raptor and sata Q's

[jp22382]

im looking into getting a wd raptor, not sure on the 40 or 80 gig... my first question is if the retail versions of these drives come with a controller card or not, i swear i remember seeing them bundled with controller cards, but when i went to the wd website they dont mention it.

so if they dont, heres my next question, which controller cards would anyone recommend? i dont know crap about sata cards, all i know is i just need one with 2 channels and that has TCQ.

from what ive read the 80 gig raptors run quieter and cooler than the 40 gigs, is that true?

oh yeah, and has anyone used one of these on windows server 2003? just want to make sure the software is completely compatible...

any input is appreciated, thanks-

[F/A-18 MechDood]

From what I have read....

The new 72 gig is quiter due to a fluid bearing. Has newer updates to it making it faster than the 36 gig version and does run cooler. It is still wise to run some kind of hard drive cooler too.

The retail box only comes with the drive, sata power cable, and the sata data cable. There isn't a controller card anymore. I am pretty sure when they first came out with the 36 gig it came with a controller card, but not anymore.

If you are thinking about upgrading your mobo in the future anyhow, you'd be better off getting a mobo that has built in sata along with the ide. Controller cards start at around $25 and go over $100 depending on what all you want the card to do.

You can go to newegg and look at the sata cards and read ppl's reviews.

[Briantist]

Good luck finding a card with TCQ. I have Seagate SATA drives which are (I think) the only other SATA drives to support it right now. I got a 8 Channel SATA RAID card by Highpoint. I do NOT recommend this card to anyone who intends to do RAID 5. If you want RAID 5, drop the cash for a card with onboard cache and it's own processor. I'm going to be going with a card by a fairly new company called RAIDcore, started by former adaptec employees. I think their cards, and maybe adaptec's better ones support TCQ, but don't quote me on that. RAIDcore has the same/better features than the Adaptec cards for less money. Check tomshardware.com, which is where I found a review of the RAIDcore card. Either in that review, or perhaps a seperate one, they were talking about SATA and TCQ.