HighPoint RocketRAID 2640X4

Introduction

As part of my continuing effort to review server class hardware, I am reviewing the HighPoint RocketRAID 2640X4 PCI-Express x4 SAS RAID Controller. As an entry level SAS controller, the RocketRAID 2640X4 is a quality card with all of the basic features that one would expect in a RAID card. As a server part, it is supported on nearly every platform and even offers an open source driver for the Linux kernel. This card is built on the PCI-Express standard and requires a x4 rail to function; PCI-Express allows a low latency, high bandwidth connection suitable for the high use hard drives typically employed in a server environment. Let's take a look at the complete specification from the manufacturers website.

Product Specification

To begin, here is a list of the supporting documentation as provided by the manufacturer, these links lead to the manufacturer website. If you look at the performance report, you will see that their in house testing provided some pretty incredible results! When we get to the testing phase, we will see how our numbers stack up.

• Data Sheet download (2 pages)
• User Manual download (84 pages)
• Compatibility List download (3 pages)
• Performance Report download (4 pages)

Advance RAID Features

• Support RAID 0,1,5,10 and JBOD • Multiple RAID support • Multiple logical drive support • BIOS booting support • Online Array roaming • Automatic drive (insert / remove) detection • Automatic RAID rebuild • 64bit LBA support greater than 2TB per volume • S.M.A.R.T (Early Warning System) • TerabyteGuard ™ for data protection and reliability • Bad sector repair and remapping to reduce dropped drives

Array Monitors, Alerts and Indicators

• Hard Drive LED Indicators (Activity and Failed) • Email Notification • Alarm/Buzzer alerts for drive/array failure • Enclosure Management support with I2C and SGPIO

RAID Management

• Online Capacity Expansion (OCE) and Online RAID Level Migration (OLRM) • Quick and Background initialization for instant RAID configuration • Write Back and Write Through support • API library for customization • CLI (Command Line Interface) • Web GUI RAID management (local and remote monitoring) • SHI (Drive analysis driven from S.M.A.R.T)

Operating System Support

• Windows (2000, XP, x64, 2003, 2008, Vista (32 and  64) Bit) • Linux (Fedora Core, Red Hat Enterprise / CentOS, SuSE) • Mac OS X 10.4.x and above • FreeBSD • Linux Open Source

Limited Warranty

3 years

REAL TIME PRICING