areca ARC-1223-8I PCI-Express 2.0 x8 Low Profile SATA / SAS 8-Port PCIe 2.0 Internal SAS/SATA RAID Controllers

Pros: Areca had responsive customer service.

Cons: I installed this card on a server running Debian. I needed to update the bios for the mb to even detect the card. After that, the card would not detect any drives. I troubleshooted with Areca for 2 weeks until they determined the card was defective.

Other Thoughts: Defective Hardware is just something that happens. Areca's customer service was very good. The best advice I have is if you are going to buy this card, buy it through the great company that starts with an A that doesn't charge for returns. Despite the card being defective, I was charged $10 to return it to there warehouse that is an hour away from my house. Not worth the gamble to buy this product through Newegg

Pros: See my review on the ARC-1223-8I-MS (same card, different cables)

Cons: Same as above

Other Thoughts: RAIDguy mentions needing the SAS->Sata fanout/breakout cables. The ARC-1223-8I-MS has these cables instead of the SAS->SAS cables included with this card.

Pros: Speedy delivery, secure packaging, nice price.

Cons: Newegg description seemed to me to indicate that the card and/or box contents could support multiple internal SATA as-is (by listing the card's internal connectors as "8 x 6Gb/s SAS/SATA HDDs"). Instead, the card has two SFF-8087 connectors and cables which WILL NOT support SATA drives as-is. At least one additional cable, Areca part number CBL-SFF8087-4SATA available from ArecaDirect at arecadirect.com/cblsff8087sata.html will be needed at a cost of $19 per plus shipping. Seems newegg doesn't offer that specific cable at all as of this writing.

Other Thoughts: Will revisit this review after being able to use the card. Tsk tsk on newegg and tsk tsk on me for making an assumption in spite of the pictures suggesting that newegg's description was incorrect.