hl2master

Usual Intel. Terrible naming schemes.

I see your point, but here's the thing: BTW, my 9260-8i for my eight SSD array was a used purchase on eBay, and it has been rock solid (apart from the fact that TRIM is not supported in RAID with the 9260-8i, and my SSD array's performance gets worse overtime). Even if it seems unnecessary, I highly recommend getting a battery backup unit, or at least, buy a card that comes with it (the BBU saved my butt a couple of times). If you enable "Always Read Ahead" for your virtual drive (which in layman's terms, is the RAID partition you'll end up seeing in an OS), the performance will be dramatically better, but at the expense of potential data loss when power goes out. That's where the BBU kicks in by running the RAID card during a power loss. So, I'd say the BBU is a must. As for LSI as a brand, their products are one of the most popular and reliable brands for storage solutions (Adaptec and Areca are some others that I can consider "reliable" right off from my head).

The idea is great, but so far, the implementations from companies are mostly shoddy (ehhm, LG G5). Moto Z seems like the best implementation with the magnetic moto mods IMO, but a fully modular phone like what Project Ara was doing would be cool.

HBA means host bus adapter. As far as I know, cards that are advertised as HBA cards don't have any RAID functionality, unless you're going to use software RAID through your OS (I don't recommend it, especially in Windows, since carrying over a RAID array to another hardware combo can be troublesome). If I'm correct, software RAID is what @LinusTech used to use on Whonnock server before the NVMe SSD upgrade. Whonnock used to have three separate hardware RAID 5 arrays on three separate RAID cards, an those three arrays were striped (so RAID 0) in Windows using software RAID, meaning if any one of the three RAID 5 arrays dropped out, data was lost. Also, for my personal machine, I run eight 120 GB SSDs in RAID 0 on an LSI 9260-8i. It's actually very similar to what @LinusTech used to run on Personal Rig Update 2012, but with SATA III drives (doesn't matter anyways, since the 9260-8i is only capable of SATA II). As for the 9207-8i, it doesn't seem to support RAID at all, since it's just an HBA card (check this link out: https://www.broadcom.com/products/storage/host-bus-adapters/sas-9207-8i#specifications). Getting something like a used 9260-8i on eBay for a bit less than $100 seems like the best option (look for ones with battery backups included, since they can save your butt in striped RAID levels with Always Read Ahead enabled). As for RAID levels, RAID 1 would be fine if you don't mind the lack of speed improvements, and need the utmost redundancy (RAID 1 can loose all but one drive without any data loss). RAID 5 can be a good option if you want both fault tolerances (up to one drive) and read speed improvements (parity levels like RAID 5 and 6 can impact write speeds due to the parity drive requiring more processes to be done on the RAID controller). Also consider RAID 6 if you want two drive tolerances at the expense of slower speeds. Also, don't forget to buy cables. Most used RAID cards on eBay don't include any. Look for Mini-SAS (also called SFF-8087) to SATA cables on Amazon or somewhere else.

I got a used 9261-8i RAID card, and can't hit Ctrl+H to go into WebBios and configure the array. It says Adapter BIOS disabled. And I don't know how to flash the BIOS properly.

There's this thing called an embargo as well, so...

My Sabertooth X79 motherboard is not POSTing (black screen, too) and the Boot device LED light is coming on. I tried reflashing the BIOS with USB BIOS flashback, but failed. I tried removing the CMOS battery and jumped the CMOS to clear it, but none worked. Help please

I'm looking for a water block for a GTX 590, but it's really hard to find. Any suggestions?

just shopping for a pc

Title says it all. Which is better in raw GPU performance. Titan or 590?

Is that relevant to my question? I just had one okay man thx

I have a 3960X

I'm looking for a X79 motherboard under $250 (regardless if it's brand new or used). Anyone who can recommend some?

thx man

I'll consider this. Thanks man