Cheap RAID 5 controller recomendations please

[lowfat]

Originally Posted by catnhat

Thanks for the info. I guess what I was hoping for was an array that behaved like a JBOD but had parity in case one drive would fail. I would also like to just be able to add drives as capacity is needed and always buy the current biggest drive to maximize storage.

Doesn't sound like RAID5 would do that for me.

From what I was able to figure out: what I was originally looking for was developed by Drobo in their "BeyondRAID" format. unfortunately its not widespread and I am not paying that kinda money for a Drobo box.

Add another drive to my RAID 5 array with Perc 5/i? - Overclock.net - Overclocking.net

[lcdguy]

Originally Posted by catnhat

Thanks for the info. I guess what I was hoping for was an array that behaved like a JBOD but had parity in case one drive would fail. I would also like to just be able to add drives as capacity is needed and always buy the current biggest drive to maximize storage.

Doesn't sound like RAID5 would do that for me.

From what I was able to figure out: what I was originally looking for was developed by Drobo in their "BeyondRAID" format. unfortunately its not widespread and I am not paying that kinda money for a Drobo box.

If i remember correctly Raid 5 doesn't reall do that. You would need something like ZFS or use WHS since it just sticks all the drives into a big pool of drives. it doesn't care what the size is it just adds it. If you want have a duplicate copy of the files on a share you just enable fiel duplication. Also keep in mind that if your going to be working with arrays larger than 2TB on windows you will need to us an OS that supports GPT instead of MBR.

Originally Posted by lowfat

Add another drive to my RAID 5 array with Perc 5/i? - Overclock.net - Overclocking.net

Awesome place for resources on the Perc5i. I actually bought my perc (when i had it) from there. Cost around $125 USD shipped with a BBU but no back plates or fans.

[Brad P]

I bought this card after weeks of looking for an affordable HW raid solution.

five sata port hardware raid bridge offer level 0, 10, 5 and JBOD

I should be getting it any day but only have one drive purchased for it thus far. I need a few more yet. I am going to hook up a few Samsung 2TB F3 drives once I get some more.

It hooks up to a empty SATA port and power is from a floppy connector. The card tricks the mobo to think its using one drive when in fact it can be multiple drives.

[catnhat]

That is an interesting looking controller for that price. Although without cache it sounds like there may be a bottle neck.

I think I will continue to look for a used perc 5i or 6i card for my performance RAID. However I have also continued my research on cheaper solutions for a less performance intensive solution to keep archived data.

I came across this and thought it was very interesting performance comparison between the popular onboard intel RAID vs. Windows 7 sw Raid. The part I didn't expect to see was the Windows 7 sw raid used less CPU.

[Brad P]

Originally Posted by catnhat

That is an interesting looking controller for that price. Although without cache it sounds like there may be a bottle neck.

I think I will continue to look for a used perc 5i or 6i card for my performance RAID. However I have also continued my research on cheaper solutions for a less performance intensive solution to keep archived data.

I came across this and thought it was very interesting performance comparison between the popular onboard intel RAID vs. Windows 7 sw Raid. The part I didn't expect to see was the Windows 7 sw raid used less CPU.

There is an online chat support on their website that I've used to ask questions and get quick responses. I'm going to use it to store media for my HTPC so speed isn't critical. A person on support is using one for a NAS and said gets good speeds on it...I can't recall now what they were...wouldn't hurt to ask. Say Brad sent you

[fenixsaint]

Dell Perc 5/i or 6/i off eBay. You won't find a better raid card for the price.

[catnhat]

Well, I found a perc 5i. just got it. now I have to do some sort of terabyte shuffle.

I am planning to run 1 array (4x500gb seagates) for video editing which will be 1+0 (I think) or maybe just Raid0 with a nightly backup to the 2nd RAID

2nd RAID array (4x1TB seagates) RAID5 or 1+0 for movie, photo, music and other data libraries.

Not sure yet. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[CMetaphor]

I just ordered myself a Perc 6i too Gonna go in the backup/file server, so I'll probably be doing 4x 1Tb Seagate 7200.12s in Raid 10 as well. Therefore, I'm also interested in everyone's thoughts on this, haha.

[lcdguy]

Originally Posted by CMetaphor

I just ordered myself a Perc 6i too Gonna go in the backup/file server, so I'll probably be doing 4x 1Tb Seagate 7200.12s in Raid 10 as well. Therefore, I'm also interested in everyone's thoughts on this, haha.

Awesome card it's basically a 5i except it can do raid 6. Also don't forget the breakout cables as if it's anything like the 5i i had it has 2 SFF8484 connectors.

[ADay2Long]

Thread Necro I know but I purchased a Perc 6/i recently and once installed my system would not POST at all. After a lot of searching, I found that the card didn't play well with some chipsets, but there is a workaround using some electrical tape. Now everything works like a charm. Great card for the price!

These cards are known to have some compatibility issues with Intel chipsets. However, they are known to work with NVIDIA motherboards fine. The issue stems from a System Management Bus (SMBus) conflicting with the motherboard's memory detection. SMBus is simple signal to provide the motherboad some basic device information and control. Symptoms of the conflict includes improperly reported RAM sizes and POST errors.

The trick is just to physically disable the SMBus signal. It is composed of just two pins B5 (SMCLK, SMBus clock) and B6 (SMDAT, SMBus data). These two pins need to be covered by tape or nail polish. On the top side of the card, they are the 5th and 6th PCIe pins from the left. You can see the pins covered as seen below:

PERC 5/i RAID Card: Tips and Benchmarks