Recommended RAID controller

[zwerdlds]

Hello;
I am in the process of building what will act as a HTPC and gaming PC for the house. Steam with high-end FPSs/XBMC/AirServer. You get the idea; Projected budget is ~$1k.

We are looking at i7 (LGA 1155) with 1 boot 128GB SSD (We have lots of office horror stories of failures >256 and 100% failure rate of 512s. That's my 2¢). I am currently looking at mass-mass-storage in the way of 1TB SATA III. I have a NAS at home and I really enjoy RAID 5's redundancy and size combination benefit. I am aware most are transitioning to RAID 6, but I am indifferent between the two.

Does anyone have a specific recommendation for a <$300 board with LGA 1155, good/simple RAID 5 or 6 support, HDMI, and at least 4 SATA III ports?

Do you recommend using a PCI card for this purpose? Which?

(EDIT: Host OS will be Win 7x64, but I'd prefer to be able to obfuscate the RAID from the OS: I've had bad experiences with Software RAID in the past.)

 

[FireWire2]

If you are looking for a decent hardware RAID, there is nothing compare to
SPM393-I as cost and performance.
http://www.amazon.com/multiplier-hardware-RAID0-CLONE-Controller/dp/B004JPUZWU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1351805551&sr=8-1&keywords=SPM393-i

But there are pro and con to it
Con
- Support only up to 5 drives
- There is no expansion feature
- Only goes as fast as 250MB/sec
Pro:
- Driver-less
- Independent from OS
- Only need SATA port
- Less then $100.00
- Support Multiple controllers

If you need a faster and eight drives then use ARECA hardware RAID