Need assistance choosing a RAID controller

[nanaki333]

that controller only supports 4 drives max. you're going to need one that supports 6 total minimum if you use onboard raid for the OS. 8 if you want to have 2 arrays on the same controller. unless you want to spend ~$450, i don't think you're going to get a decent full blown hardware raid controller with 8 ports.

 

[holty]

that controller only supports 4 drives max. you're going to need one that supports 6 total minimum if you use onboard raid for the OS. 8 if you want to have 2 arrays on the same controller. unless you want to spend ~$450, i don't think you're going to get a decent full blown hardware raid controller with 8 ports.

ok, than i will spend $450 cause i want a decent controller with 8 ports. i don't want to mess with software RAID.

 

[nanaki333]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816151039

sweet price right there. you may be able to find it cheaper with some googling!


this one here looks like a really good highpoint. i've had quite a few highpoint cards in the past and never had any failures. good price and good reviews.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816115056

 

[pjkenned]

Areca > Highpoint... and by a lot. Think of it this way:

1. LSI is the brand virtually every major OEM (HP, Dell, IBM, Intel and etc.) re-brands as their own.
2. Areca is what you rip out your pre-installed controller for when you had an LSI card and put something custom in.
3. Adaptec is a big brand, where the controller business just got acquired by PMC Sierra, and I have yet to see a PMC Sierra Adaptec 6xxx series card in the wild, but they have cool things like NAND + Cap cache.
4. ATTO I have heard good things about but have not used for more than 30minutes just to play with.
5. Highpoint is more of a consumer/ prosumer brand at this point and is marketed mostly to people that want a RAID card but are willing to sacrifice enterprise stability and higher performance for a lower price.

You will hear more LSI/ Adaptec horror stories online because LSI probably ships orders of magnitude more cards than smaller brands like ATTO, Areca, and Highpoint.

 

[holty]

Areca > Highpoint... and by a lot. Think of it this way:

1. LSI is the brand virtually every major OEM (HP, Dell, IBM, Intel and etc.) re-brands as their own.
2. Areca is what you rip out your pre-installed controller for when you had an LSI card and put something custom in.
3. Adaptec is a big brand, where the controller business just got acquired by PMC Sierra, and I have yet to see a PMC Sierra Adaptec 6xxx series card in the wild, but they have cool things like NAND + Cap cache.
4. ATTO I have heard good things about but have not used for more than 30minutes just to play with.
5. Highpoint is more of a consumer/ prosumer brand at this point and is marketed mostly to people that want a RAID card but are willing to sacrifice enterprise stability and higher performance for a lower price.

You will hear more LSI/ Adaptec horror stories online because LSI probably ships orders of magnitude more cards than smaller brands like ATTO, Areca, and Highpoint.

Awesome man, thanks a lot. Areca it will be for me!

Oh hey btw, I'm reading reviews of Supermicro boards on your site as we speak, very good information! TY!

 

[nanaki333]

Areca > Highpoint... and by a lot. Think of it this way:

1. LSI is the brand virtually every major OEM (HP, Dell, IBM, Intel and etc.) re-brands as their own.
2. Areca is what you rip out your pre-installed controller for when you had an LSI card and put something custom in.
3. Adaptec is a big brand, where the controller business just got acquired by PMC Sierra, and I have yet to see a PMC Sierra Adaptec 6xxx series card in the wild, but they have cool things like NAND + Cap cache.
4. ATTO I have heard good things about but have not used for more than 30minutes just to play with.
5. Highpoint is more of a consumer/ prosumer brand at this point and is marketed mostly to people that want a RAID card but are willing to sacrifice enterprise stability and higher performance for a lower price.

You will hear more LSI/ Adaptec horror stories online because LSI probably ships orders of magnitude more cards than smaller brands like ATTO, Areca, and Highpoint.

yeah, areca is the tits. back when the company i work for was really small, i went with highpoint and lsi cards. due to the same fact you stated, they're a lot more affordable when you don't have a lot to spend. i've never had one die on me, but i see plenty of reviews to know to keep a spare controller around. always make sure to check the details of lsi and highpoint cards to make sure they have a dedicated memory cache. i've since switched to using areca in all of my SC servers. anything that takes a full size DDR2 DIMM just screams it's badass!

 

[holty]

I just want to confirm with you guys, this card will do what i need, which is have a RAID1 for OS and a RAID 6 for six storage drives using SATA II devices?

