Previously markm75 wrote:
I'm brainstorming a new server.. i've decided to go with a 12 drive
case for this one.. which means the 8 port pci-e 3ware card now needs
to be a 12 port..

But.. this motherboard
http://www.atacom.com/program/print_...&USER_I D=www
already has 6 sata and raid5 and raid10 ability...

Would it be a bad idea to use the onboard one for the extra 4 drives?

This server will house 3 sql instances, file serving, antivirus
central server, but the user base is 40 and 2 of those sql instances
are low hit rates.

Would i see that much more performance for the extra $250 it would
cost to put them all on the same card.. or in fact.. might it be
better just to split them up in fact.

Depends on your access patterns. On-board ''RAID'' is typically
fakeRAID. It is not faster than software-RAID, but less flexible
and if the board dies you may have a recovery problem.

If you are satisfied with the 3ware controller's performance but
need 12 RAIDed disks, I would advise you to get a 12 port
controller. Otherwise put a true software RAID on the remaining
4 disks.

Arno