Quote Originally Posted by Serra View Post

Anyway, the other day I picked up a Dell PERC 6/i which runs an LSI 1078 chip. Without any air flow at all, it does get hot enough that if you hold your finger to it for a few seconds you have to take it off or risk a burn. However I have just rested a very low RPM 120mm fan next to it and it's completely cool to the touch now. So it seems while they do heat up, the actual heat output is quite low, low enough that the heatsink is colder than my skin at any rate ATM.
Yeah but that is a Perc 6... which is a single core XOR at 500 or 800Mhz.
Any raidcon equipped with the Intel IOP348 (Dualcore 1,2Ghz) such as the Adaptec 5 series is an entirely different story, these things ACTUALLY give off loads of heat. Even with a 4000rpm 40mm fan added to the stock cooler, my 5405 still hit close to 80C which I was not comfortable with, hence the water cooler.

Incidentally I picked up the PERC 6/i (used, but verified functional) for only $175USD from a non-eBay store - LSI 1078 chip (same as on their highest end internal stuff), 2x wide SAS ports (8x SATA/SAS total without extenders), 256MB DDR2-667 cache (not upgradable). IMO a pretty good alternative, considering its just a re-branded high-end LSI... half the price of anything comparable (likely helps that it's used, but you won't find a used current-gen Areca/3Ware/etc so I feel comfortable with the statement).
The Percs do have a great price/performance ratio if you get them off ebay, but with a Perc it is still kind of a gambling game, because you are betting on the card to run in your mobo, which is not a given for all mobos. There are lots and lots out there that just don't work with a Perc 5/6 simply because these cards were never designed to properly run anywhere except in Dell servers, hence don't give a damn about general compatibility.

We'll see if I end up doing a review of the thing or not. I likely will at some point, but I'll only have 3-4x WD 6400AAKS/LS + ACARD 9010 available to bench with so I won't be able to do anything too fancy. If anyone happens to want one before I get around to doing this, send me a PM and I'll send you a copy of the procedure I used to flash it from Dell -> latest LSI firmware if you've never done it before. Still trying to figure out how to get LSI drivers to find it (Dell drivers work and are relatively new, but LSI has a slightly newer set out that I want to try).
I think you'll like the setup, I am running 4x WD6400AAKS on my 5405 in Raid 5 since early 2008, no problems whatsoever even though they are not rated for 24/7 operation

You can compare your benchies to mine then (I did Raid 0/1/5/6/10 when I first set it up), even though the firmware of the 5405 has been optimized for even better speed by now.