THIS CARD >>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816131004

 

[nanaki333]

yes, but i suggest getting this one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...eca-_-16151039

newer, uses ddr2 memory, comes with the splitter cables to connect to your drives. it's also the same price and would be much less messy.

 

[holty]

yes, but i suggest getting this one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...eca-_-16151039

newer, uses ddr2 memory, comes with the splitter cables to connect to your drives. it's also the same price and would be much less messy.

YES! i'm sorry i linked to the wrong card, THAT is the one i meant but i just noticed, if some day i want to add a 9th or 10th drive, i would need another controller card as this one does not support the expander feature. oh well.... i can't afford a $600 + card

 

[pjkenned]

The second card is much better as the IOP333 in the 1220 can get choked fairly easily by modern drives. The IOP348 is much better, but it is still a full generation behind current cards.

One thing to consider is a LSI 9260-8i or 9261-8i (just different card layouts to support different port directions). The downside is really LSI MSM versus Areca OOB management. Still, SAS 2/ SATA III support, a faster processor, twice as much and faster onboard DRAM, and PCIe 2.0 is something to think about. The Areca 1880i is quite a bit more though.

 

[holty]

The second card is much better as the IOP333 in the 1220 can get choked fairly easily by modern drives. The IOP348 is much better, but it is still a full generation behind current cards.

One thing to consider is a LSI 9260-8i or 9261-8i (just different card layouts to support different port directions). The downside is really LSI MSM versus Areca OOB management. Still, SAS 2/ SATA III support, a faster processor, twice as much and faster onboard DRAM, and PCIe 2.0 is something to think about. The Areca 1880i is quite a bit more though.

Wow, thank you very much for posting those LSI cards. That deffinitely gets me looking in that direction but it seems the price is just going to be a little high for me. I think i'm going to have to stick with the Areca 1222 card. I hope to order it today.

 

[Emulex]

make sure you have a flash back write cache and ecc memory. trust me on this one dude.

 

[holty]

Dual CPU or single CPU and if dual do you want dual tylersberg or not?

Just looking at what you posted Intel 3420 is plenty.

For a UP system, you could use a X58-like board with the W35xx or W36xx CPUs. For example I am using a W3550 with a Supermicro X8ST3-F with 24GB of RAM right now which is not overly expensive. That board has an onboard LSI 1068e so you would likely want a board without the onboard controller or possibly a dual socket board.

Then again, moving from LGA 1156 to 1366 or a DP platform is a fairly big step. Especially if you are not sure yet about Win 7 and 2008 R2.

I"m fairly certain i'm going to go with 2008 R2 now and so i'm searching for mobos to fit my needs. I prefer to stick with Supermicro but holy SH*T do they have so many boards to choose from. I've been searching for a few hours now and i'm getting a headache so i'm gonna turn in for the night but here are my requirements:

LGA 1366
PCI Express 2.0
Dual Intel Nics
IPMI (a must)
under $400

Just for giggles, what is the comparable supermicro board to the X8ST3-F without the built in LSI controller?

 

[Bish]

Not a 1366 but I'm in the process of building a home server off http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon3000/3400/X8SIA.cfm?IPMI=Y this board, the X8SIA-F, This case http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/4U/743/SC743TQ-865-SQ.cfm , along with a xeon 3440 and an LSI 9261-8i and 8 2tb Constellation ES drives. Not sure if I am going to run Server 2008 R2, Small Business Server 2011, or WHS 2. Probably going to play around with them for a few months until I see how WHS2 looks. I'm running WHS on my original 5TB server and I like it a lot. Just looking or 64-bit where I don't have to trick it to run RAID 5 or 6.

 

[holty]

Not a 1366 but I'm in the process of building a home server off http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon3000/3400/X8SIA.cfm?IPMI=Y this board, the X8SIA-F, This case http://www.supermicro.com/products/chassis/4U/743/SC743TQ-865-SQ.cfm , along with a xeon 3440 and an LSI 9261-8i and 8 2tb Constellation ES drives. Not sure if I am going to run Server 2008 R2, Small Business Server 2011, or WHS 2. Probably going to play around with them for a few months until I see how WHS2 looks. I'm running WHS on my original 5TB server and I like it a lot. Just looking or 64-bit where I don't have to trick it to run RAID 5 or 6.

