hardware raid 5 card ($400 or less)

[jkresh]

After having a few hard drive fail I am seriously considering picking up 3-4 drives (1tb or larger) and just doing a raid 5 array (thinking about 3 1.5tb seagates but ...). I know for raid 5 hardware is really required and I definitely want to see better performance then a single drive but I am more worried about not loosing data if 1 drive fails, vs raw speed (will keep my os on the 300gig raptor). I would like to spend $400 or maybe less on a decent raid 5 card (sata or sas) that can handle 4 or 8 drives. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[VirtualLarry]

PNY S-cure is hardware RAID (3), and handles 3 or 5 drives (5 ports). It is PCI, not PCI-E, so overall array throughput would be limited to PCI bus speeds, this may or may not be an issue.

It's only $40 at NewEgg though. "Driverless" - appears as a standard PCI IDE controller card to the OS, does not require drivers, but the RAID GUI management app only runs on XP. (Although the card and the array will function if booted into another OS.)

 

[jkresh]

thanks VirtualLarry, not really running xp so I would want something that could be setup in vista or linux, also for pcie I know some cards have issues with some chipsets, and right now I am running 780i but I am considering moving to x58 fairly soon so I would wan't something which does not have issues with either chipset.

 

[taltamir]

i recommend that you use opensolaris (www.genunix.org) and make a ZFS fileserver... It is quality software raid.
raidz = raid5, raidz2 = raid6... only better. without the write hole vulnerability, and many other improvements.

PS. what is wrong with mirrors? you can save money by using mirrors on a windows PC instead of a raid5 with a 400$ controller. WD just released a 2TB drive.

 

[jkresh]

taltamir, depending on the price of the 2tb drives 4 of those in a 0+1 setup would be cheaper then picking up a good card, or even 4 of the seagates, so I guess that is an option but its easier to expand a raid 5 and a good controller should last through several drive generations so the cost is not that bad.