SATA Controller Card

[gt07]

Just trying to get an opinion on a controller card as i'm clueless.

I'm looking to purchase a 4 port SATA controller card that will support RAID 5 (3 200gb SATA drives).

Wondering what cards are going to be best. Here's what i'm looking at right now: http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=16-102-028&DEPA=0

Although it doesn't explicitly say it supports raid 5, am i correct in assuming it does?

 

[Tostada]

That's not even a RAID card. Only the FastTrack versions support RAID. The only regular PCI card you'll probably find that will has 4 SATA ports and hardware RAID 5 is the $168 FastTrack S150 SX4. The $68 HighPoint RocketRAID 1540 says it has RAID 5, but you have to download an update from HighPoint to get it to do RAID 5, though, so I'm not sure how good it is. It might just be software RAID 5.

 

[Zepper]

Programmer's Paradise has the Adaptec 16-channel RAID-5 adapter for about $850.... But seriously, if you froogle on SATA RAID-5, you will find 4-channel cards from $88. up.
.bh.

 

[TerryMathews]

Are you thinking long-term or not? If you are wanting to keep that array over several computers, you'll probably want to use the Promse FastTrak card. Promise is one of the few manufacturers that supports using arrays created on different model RAID cards, as long as it's a Promise card.

Ex: I was able to move a 2x WD1200JB from a Promise FastTrak66 to a SuperTrak SX6000 without losing any data.