EBay for RAID Cards

mda

2[H]4U
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Mar 23, 2011
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Hi,

Looking to ebay for RAID card options, which models should be on the look out for? I just plan to grab cards for RAID 1

There are a lot of PERC H310 models, which I understand suck for RAID 5, but should be fine for RAID 1.

What are the actual pricing for these cards? I'm guessing those listed at USD 35 and in brand new condition are too good to be true?

Thanks
 
What are the actual pricing for these cards? I'm guessing those listed at USD 35 and in brand new condition are too good to be true?
It's the real deal. These are older cards and no longer valuable (also, the H310 is PCIe 2.0, which may limit performance depending on what you're trying to do, but also highlights how old it is). When you see "new" it's really "new old stock" which is a fancy way of saying they were stockpiled somewhere a long time ago for any number of reasons but never used or sold. I bought my 9240-8i, which is the original LSI model of this card, 4 or 5 years ago new/old stock for $50.

If you want to decrease the odds you're getting fleeced, check out the seller profile and rating. Lots of legit server part dealer/distributor companies making these sales.
 
It's the real deal. These are older cards and no longer valuable (also, the H310 is PCIe 2.0, which may limit performance depending on what you're trying to do, but also highlights how old it is). When you see "new" it's really "new old stock" which is a fancy way of saying they were stockpiled somewhere a long time ago for any number of reasons but never used or sold. I bought my 9240-8i, which is the original LSI model of this card, 4 or 5 years ago new/old stock for $50.

If you want to decrease the odds you're getting fleeced, check out the seller profile and rating. Lots of legit server part dealer/distributor companies making these sales.
Hi,
If I want to use it as Sata expansion card, just for pass-thru, as addition Sata port, can I do it without using the Raid function? I'll flash it to LSI (find plenty of tutorials on how to do it) but it's not sure if I just use it as expansion card.
Thanks
 
Hi,
If I want to use it as Sata expansion card, just for pass-thru, as addition Sata port, can I do it without using the Raid function? I'll flash it to LSI (find plenty of tutorials on how to do it) but it's not sure if I just use it as expansion card.
Thanks
Yes, you can do that, many people do. When you flash it, make sure you use the IT mode firmware and it will turn the card into an HBA.
 
Seconded on all of that - we regularly sell off old parts via ebay and the like as they're no longer useful, and most large vendors do too - plus all the 3rd party gray market support places stockpile gear if needed, and eventually start shrinking the inventory as the importance of the kit drops. It's almost all legit, and the prices are right.
 
If it's just raid 1 why not use onboard?

Technically speaking a RAID 1 array isn't hardware dependent if the board fails than the data is still accessible.
 
So you are using this for backups/data archiving? If so I wouldn't have thought PCIe 2.0 would be too much of an issue, especially if using sprinners.
 
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