HEY NICE CASE LOL! same one i just bought only you got the SQ version (one less fan than mine). Did you get your case yet? i just got mine on friday the freakin thing is HUGE. i love it. i like that mobo you linked to i actually think that will probably do what i need without a problem. i really do want a lga 1366, but.... does that mobo/processor combo support dual channel ecc ram or can it do triple channel also? i'm pretty sure only dual, right?

 

[Emulex]

HP DL320S is a super awesome deal with 3/3/3 nbd onsite warranty. supermicro doesn't touch that. a server is only as good as its quality and service uptime. I got some grey market HP sleds and threw RE4 drives in it. other than being BUTT slow (i'm used to 15K SAS) so slow that things fail like vmotion.

 

[Bish]

HEY NICE CASE LOL! same one i just bought only you got the SQ version (one less fan than mine). Did you get your case yet? i just got mine on friday the freakin thing is HUGE. i love it. i like that mobo you linked to i actually think that will probably do what i need without a problem. i really do want a lga 1366, but.... does that mobo/processor combo support dual channel ecc ram or can it do triple channel also? i'm pretty sure only dual, right?

Yup, I really like it. I ended up adding a third mid-case fan so it would blow over the heatsink on the raid card. I haven't received the drives yet so I'm running it with 2 - 250gb, the raid card, and a dvd drive. I have dual 8Gb dual channel ecc crucial ram. I think it is dual only due to the 1156 processor versus 1366. It is really quiet but you can tell the fans spin way down with no heat. Curious to hear the fans when it is loaded with 8 hot-swap and 2 internal. Another reason I added a third fan.

For me, its only a home server so I don't need to pay for mega service. If something dies, I can wait a few days for parts if necessary. I keep an off-line extra drive in case a drive drops but no biggie if I wait a week for a replacement component. Now for business, I'm all for 24/7 support for my servers! Can't have a day with nobody working taking orders

 

[holty]

Yup, I really like it. I ended up adding a third mid-case fan so it would blow over the heatsink on the raid card. I haven't received the drives yet so I'm running it with 2 - 250gb, the raid card, and a dvd drive. I have dual 8Gb dual channel ecc crucial ram. I think it is dual only due to the 1156 processor versus 1366. It is really quiet but you can tell the fans spin way down with no heat. Curious to hear the fans when it is loaded with 8 hot-swap and 2 internal. Another reason I added a third fan.

For me, its only a home server so I don't need to pay for mega service. If something dies, I can wait a few days for parts if necessary. I keep an off-line extra drive in case a drive drops but no biggie if I wait a week for a replacement component. Now for business, I'm all for 24/7 support for my servers! Can't have a day with nobody working taking orders

Bish can you link me to the ram and processor you have running in that machine? also, does your case have rear exhaust fan? mine does not. only 4 mid hot swap fans

 

[Bish]

I got this http://www.provantage.com/crucial-technology-memory-ct2kit51272ba1067~7CIAL638.htm

Processor here http://www.provantage.com/intel-bx80...0~7ITEP33T.htm

Mine case came with one rear exhaust fan and 2 mid fans and I added a third mid fan. Also the power supply fan on the 865watt that came with the case.

I also ordered the supermicro cpu heatsink here http://www.provantage.com/supermicro...4~7SUP9050.htm I didn't want to screw around with trying to fit the case so I just got the spuermicro one...it was reasonably priced and looks decent.

 

[holty]

I got this http://www.provantage.com/crucial-technology-memory-ct2kit51272ba1067~7CIAL638.htm

Processor here http://www.provantage.com/intel-bx80...0~7ITEP33T.htm

Mine case came with one rear exhaust fan and 2 mid fans and I added a third mid fan. Also the power supply fan on the 865watt that came with the case.

I also ordered the supermicro cpu heatsink here http://www.provantage.com/supermicro...4~7SUP9050.htm I didn't want to screw around with trying to fit the case so I just got the spuermicro one...it was reasonably priced and looks decent.

Are you sure that is the correct cpu cooler? its listed as being for a lga 771 socket?

 

[spikespiegal]

Noting that nobody in this thread has mentioned what happens when a high end RAID card fails or gets too hot and the damage it causes. This why in many instances add on 'fake RAID' is more reliable than high performance 'bare iron' server class RAID because the former has fewer parts to break, over-heat, and fail.

