Help me pick a SCSI RAID Card.

[RamaV]

Looks like ive finally made up my dam mind about HDs, im gonna go either Atlas 10K II, or the Fujitsu MAJ..... 2X18 gig. Ill stat seriously shopping once i can figure one last thing out.....
Are there any reasonably priced Dual 160 channel RAID controller cards out there. And which ones would you all suggest..? Someone once mentioned a great link to a Mylex 3000 model, was VERY sweet, but also cost $1500 hehe. Anything even close to being remotely reasonable..? I do think dual channel 160 is important, so wanna stick with that criteria for now.
Looking forward to your suggestions, ideas,

Rama

" He who (BLEEPS) nuns, will later join the church " Joe Strummer, The Clash - "Death or Glory"

 

[Guest]

not really any of my business, but why do you want a dual channel card? do you need more than 15 devices or more than 160MB/s? it will take at least 3 super fast drives to hit this limit. you may already know this, but just to be sure 32bit pci slots have a max bandwidth of 133MB/s and won't even take advantage of a single channel u160 card. to fully take advantage of the 320MB/s you would need (in addition to lots of drives) a 64bit card running at 66mhz and a slot for it to fit into. generally these boards are EXPENSIVE. just something to consider. so anyway adaptec makes a dual card for about $650 and ATTO for about $550 and mylex makes a cheaper vesrion for about $650. the adaptec is 64bit 33mhz though and i think the atto is software raid. here are some links though... the atto gets a pretty good review at amdmb.com. don't have any first hand experience with any of them myself, but i've been thinking about getting one of these myself and this is what i've found so far.

http://www.amdmb.com/article-display.cfm?ArticleID=54&PageID=1

http://www.attotech.com/skits.html

http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/product/prodtechindex.html?cat=/Technology/RAID

http://www.mylex.com/products/index.html

 

[RamaV]

Good points~!
Im actually posting in the MB section about my search for 64 bit MBs. One of the prime reasons i want a dual 160 card is because i know im upgrading to a MB with 64 bit pci (im wating for that, as well as a DDR board i like..i cant wait to UG, my 1x AGP has kept me from UGing for years...but im being VERY patient.)
The other reason is yes, i do want max speed out of my drives. I do a boatload of multitasking, and work in online games, as well as web design..and the online games in particular are tasking on my system (especially when you keep switching form one to another). Couple it all together and hehe thats why im looking for high speeds. Add to that the fact that this coming UG, or rebuild will last me for a coupla years. Ill be starting with 2 drives, and most likely will get 2 more later on. If you want a laugh tho, look at the new Ultra 320 cards and drives coming out. Talk about your compatibility issues~! (Adaptec is already talking about the 320 cards, and IBM has a drive on the way)
I am going to look into again tho how the SCSI handles 32 bit PCI buses. I know its been addressed before but i have to lookup what i read. Ill let ya know

Rama

" He who (BLEEPS) nuns, will later join the church " Joe Strummer, The Clash - "Death or Glory"