Pros: -Super fast.
-Using this with some older NL-SAS drives 8x4TB in RAID10, performance is triple of me previous RAID controller in RAID10 with 4 drives.
-SSD performance is incredible from what I have read.

Cons: -Price.
-Price for accessories.
-BIOS boot is VERY slow.

Other Thoughts: -They make a 2GB version of this card (which is what I got) for nearly the same price. I paid $604 from Provantage for the 2GB version, so I would DEFINITELY recommend that for future proofing. This card in the 2GB variant should be relevant for 5+ years.

Pros: Used this in a server build for my company. Production setup was 4 Samsung 850 pro 512GB x4 in RAID 10 with a 5th drive as a hot spare. Performance was NUTS. Crystaldiskmark had the RAID 10 at 2.2GB/s read, 1.02GB/s write. This was using writethrough, no read ahead, and direct i/o. I ran benchmarks with each caching option enabled and the results were squirly. I've since read that they recommend for SSD's to leave all disabled for best performance. I also (you know I had to) went ahead and configured a RAID 0 just for testing with all 5 drives: Crystaldiskmark showed 2.65 GB/s read, 2.4 GB/s write.
Considering 5 drives on the motherboard raid maxed out at 1.6/1.3, the sky's the limit. Well, ok 3 more drives is the limit until you add another controller and 8 more drives, but you get the idea. This thing hauls.

Cons: the price is about all I can think of.

Other Thoughts: With no BBU, this unit will refuse to enable caching options as a precaution to protect data. These settings can be manually "forced" through the command line tool and will persist even booting into another OS (in my case ESXi 6.0). If you have SSD's, results for me at least weren't conclusive although on write-back I saw consistent gains in writes, but a drop in read performance. Also with caching, 4k randoms took a dive. We're going to be using this card in my boss's next workstation build with 8 SSD's, and if I can talk my company into helping with a workstation upgrade I'll be getting one of these as well. AWESOME.

Pros: Works with my desktop motherboard.
Worked right out of the box with little effort.
Fast. Using ArgusMonitor benchmark it reads 26% (414 Mb/s vs 329Mb/s) faster, but writes 8% slower (381Mb/s vs. 416Mb/s) than the on-board Intel RAID controller in a 4x2TB RAID 0 array.
I can expand to more drives later.

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: OS: Windows 7.0 Pro
Motherboard: ASUS Maximus VI Formula
Chipset: Intel Z87
Processor: Intel i7-4770K
Drives: 4 x 2TB WD Black
RAID: RAID0

Note that this is a desktop motherboard, not a server. I’ve read mixed reviews on using this board with a desktop computer, but it works great on mine. I suspect that the issue is limited to older or lower end motherboards that don’t have enough BIOS memory to support this board. The card is installed in a PCIe 3.0 x4 slot and works well.

The drivers, software and documentation are available at avagotech.com. There is a lot of documentation, but the quick installation guide was all I needed to get it going using these steps:

1) Install the board.
2) Boot to windows.
3) In the Device Manager (right click Computer then select Manage), select the board under "Storage controllers" and install the driver downloaded from the avagotech.com website.
4) Shut down and attach the drives.
5) During the boot process, enter the MegaRAID BIOS using <cntrl+R> and set-up your RAID array.
6) Boot to windows.
7) In Disk Management (right click Computer then select Manage), initialize and format the drive.
That’s it. You can download the MegaRAID Storage Manager (MSM) software and use that to update downloaded Firmware.

I had been running a 4 x 1TB RAID0 using the onboard Intel controller, but when I tried to upgrade to 4x 2TB, I found out it becomes unstable for any array over 4TB. I have an old RocketRAID 640, but I’ve never been able to get all 4 ports to work. So I decided to go with a higher-end board and am very pleased.

Pros: Works with my RAID array (RAID5, one hot spare) under Linux.
High performance.
8 ports.
Has full configuration utility in ROM.
Monitoring and configuration utility works in Linux.

Cons: Very expensive.
Linux utility does not come with a manual page.
Very expensive.
Requires significant airflow, heats up when I open the computer case, so I have to place an external fan against it.
Very expensive.
Does not come with cables.
Very expensive.
Disk format documentation is not provided, no software-only recovery procedure that would work in case of adapter failure.
Very expensive.

Pros: Fast. Copying from my old computer to this one across gigabit ethernet uses well over half the available bandwith. The write speed is just so much better than the on board Intel raid. For another 250, you can add another 15 or 20 drives if you have that need, search for "intel raid expander." And did I say fast. Good tech support.

Cons: Initializing an array is really slow. Can't figure out if I can expand an existing array or if I have to start over.

Other Thoughts: Don't plug it into a PCI slot running at X16. make sure to set up the BIOS so the LSI slot only runs at X8. Don't know why, but that's what tech support says.

