3ware 9650SE-4LPML 256MB PCI Express to SATA II RAID Controller

So I did a lot of research on PCIe RAID cards, and decided this card was a contender. In actual application, what you find out is that they use the WHOLE DISK for whatever RAID type you select. Arcane, and also an inexcusable thing to leave out of all documentation. So if you are like me, perhaps you do not necessarily want to commit all of your physical disk space to the overhead of a particular RAID type. Instead, you want to mix it up. You want to have a small 500 GB RAID 10 array for that really important data, and another RAID 0 Array for the data that needs to be super fast. You will not be able to do that with a 3WARE controller. Better look elsewhere. I found it with Adaptec's competing product. the 5405. OH, and Adaptec uses industry standard terms, where 3Ware feels the need to make up new terms. Their installer disk throws an error immediately on a 64 bit platform. Easy enough to deal with, but shows a lack of attention to the market. They're stuck in the 300GB disk days. Recommend you look elsewhere.

Check the SKU, for me, this was the retail SKU, so it comes with the SATA breakout cables. This is IMPORTANT because it is a proprietary cable that costs extra.The card and software seem reliable. The thing to know is that Hardware RAID may be more sensitive than software raid. Any flaky hard drives, such as those Seagate 7200.11 drives will cause your array to degrade. If 2 drop out at the same time, then you are in trouble.The card has some RAID migration utilities, it works very well. Also, you want to enable the write cache. I made it safe by buying an external UPS, otherwise, you need to buy the internal battery. Both are around the same price so why not protect the whole PC.With the write cache enabled, writing to it is very fast until the cache runs out, 64-256 MB?There is an open bug with the firmware as of this writing 4/26/2009. A timed out drive may remain timed-out forever but I'm not sure it is degrade level bug. look it up on the AMCC web site.RAID-6 is NOT available for this card, unfortunately, only on the models with more than 4 ports.

This 3Ware controller is great! Not only does it provide great RAID options, but it doesn't impede the speed of my hard drives. This controller gives me peace of mind, it runs quietly and cool...all the things one expects with a controller. But it also came with update CD and the customer service is great if you ever need them. And with the backup battery, you'll have no problems. I'd advise this controller for anyone looking to install a RAID on their system.My system:AMD 955 BE  AMD Phenom II X4 955 HDZ955FBGIBOX 3.2 GHz/6 MB L3/125W Processor Gigabyte 890FX- Gigabyte Socket AM3/AMD 890FX/SATA3&USB3.0/A&2GbE/ATX Motherboard GA-890FXA-UD5 3-WD R4 500GB w/64 cache--on  3ware 9650SE-4LPML 256MB PCI Express to SATA II RAID Controller 1-WD VelcoiRaptor 300GB w/32 cache2-WD Black 640GB1-bluray optic1-dvd writer/reader2- G.Skill Ripjaws F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL - Memory - 4 GB : 2 x 2 GB - DIMM 240-pin - DDR3 - 1600 MHz / PC3-12800 - CL9 - 1.5 V - unbuffered - non-ECC 750 PSU- Corsair CMPSU-750TX 750-Watt TX Series 80 Plus Certified Power Supply compatible with Intel Core i7 and Core i5 Windows 7 Ultimate 64

Comes with a cable... Amazon AI tricked me into ordering an extra cable. Seemed easy enough to setup. No driver disk but Windows Server 2016 found them. Now have a 3.64TB Raid 5 :D

Great RAID card, solved a problem with built-in RAID on a server.

Works as expected, simple firmware upgrade to allow management of 4tb drives.

use this constantly

I bought this card two years ago. For the money, I think it's a great raid solution. The setup is super easy; even though I'm relatively new to RAID, I managed to get it going on the first try. My system is using four Seagate 250 gig hard drives (also two years old). I'm getting on average a read throughput of > 300mbs using RAID 10. CPU usage is 0% with this card, as it is handling all the I/O as well as disk management.I did a lot of due diligence before I bought this card and from what I've noticed, professionals seem to like it very much (check out Newegg reviews). I didn't want to spend a small fortune on (what I thought would be) modest performance gains, which is why I chose this particular model. (The price hasn't come down one bit since I bought it either, which might be telling in itself.) Initially, I bought it because I wanted to have data security, but once I set it up in RAID 10, I saw a major difference in how quickly my computer began responding. Throughput went from 80mbs to over 300mbs. What's even better is that if any TWO of my disks fail in RAID 10, my data will not have been compromised and the machine will still work fine while I'm in the process of ordering new hard disks.What I like about it though, aside from easy setup and reliability is that it has excellent diagnostic tools. Plus, it does regular maintenance of the disks in order to check them for errors, bad sectors and so on. If there is a error detected, you can even set it up to notify you by email (obviously a professional consideration but cool nonetheless). A disk beginning to go bad will likely not catch me off guard unless it all of a sudden fails dramatically.According to the documentation, it's also possible to set up multiple arrays on this controller. In the near future, I intend to set up a 64GB SSD alongside a 3 disk RAID 0 (from what I've read, you don't gain much by using a 4th disk in RAID 0). The SSD will be my OS drive and the RAID 0 array will be for my data and the majority of my applications. The extra HD I'll have (after I switch my 4 disk RAID 10 to a 3 disk RAID 0) will be connected to the motherboard's I/O where I'll do automatic backups of important data. This should provide adequate protection for a home user like me. For the more ambitious, these cards can also be stacked and huge arrays created (RAID 50 and the like).Overall, this is a nice, reliable card that I've never encountered an issue with in over two years. I'm sure that other cards out there offer a faster on-board processor, more RAM or whatever and with higher throughput numbers to boot. All I can say to that is that I haven't used those cards. I've only used this one and have never regretted shelling out > $300 for it.Oh and one thing to caution a would-be user of this card. Be sure to check the web-based utility to see how many PCI lanes the card is using. It's supposed to use four. If it's not, then you have it plugged in to an incorrect PCI slot. You need (I think) an 8x or higher available in order to exploit this card's potential.