Sata hardware raid controller suggestions?

[niko084]

I am going to be setting myself up a media server fairly soon here and I want hardware level raid for obvious reasons...

Now I have heard that adaptec sata raid controllers are having issues..
I don't know any other decent controller companies at under $1000 price level...

I need something fairly basic, probably going to do raid 5, or 0 + 1 havn't made up my mind yet....

Any suggestions, opinions?
Please do not bother with comments on software and fake raid is perfectly fine....
There are very good reasons why I will not use them on this machine and for the people that have a good understanding and knowledge of servers will understand this.

 

[nflesher87]

I'm not sure how you'll be able to justify any options other than SB RAID...just too expensive compared to the benefits IMO

 

[niko084]

The cost is not going to bother me as long as its not a pci-x $1000 card...
I want to eliminate the chance of a write hole if I go raid 5, and I don't want my drives to have a chance of a miswrite due to software running. It's the stability and reliability of hardware raid that I'm looking for here, let alone the speed difference, now that wont be too noticable considering what it will be used for but.

 

[nflesher87]

ok well how many internal ports do you need?

 

[niko084]

Probably one with 4 so I'm safe if I want to go 0+1

 

[Asrovak]

If the onboard hardware isnt good enough, you can try 3WARE controllers

I am going to be setting myself up a media server fairly soon here and I want hardware level raid for obvious reasons...

Now I have heard that adaptec sata raid controllers are having issues..
I don't know any other decent controller companies at under $1000 price level...

I need something fairly basic, probably going to do raid 5, or 0 + 1 havn't made up my mind yet....

Any suggestions, opinions?
Please do not bother with comments on software and fake raid is perfectly fine....
There are very good reasons why I will not use them on this machine and for the people that have a good understanding and knowledge of servers will understand this.

 

[nflesher87]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115048

My recommendation then, onboard cache and all

 

[Deleted member 3]

The Highpoint one does seem to have decent specs. However the name Highpoint has a bad aftertaste to me. Only have experience with one type of 3ware controller, the software seems nice. It comes with a simple no-nonsense webinterface. However all of them ran simple 2 disk RAID 1 arrays so I can't say much more. I would personally look at an Areca controller, they're quite dominant on the market nowadays.
Limiting yourself to 4 ports might be bad in the long run, having some extra port for future expansions might not be a bad idea.

As for RAID level, why bother with 0+1? RAID 5 is far more efficient. A general rule with RAID: if two disks fail at once it's most likely due to something that killed the whole array anyway (think powersurge and the likes). The odds of two random disks crashing at the same time are extremely slim.

 

[nflesher87]

The Highpoint one does seem to have decent specs. However the name Highpoint has a bad aftertaste to me. Only have experience with one type of 3ware controller, the software seems nice. It comes with a simple no-nonsense webinterface. However all of them ran simple 2 disk RAID 1 arrays so I can't say much more. I would personally look at an Areca controller, they're quite dominant on the market nowadays.
Limiting yourself to 4 ports might be bad in the long run, having some extra port for future expansions might not be a bad idea.

As for RAID level, why bother with 0+1? RAID 5 is far more efficient. A general rule with RAID: if two disks fail at once it's most likely due to something that killed the whole array anyway (think powersurge and the likes). The odds of two random disks crashing at the same time are extremely slim.

I saw DanTheBanjoman as last post in my CP and I was like oh jeez I get to find out how horrible my controller pick was
but hey what a welcome surprise!

 

[panchoman]

an areca or 3ware pci-express ( or pci-x if you have it) sata II card will perform very well for ya, also if you can afford it, get a hard that you put in ddr[2] ram in as cache and buy some nice ram to put in.

 

[niko084]

The Highpoint one does seem to have decent specs. However the name Highpoint has a bad aftertaste to me. Only have experience with one type of 3ware controller, the software seems nice. It comes with a simple no-nonsense webinterface. However all of them ran simple 2 disk RAID 1 arrays so I can't say much more. I would personally look at an Areca controller, they're quite dominant on the market nowadays.
Limiting yourself to 4 ports might be bad in the long run, having some extra port for future expansions might not be a bad idea.

As for RAID level, why bother with 0+1? RAID 5 is far more efficient. A general rule with RAID: if two disks fail at once it's most likely due to something that killed the whole array anyway (think powersurge and the likes). The odds of two random disks crashing at the same time are extremely slim.

Thats why I'm leaning to raid 5,but with the write hole posibility,the 0+1 seems like it may be a better go...I know that issue is pretty rare but like I said before a extra security thing... Not sure as to what exactly I will do yet.