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EvvRay
Contributor
Contributor

SATA Adapter with Raid Support that just works

Hi,

I have a Dell Poweredge 1600SC Dual XEON server. This is not for a production environment so it just needs to work, not neccessarily be supported. The Server has a 64-bit 100 MHz PCI-X slot, which I assume would give me the best bandwidth.

I need to run two SATA drives in a mirrored set, and will not be using the systems current SCSI drives that currently work.

This for for my development system at home so it needs to be reliable and work, but not have to be "supported" for tech support.

Whats a cheap adapter that ESXi will run on that is relatively inexpexive and can support two SATA drives in a mirror?

Thanks!

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asatoran
Immortal
Immortal

I picked up this one from BestBuy. PNY P-DSA150-PCI-RF. Its standard PCI and there's a PCI-Express one. The PCI one worked on a whitebox for ESX 3.5 and ESXi. (I did not try the PCI Express one.) Performance does not appear to be very good, but I only had this installed on some older motherboards and I only had some Intell 100Mb NICs, so I don't have any performance figures for the SATA controller specifically. But it is cheap and does have minimal hardware RAID1. I have had it running for a few months now. Definitely I would not use this for production, but I am not going to complain for $30. Smiley Happy

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Formatter
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Try this its supported and everyone said it works.

Oppsi thats the Net card sorry..ill see if I can get the sata raid numbers.

Silicon Image 3512 PCI SATA

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keying
Contributor
Contributor

FYI, unfortunately, the PCI Express version of this card is based on the SiI 3132 which is neither supported nor working in ESXi.

Other OEM versions of the SiI 3132 PCI Express card that I've found are:

  • Belkin F5U251

  • SIIG SC-SAE012-S2

I guess this is a function of the Silicon Image cores which are:

For PCI Express users, the only cores available are 3132 and 3531 Smiley Sad

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