Great Article,
I was shocked to see the Areca controller score much lower in all raid configs at iometer in all patterns (file server/web server/database/workstation) except streaming i/o then the new Adaptec and LSI logic and to a lesser degree the AMCC.
Note that Areca has a new one (the ARC-1680ix) that has a 1.2GHz IOP 348 instead of the 800MHz on the previous model (the ARC-1680) so that one will probably get the Areca on the same level as Adaptec/LSI/AMCC.
Areca, I really don't like a small fan on such expensive cards, we used to have that crap on cheap mainboards that would die in a couple of years because of fan failure. So Arcea get us passive cooling, for these prices we expect the best!
Very interesting is that (at least in the Netherlands) most LSI Raidcontrollers are also available as Intel branded for a lower price.
Instead of the LSI MegaRAID SAS 8888ELP you could buy the Intel SRCSASJV for less and get 512MB cache instead of the 256MB of the LSI one.
If you need only internal connectors getting the LSI MegaRAID SAS 8708 instead of the 8888 would be intersting since its much cheaper and is the same hardware except it has 128MB cache.
The Intel version of the 8708 is the SRCSASRB which is also cheaper and gets you 256MB cache.
In the review's comparison table the above 4 controllers miss the "XOR-engine" column and Netware 6.5 should be added as supported OS on the LSI SAS controller (the driver was released later so its not listed in LSI PDF's)
I compiled some pricing for these controllers in the Netherlands in Euro's including 19% tax because the prices here are sometimes quite different from the US.
AMCC 3Ware 9690SA-8I € 489.-
Adaptec RAID 3805 € 415.-
Adaptec RAID 5805 € 485.-
Areca ARC-1680ix-8 € 699.-
Atto ExpressSAS R348 € 819.-
ICP Vortex ICP5085BL € 795.-
Intel SRCSASRB € 475.-
Intel SRCSASJV € 685.-
LSI MegaRAID SAS 8708ELP € 515.-
LSI MegaRAID SAS 8888ELP € 839.-
It seems Adaptec has the best/price performance at the moment, while Atto ICP-Vortex and LSI have the worst price/performance ratio.