AdaptecRAID 6405E Storage Controller 2271700-R

This little card is sweet, works great, super fast and would have gotten 5 stars if it had done just two things better. 1 - it runs a little hot, not enough to be an issue, but it would be nice to have a fan option on the Heat sync; and 2 - its web UI for management from inside the OS is weak, I run a domain and you cant really get it to use a domain credential. It wants to use a local account, and if they would simply give you the ability to add a web UI user, it would make a world of difference.I am using it to run two RAID 1 arrays, 1 SSD array to boot Windows 7, and 1 for data storage with hybrid drives. I have had 0 issues and the controller will recognize a single drive should you want to attach 1 drive vs. creating an array.Pro:FastSuper easy to configureCable is designed to be pretty cleanEasy to add drivers either on install of windows or after (depending on your setup).Cons:Web UI needs work (not a big deal if you just use the Command utility when your CPU boots)Card gets a little hot. (not hot enough to burn you bad but hot enough that if you brush up on the heat sync you will feel the heat pretty quickly)**Note I have a liquid cooled system with a few fans for radiators, maybe if I had even more fans it may help? I may try to add a liquid cooler to it, but at this point its not so HOT I am concerned.

Be advised, this card only have 1 SAS port, it's not like the picture, I was shocked when I opened the package and was ready to file a claim when I saw on the Adaptec website that this card only have 1 SAS port. the picture shows a Adaptec 6805E not an Adaptec 6405E. If anyone can correct this, it would be cool.

I know that Adaptec has been around for a long time producing controller cards. So it's no surprise that their website had up-to-date Win7 drivers and BIOS updates (the BIOS update runs from DOS, so that took away 1 star, but it might be an expensive feature to do any other way, at least the card will benefit from Adaptec's continued support).This model appears to be an entry level (value price) version of their higher priced cards (i.e. it has 1 PCIe lane, instead of more than 1). However, my system "feels" noticeably faster with this card in place -- not just the drive, but the whole system.So now I have this card controlling "C:" (with 2 physical drives in a RAID1 setup) along with the built-in Dell SAS 6 controller as "D:" (with 2 physical drives in a RAID1 setup). The cable included in this kit has 4 connectors, so I could add another pair of drives in the future.I think Adaptec's configuration screens are a bit clearer (less confusing) than the Dell SAS 6 screens.

I originally purchased this card at work (not related to this Amazon account) to help one of our employees with a substantial need for reliable RAID access to several large capacity hard drives (4TB x 4). I configured that particular system using RAID 10 on Windows 7 with this controller and had been impressed with the performance and ease of setup.I purchased the card again for use in yet another work system, this time for a server with a couple of Intel Skulltrail SSDs in RAID 1 for redundancy, and the system has managed to blow me out of the water. You'd think that SSDs in RAID 1 would be fast enough on its own and that the "mere" 128MB of RAM on this card wouldn't add much, but truth is, that particular server is running Server 2012 R2 and it is just as fast all get out. The performance is phenomenal, and the out of the box driver support was nice.The purchase of this card on my own account (and the reason for my Amazon verified purchase seal here) was for a friend's SMB that needed a hardware RAID controller for his ESXi 5.1 whitebox server. After my prior successes with this card, I have high hopes that it will extend its high performance and ease of use in ESXi as it has in Windows thus far.I will update my review after installing and configuring this card in ESXi 5.1 shortly.Bottom line: Windows 7 or Server 2012+, this card is awesome.ESXi: I'll let you know soon. ;)

Terrible product from Adaptec.Pros---------------1) Price is competitive for the feature offering.Cons---------------1) Write performance is 40% slower than a previous generation 2805 product. We have tested this several time via 4 6TB drives and the 2805 is slower than a turtle on weed for some god unknown reason. Yes, it has the latest firmware and we have matched the config on both 2805 and 6405. Note we did not use raid feature but having each drive as a individual unit (jbod/raid0) with read cache enabled and write cache disabled.2) This product does not work alongside Adaptec 2805 on the same motherboard with our supermicro build. Complains of corrupted firmware at bios stage. Nice compatibility testing from Adaptec.Conclusion:------------------If you have 2xxx series, don't upgrade! If you are migrating from LSI, think twice before doing so.

Adaptec has been a name in networks for many years. Adaptec’s storage division has changed hands a couple of times and are now under Microsemi.We currently exclusively use Adaptec in all our large servers.Pros:- Fast RAID operation- Good feature set- Reliable- Many options and sizes to choose fromCons:- CPU assisted cards get hot- Array building can be slow- The Adaptec offerings on the current website are a bit hard to find.