Who sells 3ware (and Areca) RAID cards?

**lcf23_2000** · 21-03-2006, 05:17 PM

Hi,
I've found 3ware cards at Insight and Hamiltone and Areca at Scan and Hamiltone but are they any other places that sell the cards?
Trying to establish if the above retailers are selling the products at decent prices or whether there is a better alternative.

Thanks

**directhex** · 21-03-2006, 05:25 PM

Are you after SATA RAID?

Areca are generally considered the real top-end for SATA RAID - mostly because they get good performance, and have a PCIe card on the market. The downside is the £450+ RRP. However, you can get pretty much the same performance from an LSI MegaRAID 300-series card; they've got basically the same spec and performance, though they're not low-profile.

3ware are well respected, but unless you look at their (expensive) new SX9550 cards, it's old tech - either SATA150 (9500), or worse, bridged SATA150 (8500)

Either way, given the cost of controllers, you might have some joy searching for one of the above brands on eBay - i got an OEM LSI MegaRAID 300-8X for just under £200 (Scan.co.uk price: £350)

**lcf23_2000** · 21-03-2006, 10:02 PM

Yep, I'm after SATA RAID. I have a Highpoint card at the moment, but after a few disk failures it takes around 250 hours to rebuild itself, so I thought that a proper hardware RAID card would be a better prospect.
I'm after an 8 or 12 channel card and know that 3ware and Areca arent cheap, but there seem very few online places that actually sell them.
How often do these kinds of cards come up on ebay?

Thanks

**directhex** · 22-03-2006, 09:32 AM

scan stock areca and LSI - just remembered that the LSI only works on PCI-X (i.e. not normal PCI)

**shaithis** · 22-03-2006, 01:29 PM

www.span.com also sell the 3ware cards.

**lcf23_2000** · 22-03-2006, 03:08 PM

Cheers, thanks for the responses. Anyone tried the US ebay sellers that are willing to ship to the UK?

**directhex** · 22-03-2006, 04:32 PM

Originally Posted by lcf23_2000

Cheers, thanks for the responses. Anyone tried the US ebay sellers that are willing to ship to the UK?

yes, that's where my LSI came from.

**lcf23_2000** · 22-03-2006, 05:53 PM

Originally Posted by directhex

yes, that's where my LSI came from.

Ah right, I thought you meant you got it from a UK ebayer. Any issues with customs or payment method?

**arthurleung** · 22-03-2006, 06:08 PM

www.MatrixThree.co.uk
He got cheap LSI/Intel card selling, but only 30 day warranty...going to buy from him after selling one of my rig...

**schmunk** · 22-03-2006, 07:08 PM

Originally Posted by lcf23_2000

Yep, I'm after SATA RAID. I have a Highpoint card at the moment, but after a few disk failures it takes around 250 hours to rebuild itself

**lcf23_2000** · 22-03-2006, 07:31 PM

Tell me about it, its happened twice this year with 2 different disks and it's beginning to get on my nerves. Stupid Highpoint card and stupid disks!

**directhex** · 22-03-2006, 08:52 PM

Originally Posted by lcf23_2000

Ah right, I thought you meant you got it from a UK ebayer. Any issues with customs or payment method?

no. they accidentally undervalued it by $300 or so on the customs declaration

**lcf23_2000** · 22-03-2006, 09:05 PM

Originally Posted by directhex

no. they accidentally undervalued it by $300 or so on the customs declaration

Thats a shame

, did they do this automatically for you or did you have to request it?

**arthurleung** · 22-03-2006, 09:08 PM

Originally Posted by lcf23_2000

Tell me about it, its happened twice this year with 2 different disks and it's beginning to get on my nerves. Stupid Highpoint card and stupid disks!

Its a lot better than the crappy SIL3114...
I'm not even raided and it managed to kill the dynamic volumes (all 4) on the disks just after a reboot.

P.S. I got 4x160 SATA and 8x300 SATA(1 pending RMA)

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