Pros: Very fast. Did I mention it is fast. My CPU is fast, but this allows my CPU to not do any RAID parity calculations. Also, this has 1 GB onboard cache which does help with some file transfers. I mainly need fast sequential reads/writes with large files. Supports PCIe 3.0 and backwards compatible, which is good because Sandy Bridge CPUs do not support PCIe 3.0 :-(
Future proof as these support 12 Gb/sec or excess of 1.2 GB/s if you have PCIe 3.0. My HDDs are too slow to take advantage of the speed, but it has helped in the RAID 5 though. The SSDs on it are insane.

Cons: Runs very hot requiring server quality air flow or a PCI card fans blowing directly on it. Not compatible with all motherboards. Slows boot time. It doesn't display temp (only at bootup if you go into the menu). Samsung doesn't play fair and provide TRIM support for SSDs in RAID, but not a biggie if you don't use all your available space or over provision. Garbage cleanup is good enough.

Other Thoughts: My NLE workstation is designed to run Adobe Premiere Pro. See below for my components. This card drives two Samsung 850 Pro 128GB SSDs in RAID 0 and 4 WD RE4 1 TB 7200 RPM HDDs in a RAID 5. My other Samsungs are connected to the MB's Intel 6 ports. The RAID 0 averages 1050 MB/sec using HD Tune 2.55. I can copy 20 GB from the RAID 0 to my RAID 5 in 20-30 seconds. I can copy 10 GBs via USB 3 to my RAID 0 in 2 minutes or less (using my SanDiskExtreme Plus UHS2 Memory Card @ 80 MB/s). My older memory card takes twice as long :-(
My RAID 5 averages 350 MB/sec using HD Tune 2.55. I've been using this for 7 months now with no hiccups at all. Remember, extreme COOLING is REQUIRED for this to run properly. Since my MB is not supported, I had to install the RAID card upside down. Also, I have a Vantec SP-FC70-BL spectrum system Fan Card with 70mm dual fans blowing directly on the RAID card at max speed all the time. My rig sits just above the floor to the right of my desk and is a little noisy, but not enough to be offensive.

Even if your rig is only PCIe 2.0, this will help greatly with large disk arrays or running SSDs in RAID 0 as most MBs are limited in number of Intel fast ports (do not use Marvell ports unless you really need to). I'm running Windows 7 Pro. The ASUS MB is nice, but due to large CPU cooler, limits where I can plug things in. I have this on the x16 port and my video card is on a x8 port.

My Pro 850's (non-RAID) on MB ports avg 455 MB/sec each, just for reference (using HD Tune 2.55).

LSI LogicMegaRAID SAS93618i Model Number: 9361-8i
Vantec SP-FC70-BL Spectrum System Fan Card with Dual Adjustable 70mm UV LED Fans (Blue)
ASUS P9X79 WS LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 SSI CEB Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i7-3930K Hexa-Core Processor 3.2 Ghz 12 MB Cache LGA 2011 OC'd to 4.3 GHZ
G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17000) Desktop Memory Model F3-17000CL11Q-32GBZLD
Cooler Master HAF X - Full Tower Computer Case with High Airflow Windowed Side Panel and USB 3.0
4 x Samsung850 PRO 128GB Internal Serial ATA III Solid State Drive for LaptopsBlackMZ7KE128BW Model Number: MZ-7KE128BW
4 x WD RE4 1 TB Enterprise Hard Drive: 3.5 Inch, 7200 RPM, SATA II, 64 MB Cache - WD1003FBYX
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120mm PWM Fan (RR-212E-20PK-R2)
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 OC 2GB GDDR5 PCI-Express 3.0 DVI-I/DVI-D/HDMI/Displayport SLI Ready Graphics Card GV-N660OC-2GD
Pioneer Electronics USA 15x SATA Internal BD/DVD/CD Burner with 4 MB Buffer BDR-208DBK
Corsair Professional Series AX 850 Watt ATX/EPS Modular 80 PLUS Gold (AX850)
Arctic Silver 5 Polysynthetic Silver Thermal Compound Paste 3.5g
Tripp Lite LC1200 Line Conditioner 1200W AVR Surge 120V 10A 60Hz 4 Outlet 7-Feet Cord

Pros: Very fast array creation and initialization. SATA 6Gb/s and SAS 12Gb/s interface capability. Will happily confirm the array integrity after a sudden power loss, unfortunately had to do it a few times before I broke down and bought the LSICVM02 addon kit, another $200. Read and write speeds are pretty amazing on this controller and the rated I/O performance feels like it's there. SSD Guard feature ensures that TRIM is monitored and maintained.

Cons: LSI has a tendency to nickle and dime their customers to death. The card is $589. If you want the security of array integrity in the event of a power/hardware failure that's will require the BU and CacheVault units, another $200. The battery requires that you ALSO purchase a PCI slot mounting card for it to reside in (BBU-Bracket-05). I said bump that and zip-tied the battery to the back of the server case. If you want to utilize any of the "advanced" software configurations in the MegaRAID Utility that will cost you even more. I never checked how much cause I was over it at that point.

Other Thoughts: I'm using this controller in a Dell Poweredge R710. The array is RAID 5 and consists of 5-Samsung 840Pro 256GB SSDs. I am running HyperV Server 2012r2 on that array and it is hosting 10 Windows server VMs. Everything runs great.