Pros: This is my first hardware RAID card. (I've been limited to software RAID for budget reason) I bought it to power an array of SSDs for a new ESXi box. All the reviews I have read pointed to this card as the only one able to take advantage of all the IOPS an SSD can put out. This card is listed in VMware's HCL and has drivers available. The card works well in this capacity (4xIntel 510 R5). Server 2008 in a VM boots in seven seconds. I've benched sequential reads at 2 GB/s. Very fast card. Found the included SAS cable was plenty long to reach the 5.25 -> 4x2.5'' backplane I put the SSDs in. I like that the card has a passive heatsink, one less fan to fail. Has a VERY loud alarm for when a disk falls out of the array. I was able to hear it through the server room wall at my desk 40 feet away. Don't need to worry about a drive falling out and not knowing. I found the "Web BIOS" configuration to be very good. I was able to build the arrays without fuss

Cons: I really really really don't like that LSI requires you to pay extra to "enable" features like CacheCade and FastPath. I haven't needed those features yet, so I can't speak to how well they work. Getting this card to work with ESXi 4.1 u1 was a bit tricky, this being my first time ever building an ESXi host. The card is not supported out of the box, so one has to build a oem.tgz file to be able to have the boot volume on the array (I ended up using the onboard ICH10R for this) To get it to work after install one has to get the driver package from VMware and use the vCLI to install it on the host. Works great after that. I also bought the battery cache backup. I was under the impression that the battery mounts to the card somehow, but it seems the 1GB ram daughterboard takes its place. The battery pack has a long cable, so I ended up taping it to the cover over the CPU and RAM in my case.

Overall Review: System specs: 2x Intel Xeon Westmere 48 GB RAM, ECC SUPERMICRO SYS-6036T-6RF 4x Intel 510 in RAID 5

Pros: Thick jacket. High quality wires. Wires have vivid dyes (the last cable I bought had really dim colors)

Cons: None. Great cable. Great price.

Pros: Makes making Ethernet cables insanely easy. Highly recommended

Cons: Only con is when you cut the wires off the front you need to use a kinfe (or their special crimping tool) to cut the wires off close to the connector. Still easier than normal connectors.

Pros: Worked no issues with ESXi 4.1 u1. Drivers work out of the box.

Cons: Worth the added expense. Intel NICs are bulletproof.

Pros: I used these to put SSDs in 3.5'' hotswap trays. Other converters do not put the sata/power ports in the right place. This makes a 2.5'' drive exactly like a 3.5 inch drive

Cons: One side only has one hole for mounting (this is a necessary comprimise) Doesn't matter for an SSD, but I might worry with a 15k SAS drive.

Pros: Worked with our LSI 9265-8i. I was under the impression that I would be able to mount it to the card, but there is a memory daughter board that is in the mounting place. Ended up taping it to the side of our case. Does the job.

Cons: Would've liked it if they included the dummy RAID card you can mount it to. (they talk about it in the manual)

Overall Review: I'm normally not one to comment on cost, but I feel that the price is rather high for a battery. However, I feel that this is worth the cost.