On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 5:07 PM, Brad Campbell <lists2009@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > On 19/05/11 20:26, Ed W wrote: > >> Please add suggestions for good value, reliable controllers known to >> work well with linux > > I have three of these : > > http://www.startech.com/product/PEXSATA24E-2-Port-eSATA-4-Port-SATA-PCI-Express-x4-SATA-Controller-Adapter-Card-PCIe > > and 4 of these : > > http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/IBM-M1015-46M0861-ServeRAID-M1015-SAS-SATA-Controller-/280655527117?pt=AU_Server_Accessories_Parts&hash=item41585f7ccd > > All of which I can't recommend highly enough. > > I got the Startech ones cheap from a dodgy shop about 4 years ago. They cost me about $30 each. > I got the IBM (really LSI) ones cheap from ebay at about $110 each at Christmas. > > The Startech cards use the sata_mv driver and are solid, the LSI cards use the megaraid_sas driver and are solid. As a bonus of having SAS ports, I picked up 4 Seagate Cheetah 15k.5 SAS drives for a wicked fast RAID10 array. So, I've been through 3 cards in my current NAS, all of which didn't fit my needs for one reason or another, and I had given up until this thread reignited my interest in having more than 6 available SATA ports in the box. The cards I've tried are: * SYBA SD-PEX40031 (Pericom PI7C9X111 + Silicone Image Sil3124 chipset) - lots of errors during heavy I/O such as resyc'ing * 3ware 9650SE-8LPML-Sgl - I thought money would solve the problem, but I didn't realize that you can't use an expensive RAID card to access existing data on the disk * Supermicro AOC-Saslp-MV8 - I thought it would be a perfect match given my Supermicro motherboard, but also gave me lots of errors during heavy I/O and this experience seems to be confirmed by other users in this thread In all cases switching back to the onboard SATA ports resulted in seamless operation (same drives, cables, etc.). In light of what I've learned in this thread I just ordered the Rosewill RC-218 SATA card, which has the same Marvell 88SX7042 chipset as the Startech link above, but runs only $80 on Newegg [1] and seems to have good reviews from a few Linux users. I'll report back after I get it installed next week. Cheers, Tobias [1] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816132018 -- Tobias McNulty, Managing Member Caktus Consulting Group, LLC http://www.caktusgroup.com -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
