RAID 5 card - software or hardware?

[SteveCliff]

I've run a RAID 5 SATA card before that was a mix of hardware & software based (the old RocketRaid 1640) but was very un-impressed with the write speeds, presumably due to the XOR calcs being done by the CPU (it's in a fairly low powered server).

I've borrowed a Fasttrak SX4000 card that is fully hardware based and the performance is *much* better but it is a PATA card with a maximum hard drive size of 250Gb so I'm starting to run out of space.

Anyone got any recomendations on a *fully* hardware based SATA card to go for. Most likely 4 ports (as I'm not rich!) but with the capability to put some fairly big drives in (500-750Gb). I've looked at the Highpoint RocketRaid RR1820A but I'm not sure if it's partially software based again ...?

All thoughts appreciated!

[directhex]

don't buy highpoint or promise if you expect full hardware raid.

look at areca or lsi, or higher-end adaptec (their lower end models are software)

and if you're on a budget, just go to ebay - you can get oem cards from the states for less than half the UK retail price

[chuckskull]

Areca seems to be king of the hill for proper hardware raid cards. XFX does a 5 port hardware one for £35, but I wouldn't use it

[directhex]

the xfx is RAID3, not RAID5

[shaithis]

I use an Areca 1210 4 port...PCI-E 8x

It is very nice to use and quite fast....I would heartily recomend them