[bnlitin]

I am trying to decide on which RAID Controller card for 8 x 2TB WD drives in RAID-5 on Windows 7 (in a PCI Express x8 slot).


The choices I see are:


1. Intel SASMF8I Raid SAS 8P PCIEX8 LP - $254 (Amazon)

2. Highpoint 4320 SAS/SATA - $380 (Newegg)

3. Areca 1220 - $454 (Newegg)

4. Adaptec 5805 - $520 (Newegg)


I don't need anything fancy, but I do need 8 or more ports, and support for larger 2TB drives (WD, Samsung, or Hitachi).


Is anyone using these with 2TB WD drives? Any recommendations?

 

[ogormask]

I would seriously consider raid 6 if you can unless you arent as worried about something happening. I just had a drive go bad and for some reason another drive dropped out of the array. Building an array with these really large drives takes over a week. Its very nerve wracking to wonder if another drive could go bad and without raid 6 all my stuff would have been gone. But then you lose 2tb of space but boy is it worth it.


Some say highpoint some say 3ware some areca. The others might save you some money.


The drives should be nice.


Oh and one thing to consider is spending a bit more up front for a larger capacity controller so you have more room to expand later. Might be a few hundred but you could double the capacity of the array and thus making raid 6 more attractive and in the mean time have a real nice stable and still large array with plenty of expansion room. Also I am no controller expert but some have better chips that make the array much faster.


Consider a battery backup unit (essential) and UPS (essential)

 

[lordratner]

You're going to want to consider using RAID class HDs. TLER support is the reason, and the OEMs have started blocking TLER on the cheaper "desktop" class drives.


Some people report no problems using standard drives. Others watch drives drop out of the array faster than they can use them.


Otherwise, I'm planning on getting the Highpoint card for 8 1TB drives.

 

[bnlitin]

I was hoping to avoid getting the TLER hard drives (to save some money).

I have been using plain WD10EADS with my motherboard's Intel raid (ICH10R) without any issues.


Which plain 2TB work with the other RAID controllers? I would prefer to buy either WD20EADS or Samsung FE3G 2TB hard drives.


I looked on the Highpoint site and they only tested the 4320 with WD RE4 drives.

 

[ogormask]

I dont have any expensive enterprise drives in my array and a lot if not the majority in here dont either. Its hard to justify doubling your costs. Sure they will last longer but in e years they will seem so small anyways...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-Li...Error_Recovery


seems to be a WD only thing... I have no idea if its needed. I suppose it cant hurt.

 

[MikeEby]

You might want to read this.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/storage/?p=162



Mike