I love it when the $1,200 multi channel RAID card fails in the $50,000 SANs wiping out a few terrabytes that have no mirror replacement because some idiot still thinks RAID 5/6 are viable storage technology. I've seen more corporate data destroyed with RAID 5/6 and controllers dying than IDE drives in workstations. Also, high end RAID cards often require more firmware upgrades and patches than Microsft operating systems, which is just another thing to go wrong.

Also, factors such as partition alignment and write back performance have a greater bearing on RAID performance than 'fake RAID' -vs- onboard RAID. All depends on what you are optimizing for. Most of us don't have a hundred people using an SQL database on our machine but simply want an efficient extension of storage to keep our collections of pictures and data around.

In short, stick to RAID 1 or 10, and get get a mainstream controller that has stable drivers and is easy to use. Spend the rest on drives.

 

[holty]

Noting that nobody in this thread has mentioned what happens when a high end RAID card fails or gets too hot and the damage it causes. This why in many instances add on 'fake RAID' is more reliable than high performance 'bare iron' server class RAID because the former has fewer parts to break, over-heat, and fail.

I love it when the $1,200 multi channel RAID card fails in the $50,000 SANs wiping out a few terrabytes that have no mirror replacement because some idiot still thinks RAID 5/6 are viable storage technology. I've seen more corporate data destroyed with RAID 5/6 and controllers dying than IDE drives in workstations. Also, high end RAID cards often require more firmware upgrades and patches than Microsft operating systems, which is just another thing to go wrong.

Also, factors such as partition alignment and write back performance have a greater bearing on RAID performance than 'fake RAID' -vs- onboard RAID. All depends on what you are optimizing for. Most of us don't have a hundred people using an SQL database on our machine but simply want an efficient extension of storage to keep our collections of pictures and data around.

In short, stick to RAID 1 or 10, and get get a mainstream controller that has stable drivers and is easy to use. Spend the rest on drives.

Hey I like your way of thinking, nothing wrong with giving people more things to think about and I surely wasn't thinking of the topics you just discussed.

With that said, I WILL absolutely have a backup of my data on a separate NAS box.

RAID 10 is not out of the question. I need to do some more research though on which RAID i will be going with. I like RAID 6 at this point for staying alive in case two drives fail.

Are you suggesting my card choices are not "main stream" or stable enough?

Areca ARC-1880i
Areca ARC-1222
LSI 9260-8i

 

[pjkenned]

Noting that nobody in this thread has mentioned what happens when a high end RAID card fails or gets too hot and the damage it causes. This why in many instances add on 'fake RAID' is more reliable than high performance 'bare iron' server class RAID because the former has fewer parts to break, over-heat, and fail.

I love it when the $1,200 multi channel RAID card fails in the $50,000 SANs wiping out a few terrabytes that have no mirror replacement because some idiot still thinks RAID 5/6 are viable storage technology. I've seen more corporate data destroyed with RAID 5/6 and controllers dying than IDE drives in workstations. Also, high end RAID cards often require more firmware upgrades and patches than Microsft operating systems, which is just another thing to go wrong.

Also, factors such as partition alignment and write back performance have a greater bearing on RAID performance than 'fake RAID' -vs- onboard RAID. All depends on what you are optimizing for. Most of us don't have a hundred people using an SQL database on our machine but simply want an efficient extension of storage to keep our collections of pictures and data around.

In short, stick to RAID 1 or 10, and get get a mainstream controller that has stable drivers and is easy to use. Spend the rest on drives.

Big difference between FakeRAID and proper software RAID btw. But 100% agreed backups are essential.

 

[Bish]

Are you sure that is the correct cpu cooler? its listed as being for a lga 771 socket?

According to Supermicro it is the one for the case. I am assuming it is has some universal adapters for many sockets. I'll find out when I get it.

Also agree RAID is in no way a backup for anything mission critical. All my media can be re-ripped if necessary. My backups are spread across multiple PC's in the house and for anything absolutely critical it is on the server and a minimum one pother pc and then once a month I backup the critical stuff to a 2TB external disk.

Lightning strike anywhere close to your house and most likely anything plugged in is toast even with battery backups. Not that it has happened to me in 30+ years of having computers but it certainly can.

 

[Bish]

You were correct on the cooler...not for 1156. Canceled it and I ordered this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...20NH-U9B%20SE2 instead. According to my measurements, it should fit with room to spare.