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Is the Dell PERC 5i SAS controller card any good?
Any links to reviews etc would be appreciated, since I haven't been able to find any.
It seems they go for quite cheap on ebay at the moment so it's raised my interest.
Looks like the ddr2 cache is easily upgradable as well. How much difference would there be by getting more memory for the card?
I've found the Perc 5/i to work well for my use. I haven't upgraded the memory from the 256MB stick it came with yet, but I may soon. One work of caution though...many of the cards on Ebay don't come with the necessary cabling. You'll need a SAS x4 connector, which splits down to 4 SAS x1 connectors. The Dell cable comes with the built in interposers. The cable is a pain to order from Dell to try and get the right one.
Also, ensure the mounting plate (bracket) is included with the card...I've seen many of the cards on Ebay that don't have it included.
can you tell me please where to buy cables for a good price?
4x SAS cable for this I've found for at least $40.. and 4x SATA cable for around $20.. if you've found a better source please let me know.. I need to buy soon, my 4x36MB Fujitsu 15K SAS ar on the way, and I'm planning a Raid-0 with 'em :D
And another thing.. what motherboard you are using with this controller ? I have ASUS P5K Premium, but it doesn't work well with this one because it has only PCI-E X4 for the additional slot.. I will try MSI P6N Diamond or DFI with Nvidia Nforce 680i chipset. They 2 x 16X and 1 x 8X PCI-E slots..
What do you think ?
The 4x pci-e has more than enough bandwith up to 6 drives.
I'm not worried about the bandwidth but for the compatibility.. I had P5K Premium with x4 slot and it didn't work well on it.. it blocks at detecting USB devices. After I disabled USB in motherboard bios, it blocked after the PERC detected hard drives, and I pressed CTRL-R to enter in its config and it didn't work... but it seems to work fine on MSI P6N Diamond who has x8 slot.. I will have to do more tests but it seems so.
it depends on the motherboard bios, its not related to the mechanic of the pci-e slot.
there's a thread at 2cpu on which boards actually work with the card.
in addition, these are nowhere near as powerful as Arecas but, that's pretty much assumed anyway/
dave