[dba-SQLServer] Raid controller

I purchased an Areca 1220 SATA 8 disk raid controller, with (7) Seagate 10.1
320 gb hard disks to create a raid system with.  One of the disks was
damaged and had to be RMAd.  I went ahead and created a Raid 5 array using
the 6 remaining drives.  This gave me about 1.0 terra bytes on one volume
and about 370 gb on another volume, both Raid 5.  I just received the RMAd
drive back, popped it in, added it to the array and told the controller to
convert to Raid 6 for both volumes.  That was early this afternoon, and the
controller has finished the conversion of the large array to Raid 6 and is
about 50% finished converting the smaller array to Raid 6, all consuming
ZERO CPU and doing so while I was using the arrays pretty heavily.  The
controller is also very fast.  Raid 5/6 writes are about the speed of the
individual drives and reads are much faster (~raid 0 speed according to
Areca)
 
These disks are about $95 from Newegg and can be purchased with free
shipping if you keep your eyes open so that is a real $95 / disk.  This
particular controller is currently about $500.  This made my actual cost
about $1200 for 1400gb in a Raid 6 config.  
 
Someday I hope that the Seagate 10.1 750 gb drives drop into this price
range in which case I will upgrade.  ATM those drives are about $375-$400
each which makes them out of my range.
 
I am impressed with this Areca controller which is the point of this email.
Areca makes controllers that handle various numbers of disks.  The
controller uses a PCI-X8 connection to the CPU so you must have a PCI-X
capable motherboard.
 
If you need more disks, they also have a 12, 16 and 24 disk controller, for
more money of course.
 
Nice controller so far!
 
John W. Colby
Colby Consulting
www.ColbyConsulting.com