I plan to buy a raid controller capable of doing RAID10/0+1 for ESXi 5 (latest free). Can someone give me clues? I have been looking at Adaptec 2405 and 2805, but cannot find any info on how to manage the raid sets then. Can someone give me any opinions about the card mentioned?

Also any links to documents explaining how raid management would happen are appreciated. (Also, am I mistakenly assuming I can get autmated notifications about disk failures?)

Regards, Matthijs

(Ps. This is my first post, so I hope this is the correct forum..)

I've leaned towards LSI based cards myself. You can setup a management app to manage your RAID controller (you'll want to check the model to make sure it is supported) - http://kb.lsi.com/KnowledgebaseArticle16430.aspx

Interesting. It seems to me the adaptec ones are only manage-able via arcconf (commandline) where the LSI ones can be managed by UI. Price is about the same (of 9240-8i device). Definitely tempting. Need some more time to look into. One thing I cannot find though, is whether the LSI devices come with SAS->SATA cables. Do you know about that?

My home servers have LSI 1078 based cards and connect directly to SATA or SAS drives.

Seems the LSI1078 stuff is for onboard stuff?
I'm looking for a PCI card, and the 9240-8i ones seem like good options. Found there are 2 variants: the normal one and the Kit variant, which includes cables to connect SATA devices. Seems like a good option for me.

If you can give links to info about 1078 cards, please...

Thanks for the input!