Feizhou spake the following on 6/8/2006 9:03 PM:
There was some nice performance comparison betwean linux compatible sata raid cards and areca performed really well. If my memory serves me well it was significantly faster then 3ware. Can't find the url now :(. So i have no arguments to support it now. But certainly areca it's worth a try.
ftp://ftp.areca.com.tw/RaidCards/Documents/Performance/ARC1120_Single_Card_Performance.pdf
This is their own benchmark I think for one of their PCIe cards.
ftp://ftp.areca.com.tw/RaidCards/Documents/Hardware/HWCompatibilityList_011706.pdf
They appear to do their own testing so things look positive for Areca I guess.
I am not sure that they are software raid implementations...if you ask me they look more like hardware raid cards. The adaptors ARC12xx all come with onboard memory, 128M for 4/8 port cards and a SO-DIMM slot that supports up to 1G for 12/16/24 port cards, which can also be battery backed-up.
This looks more like an alternative to 3ware and not to HP/Promise bios on an adapter 'raid' cards.
I have a promise SX6000 laying in a cabinet that is perfectly fine in Windows, but worthless in linux. Suprisingly, FreeBSD supports it fine, it just won't boot from it. It isn't even heavy enough for a boat anchor!