Adaptec 6805 RAID card

I finally received my new Adaptec 6805 raid card today. After messing with 2 lower end cards (Highpoint and Supermicro) that both failed after a few days, I decided I’ll invest and get the bad boy. This card alone cost more than my server (except the 8x 2TB drives) all together. Shout out to Jeff from JB Tech Enterprise for recommending this card.

So far so good. It works with Windows Home Server 2011 using Windows 2008 drivers. The software is also working. I’ve created a RAID6 with 8x 2TB Seagate ST2000DL003. It’s initializing now. I’m pretty sure it will be a lot faster than using the onboard RAID ports and Windows software raid to initialize.

Here are some pics I took during the unboxing.

I wasn’t sure what the gray cable was so I tied it up and left it alone. I checked the website for any information and found nothing. I Googled, still nothing. I tried to call Adaptec tech support, but they were already closed. I sent the pic to Jeff and he says it’s the activity light hookup that may go to a backplane. Well, I don’t have a backplane so I won’t be using it.

I’ll post more about the card once the array has finished initializing and I’ll do some benchmarks. Stay tuned.