AMCC 3ware 9550SX SATA RAID Controller for Windows

User Reviews

• Very fast controller, great support, but it can bite.

  SiliconDreamsJuly 12, 2009

  Pros

  The installation is very straightforward, but configuring using the BIOS interface can be very time-consuming. It works without any problems on WinXP x64, and has saved my bacon more than once. It's also pretty flexible.

  Cons

  The BIOS configuration interface is quite fiddly, with selection and movement keys combined. The firmware, drivers, and "management" version numbers are complex, confusing, and difficult to manage.

  Summary

  The 9550 is functional and rock-solid, with no gotchas or glitches (at least, not in the 2+ years I've been using it). I use the 8-port half-height model (9550-LP8) in a Tyan H2000 motherboard on the 64-bit 100MHz PCI bus. The support is excellent (as you'd expect for a hardware device costing more than most complete computer systems!). The support is focused, prompt, and the team at AMCC are extremely helpful, so that helps smooth over some of the more confusing aspects of the code support. The only management interface is a html server on a secure loopback port, so as management software goes, it's pretty utilitarian, and painfully slow, with no "OK" or "Apply" buttons to be seen anywhere. If you hate .NET interfaces, you'll loathe the management interface on this controller. That said, it does let you see a huge amount of information, if you're happy to go clicking around on the group buttons at the top of the page. All the functions are there, you just have to dig a little. Unfortunately, some functions are circular, so if you open the "Summary" page, then click on the unit link, that takes you to a drive list, with links for each drive that show you the SMART data and nothing else, and you have to close that page to get back to the main unit page. Each drive unit can be shown in 2 different ways depending on the way you use to get to the drive listings, and some of the drive links take you back to the unit page... You get the gist. Speaking of HTML, the management tool (called 3DM2 to distinguish it from the BIOS UI, called 2BM) uses a secure http port, but the company's certificate supplied isn't trusted by any public authority, so unless you disable all trust verification in your web browser, you'll never be able to just log in to the 3DM2 page, you'll always be prompted to accept the untrusted certificate first. This doesn't apply to all browsers equally, of course - IE is the most difficult to use with 3DM2, but Firefox and Safari have the same problems. The BIOS configuration is more difficult to use than you'd think, as movement keys are mixed up with function keys (space/enter vs tab/arrows), and if you forget to hit F8, all your changes will be lost and you'll have to start all over again. Same with hitting the ESC key - except that sometimes it closes the current function, sometimes it exits the BIOS UI completely - again, with no confirmation. If you know your way around RAID, you won't have any problems, but if you're not sure about how carving or striping or parity works, you're better off going with something a bit simpler, like the RocketRAID (which is what the 3ware controller replaced in this system). The company seems to be focusing heavily on linux, and windows support definitely feels like an afterthought, so if you don't like or understand the command-line style of interface, you're better off sticking with the html interface. The software, firmware, and driver numbering is inscrutable for non-linux admins (or non-developers) to understand. There are firmware revisions, codeset revisions, driver revisions, BIOS revisions, and manager revisions. And just when you thought you had it figured out, there are different version sequences for windows and linux, for command-line and windows-based, and for BIOS and 3DM2. There are different flash routines, some only work from DOS, some only work from linux, some work from within Windows. The online "Version Checker" tool doesn't actually tell you what version of anything you actually have. You must type in the codeset number (or firmware number, which is different again) you want the version checker to report on, and when you type that in (like 03.00.00.019) it will tell you what firmware and BIOS and driver and manager versions should be in that version of the package. Tier 1/2 realtime support is available, and the support team are very professional and extremely helpful, but once it gets past the basic problems, only ticketed web-based support is available. That's still better than forum support. And the AMCC people do treat you like a real customer, even if you're not a corporate high-flyer. That's unusual these days. Would I buy another controller from AMCC? In a heartbeat. Would I recommend AMCC to another user? Only if they know enough about RAID to make jokes about JBOD. But from a business standpoint, the 9550 has literally saved my bacon once. It's also burned my bacon once, so this kind of hardware and software isn't for the faint-hearted!

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