Which 4 channel SATA RAID card???

[arkus]

Ok, i have been lucky enough to receive:

4* WD Raptor 36gb
2* WD Caviar 120gb

All SATA

My mobo (MSI GNB Max) supports 2 SATA drives, so I intend to put the Caviars on there, but I want to put the 4 Raptors in RAID 10 on a card.

I'm in the UK, so prices are high and availability is crap compared to the US. 3Ware and Silicon Image cards are coming in at around £300/$540, which is way outta my price range, and they seem pretty difficult to get hold of too.

From what I can tell, the two options open to me are the Highpoint 1640 (£80/$145) and Promise FasTrak S150 SX4 (£150/$270). Is the Promise card worth the extra cash? And from what I can tell it needs extra memory too, right? Would the Highpoint card be fine considering I'm using pretty fast drives??

Any advice or help appreciated!

 

[sjonnie]

I'd go with the Highpoint card, especially as you can't get a decent price on that Promise card, they're about the same price in the US. Promise cards can also have compatibility problems when running multiple RAID arrays in the same machine. Not to mention the Highpoint drivers tend to be better and give you Linux support if you want it.

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