Need a decent SAS RAID (5/6) card for 1U server

[n_K]

So I've got a Dell 2950 and a HP dl160 G6...

My idea was to move my lovely PERC6/i from the dell to the HP... And wow, I've had a morning of utter ****. The cable on the card basically means it'll never fit into a HP dl160, which really has annoyed me.

So I'm open to suggestions of possible RAID cards, it must support RAID 5/6 and have a battery backup and a cache of at least 256MB, it must also fit into a HP dl160 server and support SAS at 6Gbps. The server came with a bog-standard p410i card without a cache or battery backup, and I tried it with one drive. Transfer speeds were totally dire at a whopping 9MBps maximum and I'm not paying ?180 for a pathetic little card with 256MB of memory and a backup battery, and reading the reviews of it on the net, everyone seems to say it sucks anyway.

(Oh and if possible, a cheap card! Not made of money and it won't be commercially used/making me money).

Any ideas?

[+Fahim S. MVC]

The cable on the card basically means it'll never fit into a HP dl160, which really has annoyed me.

Can't you just get a longer cable?

[n_K]

What I mean is, the cable connects to the top of the card, and so the card won't physically fit into the case, so I'd need to for example cut a huge chunk out the case to make it fit :(

[Kelxin]

It would be cheaper / easier to get a new case and or motherboard (if the old motherboard is a proprietary one that only fits in that case) if that card is doing exactly what you want.

[+Fahim S. MVC]

What about a cable with an elbow?

Or you could look at something like an LSI unit?

You could get an IBM rebadge, but it's not going to come cheap...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/IBM-ServeRAID-M5015-49Y3719-267358-/180947766010?pt=UK_Computing_ComputerComponents_InterfaceCards&hash=item2a2153cafa#ht_3100wt_1139

I have the no memory/no battery equivalent to this card (M1015) and am quite happy with it.

[n_K]

I only just got the server, it's a HP DL160 G6, 1U. I'm not going to get a whole new case for it :s.

Well yes it is doing what I want but basically the only option is to get a smaller SAS RAID card for it. I've ordered a cheap-skate PCI riser with a flexi-cable and will see if I can shove it somewhere and have the cable on top so it doesn't short out on the case.

Humm that serveRAID does look nice and looks like it'll fit... But the absense of RAID 6 for that price is unbelievable insane.

[+Fahim S. MVC]

You need the advanced feature key (to the tune of another ?100) to get RAID 6 and 60.

[Kelxin]

Case = 60 - 150

New DECENT SAS card = 200 - 3000

If its your hands doing the work, the case is much cheaper (and will give you more breathing room in the future if you want to fill it with drives). Only takes me between 30 - 60 minutes to swap out everything from one case to another.

[+Fahim S. MVC]

I thought rack-mount servers had really heavily customised motherboards that didn't really fit anywhere else?

[n_K]

I'll be using 3 drives normally and maybe 4 drives, I don't have/need more than 4 drives.

And no the case isn't going to be cheaper.

Say it's ?150 for the case, then it'll need replacement heatsinks because the airflow won't exist so that's ?50 per heatsink (?100)

Then there's having to get fans for the heatsinks, and modifying them to fit the (odd) 5 pin connectors on the motherboard, probably ?30.

Then there's trying to solve the problem of the motherboard probably running the fans all at full speed because it'll have less fans so will think 1 or more have failed, which isn't just incredibly noisy/annoying but uses a TONNE more power, the alert light will be flashing constantly too, and the RAM might overheat.

So that'd be ?280 for a case, heatsinks, fans and probably an extra ?100/year for the increase in power.

EDIT: Also, rofl, what SAS RAID card is ?3000?