Joined on 12/09/03
RocketRAID 2220
Pros: This card was a replacement for a Highpoint 1850a. The hot swappable capacity of this card is great, as is the dynamic RAID expansion/migration. In addition, the SATA II/300 support was a noticeable upgrade in performance from the 1820a.
Cons: Highpoint's management software still sucks. The card shipped with an outdated firmware/BIOS, but I updated prior to hooking it up.
Overall Review: I have this card and a RocketRaid 2300 (PCI-e x1) in the same rig. In order to avoid conflicts, I had to use the firmware update procedure and disable INT13 traps. This means that I can't use the RAID to boot from, but that's ok with me. I have 8 matched Maxtor 300 gig in RAID5 and the performance is solid.
Not worth the money
Pros: Has adjustable refresh rates, built in speakers work and there's a front panel audio jack which is convenient.
Cons: It's not widescreen, has limited resolution range.
Overall Review: The lack of any drivers and the fact that the text quality are laughable compared to lesser priced Acer widescreen models make me wish our IT department had someone who actually used things prior to purchasing.
My new standard drive
Comments: I have 5 of these in a fileserver that I built to replace an array of WD2500JD's. These drives are quieter and the increased cache seems to give e performance increase over the WD's. So far I've had no problems whatsoever with any of them. I've got them mounted in Athena SATA removable chassis so 3 fit in a 2 5.25" bay and are removable. Quite nice.
Lovely case
Comments: I stuck two additional iCage units in, then ripped out the blue Thermaltake fans and replaced them with 2000 RPM Aspire RED LED fans, plus re-wired the case LED with red to replace the blue. I'm running this with a PowMax 580w Demon PSU that has bright red LEDs as well. Looks great and holds boatloads of drives and keeps the whole thing cool. As previously mentioned, the firewire/usb/audio jacks are a total pain to wire up - I played with them for a bit and decided it wasn't worth bothering with.
Works well in RAID5
Comments: I have 7 of these in a RAID 5 setup using a Highpoint PCI RAID controller - quiet, fast, no problems so far. I do prefer the Maxtor 300 gig w/16mb cache for serious file storage, but these drives work well.