Re: RAID card recommendation

Robert Schnabel <schnabelr@xxxxxxxxxxxx> · Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:49:31 -0600

Jochen Erwied wrote:

  Tuesday, November 24, 2009, 10:34:00 PM you wrote:

    Aberdeen is the builder I use.  They'll put any card in you want
(within reason) including our preference here, Areca.  Perhaps you
meant Areca?

I knew Areca only for their internal arrays (which one of our customers
uses for his 19" systems), but did not know they manufacture their own
controllers. Added the ARC-1212+BBU to my wishlist :-)

For what it's worth I'm using the Adaptec 5445Z on my new server (don't
have Postgre running on it) and have been happy with it.  For storage
on my servers I use
http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sas_cables_enclosures/scsase16.asp which has
an Areca ARC-8020 expander in it. With the 5445Z I use the 4 internal
ports for a fast RAID0 "working array" with 450G Seagate 15k6 drives
and the external goes to the 16 drive enclosure through the expander. 
With 16 drives you have a lot of possibilities for configuring arrays. 
I have another server with an Adaptec 52445 (don't have Postgre running
on it either) connected to two of the 16 drive enclosures and am happy
with it.  I'm running Postgre on my workstation that has an Adaptec
52445 hooked up to two EnhanceBox-E8MS
(http://www.enhance-tech.com/products/desktop/E8_Series.html).  I have
8 ST373455SS drives in my tower and 8 in the EnhanceBox so my database
is running off 16 drives in RAID5.  Everyone complains about RAID5 but
it works for me in my situation.  Very very rarely am I waiting on the
disks when running queries. The other EnhanceBox has 8 ST31000640SS
drives in RAID5 just for backup images.  All 24 drives run off the
52445 and again, I've been satisfied with it.  I've also been happy
with the Enhance Technology products.  Sorry for being so long but just
wanted to put a plug in for the Adaptec cards and let you know about
the external options.  The 5 series cards are a huge improvement over
the 3 series. I had a 3805 and wasn't that impressed.  It's actually
sitting on my shelf now collecting dust.

Bob