71605E Entry-level SAS/SATA 6Gbps PCIe Gen3 RAID Controller
It’s well known that the effectiveness of data access is crucial to data center and server environments. The Adaptec 71605E RAID controller outperforms software-based HBAs and SATA controllers and provides robust 6Gbps performance and proven Adaptec reliability, ideal for entry-level server to high-end server platforms and high-performance workstations.
The Series 7 adapter family features a PMC’s 24-port PM8015 RAID-on-Chip ROC which combines an x8 PCIe Gen3 interface with 6Gbps SAS ports to enable a new generation of high performance, high native port count RAID adapters that are unmatched by any other ROC in the industry. The Adaptec 71605E RAID controller perfectly balances protection and performance for critical applications, with RAID level of 0, 1, 1E, and 10.
The adapter has four internal mini SAS HD (SFF-8643) connectors. It’s able to connect up to 256 SAS or SATA devices using SAS expanders. The intuitive management utilities let you efficiently manage your adapter.
The low-profile MD2 form factor, along with the included low-profile vented bracket, allows for easy installation into any size of server system.
- Optimized Disk Utilization
- Supported RAID levels: 0, 1, 1E, 10
- HBA Mode and Simple Volume Mode for automatic deployment
- Support for up to 256 SAS or SATA devices using SAS expanders
- Hybrid RAID 1 & 10
- Quick initialization
- Online capacity expansion
- Copyback hot spare
- Dynamic caching algorithm
- Native Command Queuing (NCQ)
- Background initialization
- Hot-plug drive support
- RAID level migration
- Hot spares - global, dedicated, and pooled
- Automatic/manual rebuild of hot spares
- SES and SAF-TE enclosure management
- Configurable stripe size
- S.M.A.R.T. support
- Multiple arrays per disk drive
- Dynamic sector repair
- Staggered drive spin-up
- Bootable array support
- Support for Tape Devices, Autoloaders
- Adaptec maxView Storage Manager
- Web based GUI Management Utility
- OS Support: Windows, Linux, Solaris VMware
- Remote configuration, monitoring & notification
- Remote firmware updates
- SMI-S Support
- SMTP
- Command Line Interface
- SMI-S support for VMware
- BIOS level configuration utility
- Flashable BIOS support
- HII based configuration utility
- Flashable BIOS support
- Microsoft Windows
- Red Hat Linux
- SUSE Linux
- Fedora
- Debian Linux
- Ubuntu Linux
- Sun Solaris
- FreeBSD
- VMware ESX
Pros: The card detects drives, is rock stable, is fast, and is plug-n-play with Windows 7. I use the card for hardware RAID-0, hardware RAID-1, and HBA passthrough. It has not hiccuped once with the RAID-0 arrays, which is more than I can say for the Adaptec 6405 and 6805.
Cons: maxView does not work. I have had to configure the arrays in BIOS, but that is not such a big deal for this card since RAID-0 and RAID-1 arrays do not take long to set up and initialize, unlike RAID-5 or RAID-6.
Overall Review: For the ignorant user who complained about this card not having hardware RAID-5 or RAID-6 functionality, those features cost a whole lot more. The trend these days is to expose the drives directly to the OS for fancier high level drive management than hardware RAID can provide. This card is great for adding 16 ports while occupying only a single PCI-E slot. I hope to use it in the future as a 16-drive HBA for ZFS.