Adaptec 10PK SERIAL ATA RAID 2810SA ( 2083800 ) Review

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(More customer reviews)An Adaptec 2810SA SATA RAID controller SHOULD cost less that $200.00 (US) each) if for no reason that the limits listed below (And you can get MUCH better cards if you can go for more than $200.00 each).
I have several of these cards (2410SA, 2610SA, and 2810SA) and haven't had any real problems whatsoever! I love the controllers! Now the Seagate 1TB drives I have on them, well that's a WHOLE OTHER STORY!!! I only use 1TB drives on these controllers (See below) and usually run as RAID 5 with extra drives as HOT spares.
These controllers run on the larger PCI-X bus which is totally different than the PCI Express bus. The buses are physically different. The PCI-X bus has a much larger bus slot profile than the PCI Express and the buses are not interchangeable so make sure you get the right card for your bus. Check out the pictures of cards with both buses to see the physical difference.
Here are links to make things easier:
PCI-X
[...]
PCI Express
[...]
All that being said, this car is a bit older than other cards out there and HAS two MAJOR HARDWARE IMPOSED LIMITS.
First, a 2TB LIMIT to the total array size. This means that even if you load up the array with four (4) 1TB drives, you can't get more than a 2TB array out of it.
Second, a 1TB limit maximum on the hard disks that you can attach to the array and try to configure.
Now I have read on the internet that some folks have said that they've been able to have two (2) 2TB hard disks installed and mirrored, but I couldn't get that to work. They may be confused and have a newer adapter (2420SA, 2620SA, or 2820SA) as they don't have either of the above restrictions, and really should be the choice for anyone looking to create a large RAID array with the larger SATA drives available now.
I have installed these in Dell, HP/Compaq, IBM (eServers), and Intel rack mount servers with great results. They are VERY fast controllers (for the money) and do have some minor quirks (Check out the Adaptec support site and forums for the details) but they are very minor compared to the 24/7 365 days a year stability that they provide for our servers.
All in all this card allows someone to have a high quality hardware RAID for very little money. Just make sure your system has the PCI-X bus, and remember about the size limitations.


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Adaptec 2810SA RAID Serial ATA PCI 8-Ports 10-Pack 2083800. Product may differ from image shown.

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