The PERC 5i cards floating around out there are probably the best bargain that *some people* including myself have come across in a long time. I say *some people* because not everyone is looking for what the PERC 5i offers and are willing to do some of the extra work required to get it running.
I spent a lot of time researching the card to make sure the extra effort I would have to invest in it would be worth it. Here and now, I'm willing to share some of that valuable info. So, pay attention as it goes against my lurker nature to make a post.
RebateMonger is spot on. The Dell PERC 5i is a rebranded high end LSI RAID controller.
The cards are not locked into Dell systems. Though, the latest version of their management software is. (You can use an older version of the management software on non-Dell systems)
Link to Dell feature set page (a few people have posted that not all of the specs are correct):
Dell Link
I'd say it's probably closest to the LSI MegaRAID SAS 8408E. Though, the SAS connectors are to the side near the added memory instead of the end.
Link to LSI MegaRAID 8408E:
LSI link
The short version summary is that it does expandable RAID 5 and 50, support for 8 SATA drives, comes with 256 MB of cache memory, and at its heart is using SAS technology which also means cross compatibility with SATA drives.
The one that most people are going to be interested in for reasons of cost are going to be the "PERC 5i Integrated" that are being sold on Ebay. Although not all of the 5i cards are being billed as the "Integrated" model, I'd say that over 90 percent of them are. These are being sold in the $75 to $100 range. At current prices, it's a spectactular deal.
So, why is a $700 RAID controller being sold for so little?
A> NO BBU (battery, connecting cable, battery case) -- You don't have to have it, but the card will naturally run slower with the caching options disabled. You can force it to make full use of its cache, but without the BBU you'll run the risk of array corruption if an unplanned shutdown occurs at the wrong moment.
B> NO mounting bracket included,
C> Drivers, Firmware, and Management Software are hard to find without a lead and/or some searching. Dell doesn't make it easy at to find at all as these cards were sold with whole systems. I can personally attest to the fact that the drivers, firmware, and management software work great in a Windows Server 2003 system. I've read a message or two of people who reported having trouble getting the Perc 5i to run in Windows XP. There are supposedly Solaris and Linux drivers, but I haven't heard much chatter from people using them... As a lot of people don't run Server 2003, that's probably the biggest stumbling block for most. I've heard nothing about Vista support.
This post clearly describes what you have to do to get the Perc 5i software (also includes some info on the Dell part number for the BBU kit).
forum post
D> NO cables included... Depending on your source for cables and whether you use SAS or SATA drives, each set of cables will run you somewhere in the wide neighborhood of $30 to $70. To make full use of the 8 ports, plan on buying 2 sets of cables.
E> PCI-Express 8x... This was a fun one to discover on my own. The card appears to hate sharing the PCI-E bus with a high end PCI-E video card. On both an AMD (64 and FX) and Intel Core 2 Duo system, the card would not work properly while a PCI-E video card was installed. The AMD system pretended that the card wasn't there. The Intel system wouldn't even post. Is there a combination that might work? Possibly... but after testing on 2 AMD systems and 1 Core 2 Duo with 2 PCI-E video cards (nVidia 7th and 8th gen), I'd say that it's time to raid (no pun intended) your antique video card collection and call back into service an old PCI video card. As luck would have it, I had an old PCI S3 Trio 64 with 1 MB of memory that gets along with the Perc 5i and Server 2003 just fine.
F> NO external speaker on the card... A blessing for some and a no-go for others.
G> Possible compatibility issues with Western Digital HDs. There is a forum post on the Dell support forums with regard to someone having problems using WD 500 GB HDs. I use Seagates. So, I didn't look too deeply into it.
I have 4 Seagate 500 GB (ST3500641AS) SATA drives connected up with a 5th waiting to be connected. So far so good!
If you're willing to put the effort in to scavenge for everything you need, I doubt you will find a better deal out there right now.
I am pretty sure that the Intel board I tested in was a P5B, but I'll have to check again. I still attribute the problems I had on that board with the PCI-E video card. Though, I wasn't able to pull the video card to be sure. My friend's Perc 5i is currently parked and running just fine in an Intel based Quad Core system. My Perc 5i is currently sitting in a 939 pin AMD motherboard.
Too tired to proof read my post... I hope it makes sense.
**Another post with some chatter about compatibility issues with the PCI-E implementation --
click here
