Pros: ASUS has given me access to a new BIOS with on-board RAID working now, and it tested out alright. Mostly using it with Adpatec PCI-E cards, but wanted the flexibility of onboard raid as well, which is working now if desired.

Cons: Drop the PIKE and give me an extra PCI-E and make PCI-e RAID cards!

Pros: Good price Nice amount of CPUs Looks like good options for PIKE or On Board

Cons: Promise onboard RAID does not work, confirmed with ASUS tech support, taking a while to get it resolved. For a feature that is touted on their site and box, this is unacceptable. PIKE cards performance is not very good, lacking BBUs and many other things, not a good alternative to the on board. Better to use PCI-e RAID card.

Pros: 8 drives

Cons: Unstable controller kernel failures Dropped drives that come back with reboot Total failures that take machines down HOT HOT HOT - Adaptec cheaped out and didn't put a fan on that stovetop Added a fan and was actually able to build a 4 drive RAID10 array, it lasted 48 hours before the card died again. Prior to adding a fan it was dropping drives in the rebuild, these are raid ready drives, not consumer drives. It was found that 2 of the 9 WD drives were in fact bad, but I found 4 working well and even then the builds barely completed and move of data started before it crashed again.

Overall Review: I have used a large number of Adaptec cards in my time, this is hands down the worst ever.

Pros: Small, good amount of bays for size.

Cons: PSU is on opposite side of most cases, if your connector is on the top portion of the board near the backplane it WILL NOT REACH. I am having to go out and buy a case/psu locally due to this now. as long as the connector is on the near the CPU on an average board, it should work, but if near the MATX backplane, no go!