RAID controller replacement

mertesnmertesn I am Bobby MillerYukon, OK Icrontian

My RAID controller is on a quick path to death, so I'm looking at replacements. Most of the ones I'm looking at have an upgradeable cache. One card I'm looking at in particular comes with 512MB but can be upgraded as high as 4GB. Is there any actual benefit to maxing it out? My array is 12x3TB WD Red drives in RAID-6.

Comments

  • Performance. More cache means more data can be stored in faster to read and write temporary storage. Unless you're really doing a lot of high density I/O, (assuming this is a home use case) you probably don't need to max it out (or really add any additional cache to it for that matter).

    mertesn
  • mertesnmertesn I am Bobby Miller Yukon, OK Icrontian

    Ok, thanks. Yes, it's a home use case.

  • Mt_GoatMt_Goat Head Cheezy Knob Pflugerville (north of Austin) Icrontian

    1 GB is the max I would use for home use and that is actually overkill for or the task.

  • mertesnmertesn I am Bobby Miller Yukon, OK Icrontian

    I figured a huge cache wouldn't be a requirement. Its maximum load is one, sometimes two users. Now the challenge...the new controller supports up to 128 drives...

  • TushonTushon I'm scared, Coach Alexandria, VA Icrontian

    That's a cabling problem

  • mertesnmertesn I am Bobby Miller Yukon, OK Icrontian

    @Tushon said:
    That's a cabling problem

    I know little to nothing about SAS (just a lack of research), except that for each internal port I can connect four SATA drives. The controller has six internal SFF-8087 ports and one external SFF-8088 port.

  • Holy crap, that's a big card. Seems like overkill for home use. What model did you buy?

    Also, better make sure the card comes with enough fan-out cables for your use. Hate to get the card and find out that cables are not included.

  • mertesnmertesn I am Bobby Miller Yukon, OK Icrontian

    It's an Areca ARC-1680ix-24, replacing an Areca ARC-1230. Yes, there are enough cables. The guy I bought it from sent three and another three just arrived in the mail (for future expansion).

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