Customer Reviews

Adaptec 2258100-R 5405 RAID 4-Channel SATA/SAS 256MB PCI-Express Kit

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Very easy to install and setup on Asus P5KC workstation.
CD Rom for Driver did not read,and could not make driver disk.In Vista Installation,Vista found driver after looking down into the AM64 file folder, no need to make a driver disk. I installed in "middle"
PCIx slot, which made a difference for other installers.
Came with cable kit, clear instructions for installation,
and fast and reliable.

This is a great RAID controller. It's a bit pricey, but if you need a high performance RAID 5 controller, there aren't many solid options. Setup is quick. Compared to the built Intel RAID that I was using previously this card is about 2x as fast for read and write operations. The Intel RAID was nearly unusable during a rebuild, this card continues to provide excellent performance rebuild or not. Only gripe is the price.

I recently built a file server and was going back and forth about whether or not I wanted to use the motherboard's on-board RAID or get this card instead. I ended up deciding to purchase this controller card instead of using the on-board, and I am very glad I did.


If you're not familiar with dedicated RAID controllers, the first thing to understand is that they're not like the on-board solutions; there's a reason this costs more than your motherboard. On-board RAID solutions are typically just a chip with I/O logic for the array, and pass on the processing duty to the CPU. If you're just setting up a RAID 0 array this isn't as much of an issue since it's not that intensive.


However, the problem with this is that any system glitch can possibly result in read/write errors on the array since the system itself is managing it.


What a high-end RAID controller such as this Adaptec 5405 though, the controller card has an on-board processor that manages the array itself, drastically improving reliability and in almost every case, performance.


I connected two 1.5TB Seagate ST31500341AS drives and created a RAID 1 array for my data storage. I installed Vista Home Premium x64 on a separate 750GB Seagate which I connected directly to the motherboard.
After creating the array I copied most of my data from my desktop (Vista Ultimate x64) to the array over my 1Gbps network (see the images for a screen shot of the transfer). The transfer speed is incredible, the sustained write speed to the RAID 1 array stayed within 89-94MB/s.


I should note that this was with a high quality gigabit network switch (HP ProCurve 1800-G) and you're not likely to get consistently fast transfers over a cheaper (think sub ~$100) gigabit switch.

This card is for people who want serious disk performance.

It delivers!

I have a pair of RAID-1 arrays on the card. One is SSD based and the other is rotating magnetic platters. Windows 7 boots very quickly, faster than anything in recent or even ancient memory. Compiles rip, database access no longer involves waits, and virtual machines come out of hibernation with minimal delay.

Caveats:
1. It wants airflow. My system has a fan blowing at just the right spot, but I added some ducting to make sure it got the air it needs.

2. The controller can take longer to boot than the rest of the system. Depending on how I boot or reboot, this can add a delay. It doesn't always happen on every boot.

So far the Adaptec RAID controller has really impressed me with its performance, but only after the struggles to get it working. At first, I thought it wasn't going to be compatible with my system (Asus M2M SLI Motherboard). I had plugged the PCIe x8 RAID controller into the motherboard's second PCIe x16 slot, and while I expected it to work, the computer wouldn't boot until I had upgraded the BIOS. Always fun!

Once the controller was properly installed and the BIOS supported it, I plugged in the disks and got ready for fun. More problems arose as I tried to use Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 disks for the array. Be careful when you're shopping for a proper RAID controller or hard disks - make sure they are supported. Mine were, but only after a firmware update. Before that, they were dropping out of the array and causing the incredibly annoying RAID alarm to go off (its equivalent to a smoke detector).

ESX/ESXi and windows support is good, although the management (at this point) is limited to Windows (and probably Linux, too). So right now I don't know if my disks are working or down without rebooting the system. There are lots of LEDs to give you an indication of what's happening, although you'll be hard pressed to figure out what they mean.

Pros: fast performance, enterprise-like RAID configuration options, good insight to disk health in the BIOS and Windows management.

Cons: management software limited to Windows, Linux (for now), documentation is terrible, website is poor.

I am using this product as it is an inexpensive raid card. Remember that you get what you pay for. I know that raid 0 is fast for reads and writes but offers no protection. Raid 5 is slow for writing because of parity work. The Raid 1 (mirror) configurations I have used in the past are fast as they are merely performing IO twice and not doing a lot of parity work.

So I reasoned that raid 10 (a combination of 0 and 1) wouldn't be too bad. The data is critical so that's why the mirror and the four spindles would give me a good read speed. The reading is fine but the write speeds are just awful. The first 200 meg or so of writing goes quickly and then I assume there is a buffer that fills up. After that, you can get old waiting for things to happen. I am running several virtual machines and if they have to do any serious writing then the whole system bogs down. It's like trying to throw a ball while your hand is underwater. If you get the card just go with mirrors unless your data trickles in. Then you can use raid 5. You'll get more space.

It's a great raid 0 card if you don't mind giving up protection for speed, i.e. for a gaming system.