Best RAID Card

[Tweaker]

Looking for a RAID card to replace my onboard controller, currently using RAID 5 on ICH10R. Any cards that are ROC, RAID 5 and have 4 ports?

 

[JoeFX69]

Can the lovely peeps who reply to the OP also briefly explain the benefits/advantages of running a dedicated RAID card please? Ta

 

[adsyf]

lsi 9260-4i (or 8i if you may want to increase beyond 4 drives without an expander)

Benefits are typically faster speed + off loading calculations from cpu. Onboard cache means writes can be super quick (when smaller than the cache). Also write advantages can be protected with battery backup in case of power failure.

Example speed benefits. I've seen ssd users get close to 2GB/sec sequential read speed using the lsi 9260-8i. The ICH10R tops out at 600MB/secs. Also with the fastpath key I've seen close to 300K/sec 4k random reads!

 

[Tweaker]

That is a bit more than i wanted to pay, speed is not really a bit issue for me, is there anything cheaper, i only need 4 ports.

 

[AbsenceJam]

That's a normal price for a hardware RAID card unless you get a Dell PERC.

 

[jellybeard999]

Why do you want a dedicated card? In most home uses, there is little to justify the cost.