RAID controller card for SSD?

[darkblade]

Currently thinking of getting a pair of the new Intel X25 SSDs (or maybe OCZ V3) and running in RAID 0.
Current motherboard has onboard ICH9. Now, I've seen in a review that using a smaller stripe size increases performance but creates a higher CPU overhead - hence the thinking of going with a dedicated controller to maximise bandwidth and reduce CPU overhead.

I also plan to use an existing x2 RAID 0 RAM drive as a swap file.

Would something like a Dell PERC 5i be a good option here?

 

[doc]

If you have a recent Intel based motherboard with a ICHR10 RAID chip then I would just use that for the time being.

The reason being is that any new SSD's will cap out the capability of the processor on a current generation RAID card very quickly and you need to spend a lot of money to make the most of them.

Most good RAID cards use an Intel chip: http://www.intel.com/design/iio/index.htm

The current generation of Perc 5/i uses a IOP333 processor which can run at 800Mhz.
However, previous generations of the Perc 5/i ran at 400 or 500Mhz.

Experiments with the earlier SSD technology have demonstrated that a 400/500Mhz processor will cap out at just 3 drives and 800Mhz processors cap out at just 5 cards. The Intel SSD's speed have taken this to a new level and I would expect to take at least one drive off of these previous results.

If you do want to spend a lot on the RAID card to get the most out of the drives, you need to check up on the processor and get one based on at least the 800Mhz processor, ideally 1200Mhz. Also read the specs carefully since not all of the RAID cards run at the quoted speeds, just to add more confusion.

I haven't looked at mid range RAID cards for a while, but can thoroughly recommend the Adaptec ASR-5805 or the Areca 1280ML as good high end cards.