Need a RAID 5 card that performs... Not as easy as it sounds!

[oRIDDLERo]

I am really getting frustrated here!

Goal = Find a nice raid 5 card that is not a POS and has room for expansion (at least 6 ports).

Ok i have 4x 300gb Diamondmax 10s i want to install in a raid 5 array. At first i was in a rush, I almost grabbed a 3ware Escalade 8506-8, then i realized it had no cache. Also it did very poorly is this very well written review:http://print.tweakers.net/?reviews/557. Now i just won an Adaptec / Dell 2610SA for $180 on eBay which on paper seems like a nice choice but i cant seem to find any speed tests on the damn thing so i am nervous about it.

I know what i should do is just get a Areca ARC-1120 (everyone seems to agree that this card owns atm) but they are not on eBay, and i am not willing to pay $500 for a card at this point...

Someone please tell me if this Adaptec card is any good, or better yet make a recommendation on a fast raid 5 card, that can be backed up with benchmarks.

[FireFox]

I have no experience with that particular card that you purchased off Ebay personally. However, I have been recommending LSI Raid controllers to a couple of people here in the forums and have yet to be disapointed once by them.
LSI MegaRAID SATA 150-6 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816118011)
I also recommend the battery add-on card for safety and enhanced write performance.
LSI 150-6 Battery (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815999102)

I found some benchmarks for the 150-4 which is simply the 150-6 striped of one controller chip for price.
http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/20040625/sata-raid-15.html
http://www.tweakers.net/benchdb/testcombo/381

EDIT: Went and read your posted link to your review sight where this card got relatively low scores and recommendations. In the review, I did note that the reviewer did go into discussion about the battery units for the adapters that did support them however I am not sure if the review used them or not which COULD result in a slightly lower performance due to safety measures on the card. Never the less, my recommendation still stands simply because I have a great track record with LSI adapters (both SCSI and SATA) and they do update their drivers. Overall, a good solid card.

[oRIDDLERo]

Thx for the input/... this dell card is crap anyways ( I agreed with the seller to back out of the auction )

No one was replying to this post at first do I came to my own conclusion… See other post by VAdept the LSI card is ok with only 4 drives, but it would seem adding any more offers little to no performance increase

The broadcom (raidcore) card I went with is IMO the best raid5 card (price, speed, and scalability wise )you can buy if you do not want to invest in an areca...

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=410925