Depending on the number of disk drives in the drive array, the Adaptec 5445 supports RAID levels of 0, 1, 1E, 5, 5EE, 6, 10, 50 and 60. Fitting in a standard PCI Express slot, the card can be connected to either an internal or external drive array. Both SAS and SATA drives are supported.
| The Ingredients:
PRODUCT: Adaptec RAID 5445
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The cards in the Series 5 RAID unified serial controller family vary from a 4-port card, with four internal ports, to a 28-port card, with 24 internal ports and four external ports. The tested card, the Adaptec RAID 5445 with eight ports, has four internal and four external ports.
As a hardware solution, the controller works independently of the operating system. Once the system BIOS detected the card, the reviewers were able to enter the management interface without waiting for the OS to start. From the interface, reviewers created and deleted the drive array, adjusted boot settings and designated drives to be hot-swappable.
Windows, Linux, Unix, Solaris, FreeBSD and VMware ESX Server all are supported. Overall, it's ideal for environments that need a high level of sustained read-and-write performance.
