Controller recommendation

[ojthecat]

I am building a server to use with Starwind Iscsi

Super micro server board with Intel Xeon E2650 cpu, 32 Gigs of Ram, 2 Intel gb nics, 2 Mirrored drives for the os (Server 2008r2) and 8 WD red 3tb drives for the Iscsi.
I will be using this to run about 8 Lightly used VM's on Xenserver.

The question I have is what controllers should I be looking at?
I would prefer to keep the cost down and don't mind getting an older one however I also don't want to kill the performance of the box by being too cheap.

Thanks
Robert

[anton (staff)]

With a StarWind recommendation to stick with RAID0/JBOD with a 3-way mirror virtually any controller should work (just try to avoid ARECA brand as it raises A LOT of questions).

If you'd use 2-way replica you'd better go with a RAID10 (before V8 will alllow to use parity RAIDs combined with LSFS) and it does require a good controller. I'd recommend to look at LSI familty (tons of OEMs for a reason).

[robnicholson]

We use LSI MegaRAIDs and they work well.

Cheers, Rob.

[Anatoly (staff)]

Hi ojthecat,

I hope that information that Anton and Rob provided you with was helpful and we will appreciate if you could keep us updated.

Thank you

[Anatoly (staff)]

Hi ojthecat,

I hope that information that Anton and Rob provided you with was helpful and we will appreciate if you could keep us updated.

Thank you