Hardware RAID Controller???

[imipenem]

I need some help selecting a hardware RAID controller. I'd like to stay in the $350-$500 range.

 

[Keitero]

What type are you looking for? PCI-E or PCI or PCI-X? Need SAS support? Need to have battery backup for cache? Need RAID 6 or any fancy things like that?

 

[mooseracing]

Definately need what your plans and what you would like to do with it before we can reccomend anything.

 

[imipenem]

Sorry,

I do not need support for RAID 6.

Which interface offers the best performance?

SAS RAID 1 or 10.

Thanks

 

[Rubycon]

How many drives? Expandability, etc.

 

[pugh]

You sound like a candidate for some research before you spend a nice load of cash. Try here first : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID

Then also do some google searching on RAID. Tons of good reading. I took the route when I did not understand it fully before I implemented a plan for me.

 

[pugh]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Pugh is correct, and I won't give you a dissertation on RAID configurations. Do the reading. I'll only say that I have a four-drive array in RAID-5. RAID-5 with these drives gives me sustained throughput for "reads" of more than three times the speed for a single drive of my model choice, and it more than doubles sustained throughput for "writes."

Consider your power-consumption, storage-size requirements, and other things. I limited myself to a 4-drive array. I need a hardware controller that can accommodate four drives.

Each make and model for most hardware RAID controllers I know of comes in different "flavors" or "sub-models" priced according to the maximum number of drives that can be connected to it. Further, a four-drive controller may only need PCI-E x4, while an 8 or 12-drive model may require PCI-E x8. If I remember, a 4-drive card might cost $325, while an 8-drive card could cost $500 or more.

Unless you have PCI-X slots on your motherboard, the only way to go with this is PCI-E. And unless you plan to use legacy-IDE disks, PCI doesn't offer enough bandwidth to capture adequate performance with SATA-2 drives.

A year ago, the latest RAID controller comparison review that I could find was at Tom's Hardware, and the SMCC-3Ware 9650-SE models won hands down. A few months ago, a more recent comparison review appeared in Maximum PC Magazine, showing a "tie" or "draw" between a HighPoint 3510 model and a more expensive Adaptec controller.

After that review, the Adaptec model dropped in price -- and toward the low end of your price range. The Adaptec offers only slightly better performance than the Highpoint for certain benchmark comparison indexes.

 

[imipenem]

So if my motherboard has PCI-X and PCI-E (16,8,4) which interface should I use?

 

[Keitero]

I would lean towards using the PCI-E bus instead. Cards are going to be a tad more expensive but the potential bandwidth is going to be much faster. I had a 3ware 9650-SE 4 port and 8 port a while back and I used them for a server. They are nice cards and run plenty fast, but as with any true hardware RAID card, it runs HOT. I am now using an Adaptec 39205 12-port SAS RAID card and it a sweet card for the price. New from newegg is around $650 but you can find OEM models on the bay for around $200. The ones from the bay don't come with cables so look to spend around $20-$30 on each set of cables [1 SFF-8087 to 1SFF-8088 (miniSAS to 4 port SATA)].

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Actually, that may be true in Keitero's case (and that's a pun, for sure, as you shall see!)

The 4-port 9650SE is cooled by a stubby heatsink. On the other hand, my motherboard ducting and the placement of the card draws a lot of air from the back and top of the card, and I haven't noticed any heat issues.

If I had to make the decision this year -- anytime this year -- I would've picked either the Adaptec 5405 or the Highpoint 3510 -- per this review (if substantiated by other reviews):

Maximum PC Magazine -- RAID controllers compared

Let me say that I am more or less skeptical of reviews depending on the source. I am not so confident about all Maximum PC Magazine reviews: for instance, I've noted that their heatsink and PSU reviews exclude models shown superior to the test subjects, and the "Kick-Ass 9" award page is often followed by a full-page ad paid for by the makers of the Kick-Ass 9 winner.

However, I have earlier Highpoint RAID controllers (PCI), and . . . "I've been aroun', you know . . . " going back to the early 1980s in this microcomputer technology. [The call them "computers" today, but back then, they were "micro"]. Adaptec has decades of a high reputation in disk controller cards -- SCSI especially, but IDE and SATA make it just as easy for Adaptec to excel.

I'd take Maximum PC's remarks about the HighPoint 3510 seriously, but check out additional reviews to verify.

Another make of PCI-E controller you might want to investigate is Areca. Again, you'll want benchtest comparisons from hardware review sites. You can take a look at Promise Technology's offering, but I haven't seen them getting any rave notices for performance in recent years. I could be wrong, but after becoming comfortable or familiar with some of their products, I quickly dropped them from my list of RAID controllers to consider. I might have overlooked something, but you can certainly do your homework and find a fast, reliable card that doesn't devour your wallet.

 

[Rubycon]

Tom's benchmarks used an outdated firmware for Areca hosts. The 1680 series should be using 1.45 (there's a beta out now that's even better!).

The Adaptec is a good product - certainly a trend of difference from their past from the eyes of a storage enthusiast. Much better than Highpoint and Promise (those are the Kia and Hyundai of storage!). It really depends on how many drives you plan on using.

 

[VirtualLarry]

This is an 8-port SATA2 RAID controller card with a PCI-E x4 interface. Around $250.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
Tom's benchmarks used an outdated firmware for Areca hosts. The 1680 series should be using 1.45 (there's a beta out now that's even better!).

The Adaptec is a good product - certainly a trend of difference from their past from the eyes of a storage enthusiast. Much better than Highpoint and Promise (those are the Kia and Hyundai of storage!). It really depends on how many drives you plan on using.

Every time I mentioned HighPoint (after I bought my first model -- a PCI board with its own XOR engine), I've heard the usual skinny from people advised by others that Adaptec is the best.

They (Adaptec) had a good rep as far back as I remember. But according to the Max PC benchies, the Highpoint 3510 is an even -- or almost even match for the Adaptec (5405?) which they also reviewed. The performance results on sustained reads/writes was better than my 9650SE (per that Tom's article I referred to -- and you may have also read.)

From what I was seeing between a year and two years ago, the Promise controllers were just plain slow.

Per the Highpoint 2320 Larry mentions, I'm curious what a real benchtest "sustained throughput" measure would show for it. The specs don't say anything about an onboard dedicated processor, or a built-in RAM buffer, or how big the buffer is. I suppose that would be at the manufacturer's web-site product-page and specs.

 

[Keitero]

I swear by Adaptec just because of my experiences with them. From my old Ultra2 to my current 39205, every single one of them has performed without any issues and for pure speed in both burst and sustained has always been one of the fastest on the market. Promise controllers are just junk that just needs to die. They don't work for true hardware controllers and their drivers just suck the life out of you. My FastTrak 100 was like that. 128MB cache and true hardware XOR, but couldn't muster past 30MB/s burst and 25MB/s sustained.