Good raid card for around $200?

[bluesherpa]

Any recommendations on the best performing raid controller compatible with ESXi that would cost around $200? I'm looking for something tht supports hardware raid 5 and has on board cache. I keep trying to pick cards, make sure they're on the HCL, etc.. There are so many options to choose from that it's hard to know which one to pick.

Thanks

[lk5246]

do you want vmware esxi to show health stats for the raid card if so you could look at some of the 3ware cards their pretty good what type of system are you using.

Thanks

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[bluesherpa]

Is it a choice between health stats or higher performance? Is there a

specific 3ware card that you have in mind?

I'll be installing ESXi for the first time, so I'm not sure how

important raid card health stats are.

My system - Intel DG965WH motherboard, Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 2.4GHz,

6gigs of ram, 4x Seagate 2TB drives. I might also try to pick up a

gigabit nic that supports jumbo frames.

How do I award points?

[lk5246]

do you wish to use sata or scsi please let me know so i get your the right raid card

[bluesherpa]

Thanks for the clarification - SATA II

[lk5246]

Here a specific raid card that is SATA Adaptec 2410SA that will work with esxi 3.5 in raid 5 i'm not sure if its sata 2 but it won't really make any diffrent.you can pick up one of these cards from eBay under $100 or little bit more. the only problem is that ESXi won't be able to monitor the raid card it should be fine away. i'm using this card and it's great

Thanks

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[bluesherpa]

I think I just noticed something that might be a problem... When the

cards say PCI Express Lanes... 1, 4, 8, etc.... Does that mean that my

motherboard needs a PCI Express 1X, 4X, or 8X port? The motherboard

I'm using right now has 1 x16 and 3 x1... Guess that's going to limit

me a lot if that's the case - almost makes me wonder whether I should

just upgrade the motherboard.

On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 5:25 PM, Ed Lazor

[lk5246 · Accepted solution]

dam sorry i didn't ask you that before. since you system is a whitebox you will trouble becuase of the slot what you could.i have system which i don't use raid 5 but i backup vms using a program to my nfs server then from my nfs server the hard drive are in raid 5 which they are mirror