Adaptec SATA-300 2-Channel LP PCIe x1 RAID Controller

I installed the card on a Dell Poweredge 1800 (dual 3.8 GHz Xenon, 12GB Ram) running  Microsoft Windows Small Business Server Standard 2011 64Bit 1 Pack DSP OEI DVD 1-4CPU 5 Clt . The driver on the install CD was dated 12/11/2007 but a later one (10/19/2010) is available to download from Adaptec. The firmware on the card was version 6.0-0 Build 2328 and I downloaded version 6.0-0 Build 2507 and updated the card's firmware. I had to do a bit of fiddling to get my 2TB SATA II disks working. Had to format using the AFU.exe DOS command after booting on a floppy. I would get intermittent SMART BIOS boot messages on my  HITACHI 0F10311 2.0TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.0 7200 RPM 32MB Buffer Hard Drive Bulk  drives. These drives showed no SMART errors by Hard Disk Sentinel when tested on another computer. I had to disable SMART checking in the card to get reliable booting. I do not have other brand 2TB disks to try. It might be an incompatibility with the card and Hitachi drives. I am not sure of all the steps, but it is working now with SMART detection disabled.In the above configuration the drives are hot swappable. Without the driver and firmware update the the card would not work reliably. This is why I give it 3 stars. It would have been 4 otherwise. It took me several hours to research, download, update and test these changes. My largest disk is a 2TB but Adaptec says 2507 or later is necessary for 3TB disks. I see no valid reason that these cards are shipping with 4 year-old software/firmware. I have bought other boards that at least had a sticker on the outside of the box with a warning to upgrade the software/firmware.If the disks were initialized/formatted on another controller they may show as "FAILED" in the boot sequence messages. I had to setup the disks using Ctrl-A in the boot sequence, delete and add them. It warned that it contained a partition table and I might loose the data but I did not loose any. YMMVThe install disk is bootable and you can also make a driver floppy from the bootable or under Windows. Most machines these days do not have floppy drives but I have a  TEAC 1.44MB USB External Floppy Disk Drive (Black)  for such cases. If booted on the CD it also requires PS/2 keyboard and mouse as it does not contain USB drivers.The included Adaptec Storage Manager (ASM) is version 5.10.00. Adaptec Storage Manager 6.50.00 is available on the Adaptec site (Windows 64 bit version is asm_windows_x64_v6_50_18584.exe MD5 EF1FF6A6758A467240F052CB75A8BD6A).I am not real interested in high speed as the board is used with a  StarTech.com 5.25-Inch Bay Mounted 2.5-Inch and 3.5-Inch SATA Hard Drive Docking Station SATADOCK525 (Black)  to do backups and clones.Approximate ATTO bench32 results for blocks greater than 256 KB: Western Digital Raptor 74GB SATA/150 10K RPM 8MB Hard Drive  85 MB/sec read and write Seagate Barracuda ST3320620AS, 7200.10 - Hard drive - 320 GB - internal - 3.5" - SATA-300 - 7200 rpm - buffer: 16 MB  83 MB/sec read and write Hitachi Deskstar 3.5" 500GB 7200RPM SATA II 16MB Cache Internal Hard Drive 0F10381  97 MB/sec write, 120 MB/sec read HITACHI 0F10311 2.0TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.0 7200 RPM 32MB Buffer Hard Drive Bulk  98 MB/sec write, 127 MB/sec read Western Digital 500 GB RE4 SATA 3 Gb/s 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Enterprise Hard Drive - WD5003ABYX  99K MB/sec write, 101K 101K MB/sec readIt is being used simply as 2 ports, I did not try the HostRAID functions.When I tried to install ASM on a Windows 7 Pro system it failed with "error 1327 invalid drive S". S is a NAS where I keep most of my downloaded files. I applied Microsoft Fix It 50356 and was then able to install ASM.One review complained that the manual was poor. I have installed so many similar cards that I did not bother to read it. Another said overpriced, I want a product that is reliable and will be supported by the vendor for a long time. Price is important, but a secondary consideration.Based the above results I ordered 7 more 1220SA cards. If you do not need the SATA cables you should get the  Adaptec 2255900-R SATA RAID Controller  at about $13 cheaper.

My objective was simple. Install a RAID1 Drive (2 x 2 TB drives) on an existing computer to back-up music and videos. So this drive was to act as an extention, and holds no windows information.The hardware installed fine.Installing an internal disc drive controller software can be a challenge as you have to address the boot configuration of the computer as well, the installation of the drive, (ARC Utility) and software (Adaptec Storage Manager). It was made more challenging by the faulty and error filled instructions that came with the board. I knew I was in trouble when it was required me to create a disc driver disc using a floppy disc in year 2010.Obviously that cannot be done.I wound up struggling mightly to get the driver installed. I attemped format using the quick format strategy, and then using both Adaptec Storage manager Software. At one point the installation corrupted my wireless keyboard and the system defaulted to Arabic language, right to left typing. Thanks for restore.In the end I wound up sucessfully installing the driver through the windows control panel hardware interface.There were no instructions on how to assign the drive a letter, help from someone else resolved that problem.Once installed it seems to work well. I had one problem which has required a driver rebuild, which again, the Adaptec Stroage Manager identified as being a degraded drive, but there were no instructions on how to fix it.The main manual about 200 pages was useless, obviously no one at Adaptec has ever tried to install the drives using their own instructions.

No manuals, over priced compared to others.Picture had a heatsink on the chip but the adapter I received did not.

The board installed easily and worked well. No surprises or fights to get it operational.