RE: RAID recommendations?

["Ian Lowe" <ian.lowe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I have had bad experiences in the past with Highpoint controllers
(embedded motherboard > ones that is), and I know a few other people
have in the past as well... - however, it   > may well be the case that
things have improved since I last used a Highpoint controller, > so what
I'm really most interested in is personal experiences (good or bad),
that might > help sway my decision...

They certainly have - not least of all, the firmware/driver sets have
improved enormously.

I'm using the (very much maligned and misunderstood) RocketRaid 404, an
8 Channel IDE (ie, not SATA) version, and since getting the firmware
sorted out (I also switched OS, twice, from red hat to SBS2003, to good
ole NT4, but I consider the firmware upgrade to be the defining point
where it all worked reliably)

As a previous generation of the card you are looking at, it has provided
sterling service - I really couldn't have asked for more. None of the
sexy stuff like expanding the array once built, but a nice stable array
controller with good recoverability - I have lost a single drive in a
raid 5 set, and it rebuilt flawlessly (I know that's what it is
*supposed* to do, but actually seeing it work was still a good thing!)

Let me know how you get on Paul - I'm thinking of building a new media
server from scratch, and that controller sounds like a real nice find.

Ian.