RAID card support

[rwestCHA]

I'm having a heck of a time with ESX4i and a Dell branded Adaptec controller. It's an Adaptec 2960 6-port SATA card which worked well with an old underpowered system running ESX3.5. Under ESX4, the card just seems to fall all over itself. I've found through searching that the card is no longer recommended for ESX, so I find myself wondering what else I could use.

I was considering going to an ASUS M3N78-VM, which has 5 on-board sata ports, but I have seen on the communities that this won't work as I would like it to. I thought of going off of ebay and picking up a compatible 3Ware card, but I have read about other troubles on that front.

Is there one that won't break the budget that doesn't have issues? I'm tempted to just go the NFS route as that might be easier in the long run.

[microkid]

Try a Dell Perc 5/i or 6/i or HP P400. They work fine and are not expensive. I picked up my Perc 5/i with 2 cables and battery for 160 euros at ebay.

[J1mbo]

PERC 5i is a good choice IMO - needs fan cooling though. 8 drives, SAS or SATA, 512MB BBWC available v. cheaply as said, 300MB/s.

[microkid]

I installed a 40mm fan on it and keep it quiet with a old Zalman Fanmate :smileyhappy:

[TimPhillips]

Here you can find list of compatible with ESX 4.0 hardware controllers, but I would advice you to use software for implementing RAID arrays. As for me the best choice is Starwind - it`s flexible, powerful and robust software iSCSI target. It`s only MY IMHO, I`m not working for Starwind as you can think :smileyhappy: The best in software RAID - you don`t depend of hardware controllers.

Tim.