Cheap Hardware RAID Card for Dev ESXi Box

Hi,

I'm just looking for some recommendations for some cheap hardware RAID cards to add to a server to become my home ESXi server which will be the core component of my development lab?

The specs I'm looking at for the box are roughly:

CPU: Core i5/i7
RAM: 16-24GB
Motherboard: not sure yet: any recommendations? (prefer something with ESX supported NIC's so I don't need to buy add-on NIC's)

as a start I'll be running 3-4 VM's (mix of Domain controllers / App servers / SQL etc and some of which need a minimum of 8GB ram) and I don't want the storage controller/disk to be the bottleneck.

I've heard the Dell Perc 5/5i may be a good option that I can plug in a bunch of SATA disks, I'm thinking maybe 4 SATAII disks for a start with support for up to 6, I'll probably use 750gb or 1tb disks.

What other cards might be a good idea? new or secondhand is okay as this is just for home use...

Thanks!

You're thinking more of ESX than ESXi. Currently the cheapest SAS RAID (w/ parity) controller out there is indeed the PERC 5/i which works with ESX 4.0 out of the box.
I see you've put SQL in, which I'm assuming is pretty significant VM out of the others. For that just make sure it's kept on a separate HDD/array and away from all other VMs and absolutely no RAID5 or 6 with a SQL DB.
If you don't intend to use any RAID for any of your other VMs, then just use built-in SATA on mobo. Or a cheap SAS HBA like DELL SAS 6/ir if you need RAID 1 or 1+0.

For a single node baremetal hypervisor box I'd currently go with something like:
Xeon X3440
ASUS P7P55D Deluxe
Intel Pro/1000 PT Dual
4x 4GB DDR3-1066 ECC (should be ~$110-150/module)
DELL PERC 5/i or 6/i (make sure you get a BBU with it)


Here's my old setup for reference:
AMD Phenom II 945
MSI 790FX-GD70
4x 2GB DDR3-1333 ECC
6x ST31000340NS
2x 146GB 15K.5 (picked up dirt cheap)
DELL PERC 5/i 512MB (with LSI firmware)
Intel Pro/1000 PT Quad (dual Realtek GbE on mobo can be made functional with this)
[The platform was chosen to be eventually used as a SAN hence the somewhat non-ideal setup]

This is the new setup (the now completed SAN):
AMD Phenom II 945
MSI 790FX-GD70
4x 2GB DDR3-1333 ECC
8x ST31000340NS
2x 146GB 15K.5
2x DELL PERC 6/i
1x DELL PERC 6/E (currently not utilised until DAS enclosure arrives)
Intel Pro/1000 PT Quad

And the two ESXi hosts:
Supermicro Twin 1U
2x X8DTT-F mobo
4x Xeon L5530
6x 4GB DDR3-1333 ECC

well, last time I looked, esxi was free, esx was commercial (paid). That could be one good reason to go with esxi.

Well, doing this off of memory, but I believe it's pretty much the same software, it just doesn't work with the products you were discussing.

Do you have a Dell server?
What do you consider "cheap"? Adaptec has a four port card for under 200, for example.

Hi,

I've setup a Perc 5i card on my PC and created a RAID 0 Volume with two Raptor WD3000HLFS.

When i try to install ESXi 5 the installation hangs at Loading scheduler, if try 4.1 it gives a GP 13 Exception.

If i remove the raid volume, the installation doesn't freeze.

i've tried with these 3 firmwares:

DELL 5.1.1-0040
DELL 5.2.2-0072
LSI 7.0.1-0083

Anyone had this problem before?