Im after a raid 5 or raid6 card. Preferably one that has a decent XOR engine so the CPU doesn't have to do extra work. Im after at least a 4 port card (raid 5) but certainly wouldn't mind an 8 drive (raid6) card if there is decent support.

The array will be 90% media files, not updated often so write speed isn't a massively important factor.

I have a couple of PCI slots, a 16x PCIE and a 1PCIE slot that could be used.

Anyone have any suggestions?

ps. i dont want to spend more than $700US on the card, if it comes down to it the AMD x2 4600@2800Mhz will be able to crunch the data if a decent hardware card is too expensive.

I can recommend 3ware/amc raid controllers. I've been running a 8506-8 for about a year now without any hiccups. driver is included in the kernel (at least suse), web monitoring-tool has never crashed, sends emails... hard to beat.

they've got several pci / pci-e / pci-x sata 2 controllers. 95xx series.
pure hardware raid. cpu load is almost zero, no matter what i do.

Considering your usage model of mostly static data files, are you sure that RAID5 is right for you?

Problem with hardware RAID-6 controllers is finding the brand that supporta all kernel versions. 3ware will be my first and only choice to have the freedom of upgrading the kernel. Buy a model with ECC cache, so data can be more consistent. When running any kind of RAID, it is best to have one or more hot spares (hard drives that are stand-by and ready for action). You probably want to go for 12-ports.

TIP:
Turn off the cache of all hard drives in the array or else you are going to have inconsistent data.

BTW, you still need to do backups. Higher the capacity, harder it is to backup.

When i first read your post im like there always one in the crowd. Than i started thinking in this scenario do i need RAID at all?

Do i need higher performance than possible with a single drive? NO
Do i need high availability/fault tolerance? NO
Do i need large amounts of contiguous disk space? Not really

As stubborn as i am i looked online for 8 port 3ware controllers. An 8port 3ware card (9650SE-8LPML) is $935-$1055AUD. To put that in perspective i bought a couple of 500Gb SATA drives for $225each a week ago. So it seems that in the last 18months HDD prices have decreased, space on those drives has increased and prices of raid cards have remained static.

I've come to the conclusion that I don't need to spend money on expensive RAID cards but on a proper data backup solution.

Previously RAID was my plan against hardware failure as i couldn't afford to backup all my data (Student) but i could afford the extra few drives for RAID, this is no longer the case. So off i go to find out whats the best backup solution

"When i first read your post im like there always one in the crowd. Than i started thinking in this scenario do i need RAID at all?


Glad I could help. I was actually thinking about RAID1 when I posted, but whatever works best, rather than a preconceived notion, eh?

Hard drives are the cheapest when backing up several hundred of gigabytes. I suggest buying a combo external enclosure that has IEEE-1394 (aka Firewire or i.Link) and USB. Use IEEE-1394 first because it has higher effective speed and it should not stall after a few gigabytes have been copied. Dual layer DVD rewritable mediums can also be used. If your rewritable optical drive supports packet writing, backups can be easier.

Setting up either LVM2 or EVMS can provide you with close to unlimited space.

3ware 8 port SATA controller should not cost near $1000. In the US, it costs a little over $500. An open box OEM 3ware 12 port SATA controller costs a little over $600.