Home Server, RAID card recommendations[SOLVED]

[dustin1706]

I've got parts ordered for my home server right now. After some research I decided on an adaptec 6805. I was considering this used 5805 on eBay to save a few $$, but figured f*** it I'll just go brand new from NCIX (pricematched to newegg). It should be in the mail tomorrow or Friday :)

Adaptec 6805 8-PORT SATA/SAS 6GB/S RAID Controller Low Profile 512MB PCIe 3.3/12V - OEM - Adaptec - 2270100-R

ADAPTEC ASR-5805 8PORT PCI-EXPRESS RAID CONTROLLER 512MB W/CABLES | eBay

[MARSTG]

you could go with a way cheaper used professional raid card, all done in hardware like an HP Smart Array P400, this one here HP SmartArray PCIe P400 256MB CACHE SAS RAID Controller Card/Board 447029-001 | eBay can do RAID 5 and is all in hardware, great LSI chip too. Just make sure you also get the fan out cables, what you need is called SAS 32 SFF-8484 to 4 SATA 7Pin, you can get them cheap on ebay here New internal SAS 32 SFF-8484 to 4 SATA 7Pin Hard Disk Drive SAS Cable 50cm | eBay . For drivers you can get them directly from LSI if HP doesn't have for Win7 if it is not autoomatically detected. The chip used by the card is LSI SAS 1078 if you are looking for drivers. And in the specs says it supports drives larger than 2TB, at least on HP website. LSI has a driver released yesterday :) the LSI MegaRAID SAS 8880EM2 is using the 1078 processor so you can use those drivers.

[BlueByte]

That card is meant for a server case with high cfm over the heatsink. The last adaptec card I installed wanted around 200 I think. Also after reading some of the material adaptec cards are not supported on uefi boards. Just to let you know.

[Avenger212]

Thanks for the info guys! I still have the old fashion bios with the blue screen on my other 890 gigabyte mobo. I might use that instead, One last question what drives do you recommend ? I was thinking of WD blue 1TB 4-6 drives or WD green 1TB 4-6 drives cause there are still a bit expensive.

[dustin1706]

Originally Posted by BlueByte

Also after reading some of the material adaptec cards are not supported on uefi boards. Just to let you know.

Well son of a &^$%. I read all of the datasheets and compatability reports on Adaptec's website and they didn't mention a thing about that. Neither did any reviews from NCIX, newegg nor tomshardware. I just assumed that their newest line of pcie cards would be compatible with consumer mainboards...

I'm glad you told me instead of me pulling my hair out trying to get it to work lol.

[supeg]

Have you looked into Windows 8 new drive pooling features? It looks pretty slick

[Ardric]

Hardware raid cards are a dead end. HBA's and software RAID have moved far beyond what hardware RAID cards can do at the enterprise level. ZFS drove the final nail in that coffin some years ago. Drives, HBAs, CPUs, RAM, NICs. That's all you need. A hardware card is just an expensive slice of annoyance and frustration that gets in your way. If you get one you'll probably end up running it as a dumb HBA and moving to OS-level RAID anyways, because that's where all the cool features are.

You want hardware? Dedicate a CPU core or two to storage. A single x86 core is faster than a RAID card, has faster access to RAM and process space than a RAID card, and resources can be allocated dynamically instead of dedicated to a purpose (virtualization!) What else are all the cores in your file server good for, if not for crunching storage? CPU cores are very good at this -- let them do their job.

There remains tons of howto's and FAQ's claiming hardware cards are faster at this or better at that, and it was pretty true back in the 80's, but it was mostly obsolete bullshit and inertia 10 years ago and it's only been getting worse since. IMHO.