Intel RAID Controller Card 6G SAS PCI-E x8 4 internal ports (RS2WC040)

Pros: Cheap price. You get what you pay for.

Cons: I had to buy a more expensive Adaptec 6805 card because the RAID 5 write performance was so atrocious. The Adaptec card with the same drives (black WD's) just flies.

Then, after only about eight months of use, I started having issues where one of the physical drives (single drive SSD in a RAID 0 array) would become unconfigured bad because, apparently, the controller had lost communication with the drive. The array housed the OS.

After removing the physical drive and running CHKDSK on it to confirm it was fine, I was able to mark the drive as unconfigured good and reconfigured the array. (Don't re-initialize!) Thinking it was just a temporary glitch, I moved on. About an hour later, I couldn't even log into the server and, after rebooting, noticed the same thing. I repeated this about five times as soon as problems were seen on the system, then decided it wasn't going to be resolved permanently.

Long story short, having zero faith in the Intel RAID controller, I went through the PITA of reinstalling the OS to a new RAID 1 dual-SSD array on the Adaptec card. I'll be moving all other arrays over to the Adaptec controller as well.

Good riddance.

Pros: This follows up my earlier review where I said RS2WC040 write speed is so slow it only can be used as a toy ( & for testing ). I worked with John at Intel. John brilliantly came up with "Try Raid 0 to replace Raid 5". Raid 0 gives no protection for a failed drive so you would not normally use it. I would still recommend a more expensive controller where Raid 5 gives a good write speed.

Well his idea worked!! Using Raid 0 with 4 One Gig Hard drives my speeds are over 350000 Read and over 300000 write roughly equivalent to a single Patriot Wildfire SSD. This is reasonable performance!! ( but no protection ).
It should have taken 3 to 4 minutes to set up the RS2WC040 from Raid 5 to Raid 0 but it took over an hour. One of the key stumbling blocks was it pretended without telling me that I had requested Raid 5 when I requested Raid 0. So i had to redo the conversion several times.
You must persevere to convert the Controller from 5 to 0!!!
The reward is a working controller not a to

Cons: no protection with raid 0.

Other Thoughts: I am still working with Intel on this so there will be a follow up.

Pros: Do not buy. This controller is only a toy because the write speed is only 15000 which is too slow for the real world. Efforts to increase using Intel's white paper do not work as the required settings to the controller in the software are blocked. Intel says you are to download "Advanced Software Options" from LSI ( the controller features LSI Megaraid ) and Intel gives an ID and a serial number to use but neither works.
I talked with LSI and they do not know about an Intel arrangement. They claim Intel is imagining things.
As a test toy the read speed of 300000 on raid 5 is fine. The controller works as is out of the box in VMWare hyperviser or ESXi 5.0 and 5.0.0 very well. You do not even need to use VMWare's upgrade driver.
The controller is very stable. I have used it as a test toy for VMWare hyperviser without any crashes.
Look to buy IF and I say IF Intel fixes the links to LSI so you can use the serial number & ID to upgrade and use the commands that speed up the write speed

Cons: I do not understand how Intel could sell me this unusable controller in the real world due to extremely low write speed. I do not understand why Intel has not upgraded its links to LSI so I can use the supplied serial number and ID to in effect buy a software key and upgrade. I would buy a more expensive Intel raid controller if I knew before hand it had a decent write speed. While it sees and utilizes 6.0 GPBS it is only SATA 2.0

Other Thoughts: Spend $400 and get something that works i.e. a reasonable write speed. Do not waste your money on this toy. It has a write speed of 16,000. My 40 dollar Highpoint has a write speed of 200,000!!!

Pros: Easy to set up. Works under Linux.

Cons: I can only sustain about 3.3M throughput and only after installing a PCI fan to keep it cool enough not to lock up.

Also, while the command line tools are *OS independant*, they are still RPMs so i've yet to troubleshoot on my Ubuntu box.

Other Thoughts: I usually love troublefree intel, but this has me reconsidering that thought

Pros: none

Cons: doesn't work

Other Thoughts: Cannot enter RAID BIOS console to save my life. Wasted 3+ hours trying to get this to work. Wasted 45+ minutes in India where the final outcome was that this card is only supported on TWO current production Intel boards. Not compatible with my lowly ASUS Sabertooth X58. One big factor in buying this card was to avoid poor technical support. Unfortunately Intel has failed miserably.

Pros: 3 TB Hard Drive Support
Easy Bios Setup
Good Speeds

Cons: Runs very hot after massive transfers*

*Solved by buys a 35mm fan and now is cool to the touch...

Other Thoughts: I bought this to replace my Perc 6/i Controller that would not support my new HD's. I am running this Intel controller with 3 Hitachi 3 TB HDD's... Ran in raid 5, and no problems other than the heat issue stated in the Cons...

Pros: Supported by ESXi 4.1u1 (and other versions). Easy to set up.

Cons: Pricey, but normal for this sort of thing...

Other Thoughts: Like the other reviewer, this was the cheapest hardware RAID solution I could find on newegg for my ESXi project. Working great so far! Using it with 4 1TB drives in RAID 10. Keeps my 3 (so far) VMs running smooth.

Pros: Good card, it is a hardware raid HBA for SAS/SATA, and on the ESXi HCL.

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: This card is the cheapest hardware raid card I could find that is compatible with VMWare ESXi 4.1 (which has a very limited HCL for raid HBAs). Raid volumes are recognized in ESXi, which is better than the onboard ASUS software raid controller that came with the server.
One thing to note, the card DOES come with a SFF-8087 SAS to 4 x SATA connector adapter cable, so you don't need to buy an extra like I did.