More Serial RAID Controllers from AMCC, Areca, LSI

It would be really cool if you had included pricing of these controllers, or maybe I missed it?

Also if you included RAID 0 why didn't you include RAID 1 benchmarks? For the server sector only RAID5 and 6 matter anyways.

Also curious how these stack up against controllers coming on motherboards these days, I'm guessing they're better unless you fork out the money for a Tyan beast of a motherboard...

Performance I/O sec comparisons are great, but there are a lot more important things (IMHO) that can make or break a RAID controller:

How long (time) to rebuild an array?

Was data integrity maintained during an...

-Online Capacity Expansion?

-RAID Level Migration ?

-Power Failure? (Perhaps even a power failure during an OCE or RLM???)

Where is the array information kept? (NVRAM, Disk, or both)

What happens when you simulate a controller failure by replacing it with an identical controller card that has never seen this array?

What happens to the array if the replaced controller has a different firmware version compared to the previous controller?

I would love to see Tom's Hardware step up to the challenge and delve deeper into RAID Controllers. I've seen what your group can do with power supply reviews.

I have to concur with Evil_Overlord on this. I was expecting a bit more details on test scenarios.

Also, why just I/O Ops/sec for benchmarks ? I would have liked to see some different ways of measuring perf on these cards.

I also agree with Evil_Overlord. We need more information about these controllers.

The joke in the part about the LSI controller remembering bad disks is nice. If you pull out the wrong drive from a damaged RAID array (so you have actualy 2 missing disks will be the end of your raid unless you are running the advanced 6+ RAID modes or you have a larger RAID 1 array and pull the correct disk.

Actualy the realy good raid controllers remember the removed disk for 1 minute or so, so you can put it back and the array will do as nothing happened.