Pros: Card was easy to setup.
Supports all popular raid configurations up to 20 drives with the use of the Intel Raid Extender Card RES2SV240.

Cons: Can be a little tricky to update the firmware, other than that none

Other Thoughts: I have been using this card for over a year and I love it. I am buying 15 more drives and the RES2SV240 for a raid 50 next month. CAN'T WAIT!! I will run this with my owncloud server so I don't have to worry about my data on the interwebs.

Pros: - Works with VMware ESXi 4 and 5 (used with both)
- Will hardware RAID up to 4 SATA drives (3gb/s)
- Setup/configuration tool is easy to use

Cons: - Pricey
- No 6gb/s for SATA drives

Other Thoughts: - Comes with a mini-SAS to 4xSATA cable
- This card is true hardware RAID, not software RAID like many MOBOs (makes a difference for something like ESXi)
- We are running an Intel server MOBO, which is why we decided to go with Intel RAID controller
- Haven't had to rebuild an array yet, will update if we do

Pros: Update; got it working and must say it is good speed.

Cons: Who ever posted below that it supports raid 50 and 60 with 4 SATA channels is beyond me. raid 50 = 6 drives raid 60 = 8 drives.

Other Thoughts: How can intel put RAID 10, 50, 60 on their setup sheet where it clearly does not support even raid 10 from control panel? Intel please explain.

Pros: nice chip form LSI. What? no more brains at intel?

Cons: 1.) We get error and System will not load "Setup was unable to create a new system partition or locate an existing system partition" (tried all 3 drivers before loading DC Server 2008r2)

2.) THIS RAID has no RAID 10 support. up RAID 6 only!

3.) intell Support does not support this card outside Intel SERVER boards. Must be used in SERVER approved boards only or no support! No warning on this issue anywhere...

Next intel product will be crossed checked with TECH chat support just to dbl check their low tolarance to their undifined compatibily issues.

Other Thoughts: Useless baord if you have to use it with Server Boards since most Server board come with RAID on board. Even Raid 10... really? no RAID 10???

BTW: this is an LSI board with intel logo. Do your self a favor and get LSI and get full support even if its not a a server board....

Pros: Hardware RAID that works with VMware ESXi, RAIDs 0/1/5/6/10/50/60

Cons: A little pricey

Other Thoughts: I went with this card because I had an Intel motherboard and figured that everything would play nice that way (and it does). The card comes with a Mini-SAS to 4xSATA cable, so don't buy your own.

Pros: This bad boy is fast, versatile, and reliable. It is a server device, so definitely not for the noobs to play with.

I'm using this to run two 6Gb/s SAS 418GB Hitachi's @ 15K with 64MB cache in a RAID 0 stripe, it's quick, I mean insane knock your socks off quick! Also have my SATA DVD writer hooked up to it.

I didn't have a backplane in my machine and it took me quite some time to find a cabled connector for my SAS drives. This item here: Adaptec 2231900-R mini SAS x4 (SFF-8087) to (4) x1 (SFF-8482) SAS fan-out Cable - 0.5M, available from NewEgg, sorted me out nicely.

Cons: Would be nice if the specs had a note onconnection options, backplane, cables, etc.

Interestingly, it comes with the 3Gb/s cable which is TOTALLY useless. Wish they just knocked the price down and didn't provide the cable.

Guys, update the firmware BEFORE trying to use this device in a custom build. RAID BIOS just hangs otherwise. I left my SATA master drive in place and booted Windows with the card in. Intel have a nifty set of tools to update the firmware from DOS, Linux, or WIndows.

Other Thoughts: Guys, update the firmware BEFORE trying to use this device in a custom build. RAID BIOS just hangs otherwise. I left my SATA master drive in place and booted Windows with the card in. Intel have a nifty set of tools to update the firmware from DOS, Linux, or WIndows.

Pros: The 040 is a great Raid card. It has automated configuration wizard to help you setup your Raid array based on your needs. They also provide several pdfs on Raid design.
Running 4 WD 1001FALS 1 TB drives in a Raid 0 read transfer rates of 450MegaBytes/sec. Writes were also fast with the Write Back 512 MB cache taking up the slack the O/S would otherwise see from the HDDs.

Cons: They show 6Mb/s but that is ONLY FOR SAS HDD.

You will see 3Gb/s on your SATA HDDs. This card is doing nothing to future proof your machine.

Intel support assumes that you are running on their server boards - and they test that way too. This means that incompatibilities across hardware are not picked up by them.

Other Thoughts: Solid ROC card. Troubling Drivers and configuration in Windows 7 x64 on non Intel brand Motherboard.

Pros: True hardware RAID with good OS support.

Cons: Description lacks important details.

Other Thoughts: This item includes a Mini SAS SFF-8087 to 4xSATA 7PIN Cable. Nowhere in the description or pictures of this product on this or any other website is the cable mentioned. It would have been nice to know before wasting money on a separate cable. (This item also includes a low-profile bracket)