LSI 93xx or Adaptec 8405/8805/8885?
- Thread starter awedio
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My bigger question is what PMC Sierra will do now with the HP SmartArray business and Adaptec. It would seem logical if they were to rationalize both to a single platform. I would imagine that the SmartArray side has much bigger business.
I primarily use LSI controllers because they are the ubiquitous building block. Dell, IBM, Fujitsu, Lenovo, Cisco, Supermicro, Oracle and etc all use LSI controllers so support tends to be very good.
I have heard good things about Adaptec performance and their move to larger 16-drive architectures in the 7-series was nice.
I primarily use LSI controllers because they are the ubiquitous building block. Dell, IBM, Fujitsu, Lenovo, Cisco, Supermicro, Oracle and etc all use LSI controllers so support tends to be very good.
I have heard good things about Adaptec performance and their move to larger 16-drive architectures in the 7-series was nice.
The 12G LSI Adaptec and LSI controllers are both beasts, but I'm sticking with LSI. LSI has a history of reliability for me, and the new Adaptec cards don't provide a performance advantage that would tempt me to switch. See: LSI MegaRAID SAS3 9361-8i 12Gb/s RAID Controller Review
I've had nothing but good luck since choosing to go with LSI parts. HBAs, Raid, Expanders, etc, all highly compatible.
To be fair it is all quite dated now and probably not super relevant, but prior experience with Marvell, Adaptec and 3Ware was mixed and troublesome.
I do admit that the just released Adaptec/PMC-Sierra SAS3 expander looks very promising and cost-effective, even at brand-new prices ($435 list, slightly lower street). And I believe (but havent't yet confirmed) that SuperMicro is using the PMC-Sierra chip rather than LSI in their new SAS3 expander backplanes.
Adaptec by PMC | Adaptec 12Gb/s SAS Expander Card
To be fair it is all quite dated now and probably not super relevant, but prior experience with Marvell, Adaptec and 3Ware was mixed and troublesome.
I do admit that the just released Adaptec/PMC-Sierra SAS3 expander looks very promising and cost-effective, even at brand-new prices ($435 list, slightly lower street). And I believe (but havent't yet confirmed) that SuperMicro is using the PMC-Sierra chip rather than LSI in their new SAS3 expander backplanes.
Adaptec by PMC | Adaptec 12Gb/s SAS Expander Card
I'd hope by SAS3 we've got something interoperable. But we had hard to figure out driver issues with Adaptec 7'ers so we made the decision to LSI.
I know this is an old thread but I always search for Adaptec reviews in Google and came across this thread.
The ONLY reason I stay away from LSI is they don't allow mixing of raid types on a given set of disks. I hope that some here will understand why I like and use this feature on my non LSI raid cards (all other brands support this, and I've been through some long threads on other message boards arguing why I like and use this feature)
I love having the ability to break up my 36 hdds anyway I see fit and to be able to change the layout at a later date if I need. With LSI it's an all or nothing config in terms of disk groups.
I like being able to take 8x 3tb enterprise hdds and having a large raid 5 , a large raid 6 and a small raid0 . On the 5 I can store items that are easily replaceable and seldom accessed , I can backup to the raid6 with decent trust/confidence, and I also have a fast , small raid 0 for temp vm s or video editing scratch disk. All awhile having the performance of 8x drives for all 3 raid types (plus large array sizes/capacity ). I know there are some risks but Why won't LSI allow this
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To accomplish the "same" on LSI I either need 24 disks or with the same 8 disks I have to sacrifice flexibility/ capacity / or performance.
Maybe I have a unique use case , but recently when upgrading my storage system I bought all LSI , (upgrading from older Adaptec and arcea). Only to be severely disappointed to learn through trial that LSI doesn't allow mixing raid types ( I just assumed LSI did) . I had to sell all the LSI cards + expanders and went with Adaptec 8 and Intel expanders and have not had any issues or complaints in over a year of running.
The ONLY reason I stay away from LSI is they don't allow mixing of raid types on a given set of disks. I hope that some here will understand why I like and use this feature on my non LSI raid cards (all other brands support this, and I've been through some long threads on other message boards arguing why I like and use this feature)
I love having the ability to break up my 36 hdds anyway I see fit and to be able to change the layout at a later date if I need. With LSI it's an all or nothing config in terms of disk groups.
I like being able to take 8x 3tb enterprise hdds and having a large raid 5 , a large raid 6 and a small raid0 . On the 5 I can store items that are easily replaceable and seldom accessed , I can backup to the raid6 with decent trust/confidence, and I also have a fast , small raid 0 for temp vm s or video editing scratch disk. All awhile having the performance of 8x drives for all 3 raid types (plus large array sizes/capacity ). I know there are some risks but Why won't LSI allow this
. To accomplish the "same" on LSI I either need 24 disks or with the same 8 disks I have to sacrifice flexibility/ capacity / or performance.
Maybe I have a unique use case , but recently when upgrading my storage system I bought all LSI , (upgrading from older Adaptec and arcea). Only to be severely disappointed to learn through trial that LSI doesn't allow mixing raid types ( I just assumed LSI did) . I had to sell all the LSI cards + expanders and went with Adaptec 8 and Intel expanders and have not had any issues or complaints in over a year of running.
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