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Adaptec SERIAL ATA RAID 1210SA KIT ( 2015000 ) | List Price: $75.00
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Platform: Linux
Brand: Adaptec
Binding: Electronics
Warranty: 3 years warranty
Features: - Cost-effective storage connectivity and data protection
- 2-port native Serial ATA RAID controller
- 48-bit LBA supports drive sizes larger than 137GB
- Low-profile form design
- Bootable array support
Works easily out of the box with XP but not full-featured [Posted on 2007-01-28]
Despite a negative experience with the PATA version of this RAID controller (Adaptec 1200), I thought I'd give the SATA version (1210) a try.
Unlike the 1200, the 1210's drivers did install without any trouble and my system was able to boot from the RAID. However, I think the users tech-saavy enough to seek out an add-in RAID card will find the controller lacking in features.
I found three disappointments with this controller:
1) The inability to break a RAID mirror to make a "normal" disk. The 1200 (PATA version) had this feature, which removes the RAID mirror headers and makes the disk usable outside of the 1210 environment.
2) Very slow rebuild times that can't be done in the background. Mirroring a 3GB/s 250GB drive took upwards of 4, maybe 5 hours, and it can't be done in the background (it sits at firmware while doing that).
3) Connectors for only 2 drives.
Adaptec also seems to abandoned this consumer line of RAID controllers, with the last BIOS and driver updates for this model being several years old. Newer driver updates have notes to the effect that they were not tested fully, which doesn't give me a lot of confidence in entrusting my data to this hardware.
Instead of using this unit, I plan to instead get the much more expensive (about 4-6 times more) professional model of SATA RAID controller from Adaptec, which also has the benefit of supporting a larger number of drives.
For mirroring a non-boot disk on a personal workstation, this is probably an ok choice. If you're depending on this controller to make your workstation more reliable with a higher uptime, you may be disappointed.
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