"f" == franki franki@htmlfixit.com

f> My main wholesaler sells Adaptec stuff, and I can get this f> one: f> http://www.techbuy.com.au/products/34526/I_OCARDS_HARDDRIVECONTROLLERS/Adapt...

f> For $450 it is a 4 port controller and has onboard 64MB ECC f> cache.

I have one of these (it's in my mirror box).

It's okay. It's not stunning, and I lost the array once (due to a bad drive and loose connectors more than the card). It runs under CentOS 3 without special drivers, but Adaptec also has some driver software (not sure whether it's newer or not -- it's ``minimally tested'' according to them).

I also have an Adaptec 1210SA (two-port SATA), which is running under Debian with a custom kernel as I couldn't get it working (at all) under CentOS at the time I was building the machine. That card is a complete POS -- forget about hardware RAID, but it works okay with software RAID.

If I had it to do over again, I would definitely go with 3Ware cards over the Adaptec cards. What you might save in money isn't worth the hassle.

Claire