RAID and WD EADS HDDs (green series)

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The Adaptec 5805 is a $600 adapter, so keep in mind that you need to check out all the capabilities of a card if you should choose a less expensive solution. This is just one of those things where you get what you pay for. I know several of the cheaper raid adapters can only handle whats connected to them. If its within your budget.. the 5805 is a very good way to go!

Hmm, good to know, and I'll definitely get something along those lines later on down the road, but for now I think I'm just gonna go with software RAID. Given my current budget, I think it's just the best option for now.

[haha49]

The Adaptec 5805 is a $600 adapter, so keep in mind that you need to check out all the capabilities of a card if you should choose a less expensive solution. This is just one of those things where you get what you pay for. I know several of the cheaper raid adapters can only handle whats connected to them. If its within your budget.. the 5805 is a very good way to go!

its cheaper to get a new mb my dad resently got one with 8 sata ports and it can do 2 seprate raids for 150.. thats a better deal.. if I was to drop 600 on a raid controller id be building a new pc and saying screw it time for upgrade to top of the line... thats usally how it goes for me every 6 months computer is to slow upgrade

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Hey all, in case anyone was wondering how this went, I ended up going with md software RAID in Linux, and the EADS drives are doing beautifully. I actually also have two Samsung F2's in there as well since they're the sweet spot now, and even mixing drives, everything seems to working just fine.

Right now I'm running:
Celeron E1400 (Core 2 architecture, just slower clock and less L2; fine for what I'm doing)
2GB DDR2-667 PNY RAM (cheapest 2GB DDR2 set at MicroCenter, and I didn't feel like waiting a couple days for NewEgg to deliver)
16GB CF card hooked up through:
CF->laptop IDE
laptop IDE->full IDE
IDE->SATA
yay for combining way too many adapter
now the fun part:
mid-range 4-port PCI SIIG SATA card
Debian 5.0 running madam:
md RAID-5 across:
1) 1.5TB Samsung F2
2) 1.5TB WD Green
3) 1.5TB Samsung F2
4) 1.5TB WD Green

Well, actually the fourth drive isn't fully integrated yet...I just got the array built over the weekend, and after shuffling my data around (only had ~3TB ), I got the second 1.5TB WD Green hooked up last night and set it to expanding the array. You know you're doing something either very right or very wrong when you start a process and it tells you it has 1800 minutes left.

So...that should be done by the time I wake up tomorrow.