I'm looking to grow past the onboard RAID controller and I'm hoping to get some advice from knowledgable. I've been using the Asus Rampage Formula's onboard solution for the past couple of months for 2 AID-0 arrays. The onboard solution works fine when she works, but she's moody. She'll be fine for a good while and then she'll get pissy and dump one of my arrays. I've tested the drives using WD utilities and they consistently come back error free. The rig is OC'd to 3.4Ghz via a 425mhz FSB (if that's relevant). Data is never the issue as I do backups often to separate drives.

So, I'm looking for the same or superior performance and more reliability from a less temperamental controller. I'm using 2x74GB WD Raptors in AID-0 and 2 x 250GB WD2500YS drives in AID-0, no SAS here. Backups are occurring on 2 x WD5000YS drives (non-RAID). My budget is $400US max for the controller(s). Vista 64bit is the OS.

I'm looking for a decent (doesn't have to be great) 2 or 4 port 100% hardware based PCIe solution.

Is it unwise to run 2 PCIe RAID controllers (CPU usage?) or does it not really matter?

Did you ever think it was your Overclocking causing the problems with your RAID arrays? You must remember that RAID arrays are mostly used in buisness applications where overclocking the system is completely out of the question. I bet if you didn't overclock the system you wouldn't be having a bit of problems with your array's.

So I need to not overclock my $300 mobo to have reliable RAID? Okay, that's one perspective.

First, I really don't think running 2 (or more) raid controllers would impair CPU performance in any way, I'm running one controller and the CPU usage hasn't changed by more than 1% (that i've noticed) and when running tests (HD tach, HD Tune Pro) the usage spikes to a whooping 4%.

I can't recommend a particular controller, mainly because I really can't tell may way around them, but based on several experiences (in mobos, USB controllers, firewire controllers and network cards) I can say avoid anything with a VIA chip, they tend to fail more often than not.

PS: I haven't added the RAID controller and the 2*WD5000AAKS to my config profile yet, but they are up and running amidst some serious testing, namely the software described before and a MATLAB that moves quite a chunk of data.