I'm looking for RAID!

[jamessb9]

I am looking for a good PCI express SATA II raid card for around $150 or so. I have taken a hard look at the Highpoint Rocketraid 2310. Anyone have any good ideas and where I might be able to get one for a deal? Used perhaps?

I'd love an Adaptec 2420sa but I just can't afford $300 right now. Also, I don't have PCI-X so I'd have to run it in a standard PCI slot, right? Wouldn't it be better to run a PCI express card? Where can I look for used, refurbished, etc components???

Thanks for the help!

 

[jamessb9]

More clarification, Please Help!!

I'm looking for something used/refurrbished. I currently have that SCURE PNY/Netcell 5 port SATA 150 card, but they went out of business and it keeps dropping the array. Also, it's Hardware/Software and boots through the BIOS. I run my OS through that and then run a RAID 1 on the builtin motherboard. The motherboard will only do all RAID or no RAID, no OS drive + RAID array.

I would like to go full hardware RAID, but will someone tell me if that's overkill? I have a Dell Precision 390 but no PCI-X slots so although I love the Adaptec 2420sa, I don't know if it's backwards compatible and i would have to run it at 32bit on standard PCI.

So...I also like the Promise Supertrack EX4350 PCI express, but i can't afford to spend $300, I just bought my system on Delloutlet.com and saved a boatload because it had a "scratch" which you can't even see.

If I must go Harware/software, then I was thinking about the Highpoint Rocketraid 2310 PCI express because I have an empty x4 slot.

Would I be better off with the Rocketraid 2210, even though it's PCI-X backward compatible? It's a better card, but does the difference between PCI standard and PCI express really make that much of a difference in RAID?

I have 2 WD 400GB RE2 drives that I run in RAID 1 for all my photos and media. Then I have a 160GB Samsung SATA II that came with the computer - I only use it for the OS (Win XP)

then I just got another WD 500GB RE2 (I posted that hot deal at newegg for $150 last week) and am using that as a "snapshot" drive with Norton Ghost

I'm really not that much of a high end user, I just like the idea of running raid.

SPECS: Intel Core 2 Duo 6300, 2GB RAM, HDDs: WD4000YS (x2 in RAID 1)/WD5000YS/160GB Samsung SATA II, 700W ATX12 PS, eVGA 7600GT PCIe.