222, and further research reveals that no Areca controllers are compatible with tape drives. Link

That's not so good... if I hadn't already been planning on buying the card for a RAID array anyway, I'd be supremely pissed off with myself for not better researching compatibility in advance.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: VaultDweller
Can anyone recommend a PCI-E SAS controller that:
- Supports tape drives
- Is quickly available in Canada
- Is as cheap as possible

You forgot...
- Ultra High Quality

 

[VaultDweller]

lol, quality would only be a tie-breaker if there are two similarly priced drives. It only needs to provide an interface to which I can connect an LTO-3 drive. It will never, ever have any hard drives connected to it, so it's not like there would be any risk of a catastrophic RAID array failure

 

[RebateMonger]

So, what tape drive are you trying to control?

 

[VaultDweller]

Originally posted by: VaultDweller
lol, quality would only be a tie-breaker if there are two similarly priced drives. It only needs to provide an interface to which I can connect an LTO-3 drive. It will never, ever have any hard drives connected to it, so it's not like there would be any risk of a catastrophic RAID array failure

HP StorageWorks Ultrium 920 (SAS LTO-3 drive).

HP's recommendation is their SC44GE, which I will order if necessary. However, it costs three times as much as the cheapie Promise card. I'm already way over budget on this, so... I'm hoping the Promise card will work.

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: VaultDweller
I absolutely cannot delay ordering past Thursday, so if I don't have a cheaper alternative by then I have no choice but to by the cheapest card that I'm certain works, which is an HP SC44GE.

Dude, you can buy one right now for $115.45 shipped off ebay from a great seller.

 

[VaultDweller]

Interesting, can you provide a link to that?

Cheapest I see on eBay is $207.93 CAD (plus customs fees) shipped, for a used card with a shipping method that will probably not have the card in my hands for a couple weeks.

There's another new card that's in the same price range, but shipping is via UPS standard - which is the one and only cardinal sin of international shipping. The seller of my tape drive committed that sin, too - the surprise $261 COD fee is one of the main reasons I've found myself over budget.

 

[frostedflakes]

The Promise FastTrak TX2650 is the cheapest one that I know of. You can get it for $60 shipped though eWiz.

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=IDE-TX265B&c=pw

Just read up on it before buying, IIRC this card has some motherboard compatibility issues.

edit: My bad, just noticed you're in Canada. And reading over your post again I'd recommend just ponying up the cash for the HP card you know will work. As cheap as it is, I doubt the Promise has tape drive support.

 

[VaultDweller]

Thanks frostedflakes, that's one of the cards I was looking at (won't buy it from eWiz, their international shipping costs as much as the card does).

Can you confirm that the TX2650 is compatible with devices other than hard drives? Promise only has hard drives tested in their compatibility list, they make no mention of other drives.

I've already looked into motherboard compatibility. It's compatible with the Asus P5K-E; I intend to use it in a P5Q-E and if necessary can use it in a P5K Premium... I'm sure at least one of those is close enough to the P5K-E that it will work.

{Edit} You edited your post while I was replying. If Promise gets back to me by the end of the day to confirm tape drive support, I'll place the order. If not, it will be the HP card for me. Good thing that the P5Q-E has three full-length PCI-E slots, otherwise the HP wouldn't be an option.

 

[frostedflakes]

Yeah I did a bit of Googling and couldn't find any info on tape drive compatibility. Promise does list tape drive compatibility on some of their other SAS controllers, though, which leads me to believe that the TX2650 doesn't support them.

Reading more about the card it really sounds like you get what you pay for. IMO the HP is the way to go if you're sure it will work for your setup.

 

[VaultDweller]

Well, Promise has shot me down

I guess I'll just have to spend the extra dough on the HP controller.

 

[brxndxn]

You can get a Dell Perc5i server pull for ~$100 on Ebay with a pci bracket and battery.. However, if you have an Intel chipset, it will be annoying. If you are using any other chipset, the Dell Perc5i should be one kickass cheap SAS card..

 

[RebateMonger]

Softchoice carries the HP SC44GE for $200 and has seven locations in Cananda.