RAID controller for $600 AUD

[SoulsCollective]

I'm looking at picking up a new SATA RAID controller, with a budget of around $600 AUD. Needs to actually have an on-card processor and cache and support eight channels, battery backup not essential. Must run on PCI-E, not PCI or PCI-X. Needs to support RAID-6. Will be used primarily on a Vista machine, but .nix support (specifically Slackware) would be nice. MACOS I'm not fussed by.

Current front runner is the Highpoint RocketRaid 3520, which I can get for $600, but I have absolutely no brand loyalty. I've used the little brother, the 3150, in a build for a client and was quite impressed, and eva2000 seemed to get good results from the card over at i4memory, but if there's a better card available for about the same price I'd love to hear about it.

[tiro_uspsss]

this fellow used the same card ur thinking of:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=207116

& he got some impressive results too!

EDIT: or theres this:

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/New-Dell-Perc...1%7C240%3A1318

[SoulsCollective]

Hmm, I'd like to avoid non-retail parts if at all possible. Cheers for the link though!

So the general thinking is the 3520 is a beast, grab it?

[tiro_uspsss]

Hmm, I'd like to avoid non-retail parts if at all possible. Cheers for the link though!

So the general thinking is the 3520 is a beast, grab it?

only others I can think of is Areca 1231ML or Areca 1222 - not sure on price tho

[Logos]

3WARE 9650SE-12ML (Kit).......................674,00 euros
Promise SuperTrak EX16300 (Retail)...........649,00 euros (error: this one is not PCIe)

[tiro_uspsss]

3WARE 9650SE-12ML (Kit).......................674,00 euros
Promise SuperTrak EX16300 (Retail)...........649,00 euros

lol I think the OP means either $600 AUD or USD - 600 euro is waaaay too much

[Logos]

lol I think the OP means either $600 AUD or USD - 600 euro is waaaay too much

Promise SuperTrak EX12350 (Retail)................549,00 euros

[tiro_uspsss]

Promise SuperTrak EX12350 (Retail)................549,00 euros

mmm... if its USD$600 the OP is referring too, then yes, maybe just affordable.. if its AUD$600, then definitely not!

1 euro = 2 AUD
1 euro = ~1.25 USD

[SoulsCollective]

I'm looking at picking up a new SATA RAID controller, with a budget of around $600 AUD.

AUD, people - not USD, and certainly not Euros

But thanks for the input

[SoulsCollective]

Bump. Looking at reviews of those Areca cards, there's some comment about erratic performance, as shown in the thread linked to above. Can anyone speak from experience on this?

[tiro_uspsss]

Bump. Looking at reviews of those Areca cards, there's some comment about erratic performance, as shown in the thread linked to above. Can anyone speak from experience on this?

this may be only slightly related: what HDD brand u gonna use?

[SoulsCollective]

After reading around, I'm settling on WD640000AAKS drives, as they're reputed to be the quietest with the high-density platters. Thinking about getting six in a RAID-6 array.

[tiro_uspsss]

After reading around, I'm settling on WD640000AAKS drives, as they're reputed to be the quietest with the high-density platters. Thinking about getting six in a RAID-6 array.

'desktop grade' western digitals? mmm.. in that case i'd say stay away from arecas.. i've heard issues crop up between the two.. u can contact user stevecs to confirm..

[SoulsCollective]

Right, so not only can they perform erratically they're known to have problems with WD drives.

I'm thinking it's the Highpoint

[tiro_uspsss]

Right, so not only can they perform erratically they're known to have problems with WD drives.

I'm thinking it's the Highpoint

hear hear!

*pssst* whats it for?

[SoulsCollective]

Desktop rig. One of my ancient 200GB SATA-1 drives is dying, so rather than just bare-minimum replace it I thought I'd go the whole hog - it's about all I can upgrade on my rig without having to spend several hundred, and to be frank with a Yorkfield at 3.6 and a 4870X2 I really don't need to

[jcool]

I would recommend you the Adaptec 5805. It's a real beast for parity raids, and it's in your desired price range.
Plus I run its little brother, the 5405, with 4x WD6400AAKS in Raid 5. Performance is pretty impressive if you ask me:




That was with the initial release firmware btw, they probably evened it out by a bit more by now.

Only known issue of the Adaptec 5 series: The stock passive cooler is way too small so it will overheat if you don't modify the cooling. Mine is watercooled...

[SoulsCollective]

Cheers for that, really appreciate the input. Currently the cheapest place I can find it lists it for $750 AUD, which is beyond what I'm prepared to spend, but I'll have a look around. Love the watercooling

[NeedMoMegaHurtZ]

awesome mod, jcool!

what kind of block is that? and where did you get it?

[jcool]

Cheers for that, really appreciate the input. Currently the cheapest place I can find it lists it for $750 AUD, which is beyond what I'm prepared to spend, but I'll have a look around. Love the watercooling

What the .. you Aussies get ripped off even worse than us Germans :/
It's 430€ here currently (used to be 380€, prices went through the roof lately) and around 550 USD.

I suggest you let someone in the US send you one

[jcool]

awesome mod, jcool!

what kind of block is that? and where did you get it?

Thanks
That's an Aquacomputer (the guys that make the Aquaero/Cuplex XT etc) Twinplex XT for the southbridge of MSI P35 mobos
46mm hole distance, centered above and below the controller core, it is a perfect fit. Also available with a GPU top so the fittings are flipped by 90°.

45C controller temp at 24/7 load

Here is another pic:



Only downside: It's G1/8".. but it wouldn't be possible to use G 1/4 there, not enough space really. Good thing I don't give a about flow

[SoulsCollective]

What the .. you Aussies get ripped off even worse than us Germans :/
It's 430€ here currently (used to be 380€, prices went through the roof lately) and around 550 USD.

I suggest you let someone in the US send you one

I'd prefer not - with current exchange rates, 550 US dollars is equal to 893 Australian dollars, and 430 Euros is equal to 873 Australian dollars - and that's before shipping

[jcool]

Hm, sad. The 5805 is one of the best-performing raid controllers out there, especially for raid 5/6. On par with the Areca 1680xi (unless you feed the Areca 2GB+ ram) at a fraction of the cost.

[SoulsCollective]

Okay, looking at MaximumPC review it seems like the 3510 (basically the same card, just with four channels rather than eight) beats the 5405 in parity read speeds - which is more important to me than write. Is the only difference between the 5805 and the 5405 the number of channels?

[jcool]

No, the 5805 has double the cache (512MB vs. 256MB).
And I do know for a fact it scales up all the way to 8 drives in a raid 5/6 setup. 8 WD6400AAKS in Raid 5 would yield you 550-600MB/s average read on a 5805.

I dunno what went wrong on that maximumPC test, but reads shouldn't be way slower than writes, or something is out of order. See my screens, that's how it's supposed to look in a raid 5. Guess they used drives the adaptec didn't like, or the wrong driver or whatever.
If the average write was 214 in that test, reads should be at 260MB/s+.