looking for a raid6 controller

iakovl · Post by **iakovl** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 4:19 am

in the next few month i'm going to build my file-server
a nice ltl pc that will host 8*1T hdd's in raid 6 (i'm a paranoid)

my main problem right now is to find a good (and not too expensive) raid controller.
need advice and suggestions in this area...

Mats · Post by **Mats** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 7:11 am

I've heard that Areca is a good brand, but I think they cost a bit.
Here's a link to newegg, you can find lots of user comments there.

Depending on where you want to place the server, the HDD noise is maybe not that important.
I'd suggest 1.5 TB HDD's, since they have the same price/GB, at least here in Sweden.

didi · Post by **didi** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:19 am

You're talking serious RAID, you'll definitely need (and want) a serious RAID controller. No cheap controller will do 8 drives with acceptable performance.
Be prepared to spend more on your controller, one who does hardware IO-operations.

Nick Geraedts · Post by **Nick Geraedts** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 9:45 am

I've also heard good things about Areca, although I've never had any direct experience with them. I've worked with numerous 3ware cards, and I can safely say, they're excellent. Support is top-notch, and the performance is great.

When you're dealing with RAID6, you do not want to skimp on the controller. A 3ware 9650SE-8LPML can be found for under $600 new these days. Considering what you're planning on spending on storage alone, it's not a horrible purchase. Furthermore, SATA is here to stay, and AFAIK, the 9650SE doesn't have a limit on the disk size of the individual disks. If you ever got to that point, you could probably use it on 4TB drives when they're released... someday.

iakovl · Post by **iakovl** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 12:02 pm

3ware 9650SE-8LPML is my choice right now
but i want to know if there are other good controllers out there

i know raid6 controllers ain't cheap, but i need storage space

NyteOwl · Post by **NyteOwl** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 5:43 pm

The 3Ware is good. Areca is also a decent brand with a reputation for speed. For Areca level speed but at a slightly lower price point the MegaRAID (LSI) cards aren't too bad.

iakovl · Post by **iakovl** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 6:24 am

i know i wanted raid6 but what can you tell me about PERC 5/i? is in any good? for its price i have to think about it

gb115b · Post by **gb115b** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 7:05 am

I'd recommend the Areca too...

in fact speedfan supports drive temps from it too!

(after my request! how good is that!)

protellect · Post by **protellect** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 1:31 pm

iakovl wrote:3ware 9650SE-8LPML is my choice right now
but i want to know if there are other good controllers out there

i know raid6 controllers ain't cheap, but i need storage space

Agree, I love these, using several at work. The 12ML is also very good if you wanted to be able to expand. Pretty useful web interface, good linux driver support, etc etc.

Areca cards are also excellent, and you can often upgrade the cache on them. Having 2GB of cache seems appealing to me for some reason

protellect · Post by **protellect** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 1:36 pm

iakovl wrote:i know i wanted raid6 but what can you tell me about PERC 5/i? is in any good? for its price i have to think about it

I've used these as well, they are actually LSI cards. Pretty much any dell server with SCSI or SAS has a card from this family. Performance isn't bad, but no web interface for the card AFAIK. The LSI MEGARAID interface is pretty decent, however. Perc/LSI cards also don't support RAID-6, as far as I know.

Oh, here are some bench's for the 3ware cards I've done. Easily taps the full bandwidth of gigabit ethernet server-to-server. Pretty hot, good speed, etc.

Same server for these two, All Seagate ES.2:
3ware365012ml-4x1TB-RAID10 [System Drives + VSC]

3ware365012ML-6x1TB-RAID6 [Storage]

Different Server, Seagate ES2 as well, I believe.
hdtune-6-1TBseagate-RAID6-AMCC950SE [storage]

And the system drives on it [Same Card, 2x 160GB drives, system drives]]