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Rating: 
Summary: It does the job for me, not a stellar product
Review: Adaptec is reselling the Highpoint RocketRAID 100 as their own product. This is not a hardware RAID implementation, but the BIOS on the card support booting from the RAID array, which would otherwise be impossible using RAID0. The chip used (HPT370A) is nothing but a ATA100 controller, and can be used as such.All the magic is in the drivers. Adaptec only supports Windows OSes, but it actually works out of the box for FreeBSD, and Linux supports the chipset as well. I'm running a RAID1 configuration for a file server, using matched HDs. Read performance is noticably faster, and write performance does not seem to have suffered much. One issue: when one drive fails the RAID1 keeps on running, but rebooting requires manual intervention at the console until the drive is replaced and the mirror rebuilt.
It's not an issue for me, but continuing the boot after a timeout would have been nice.
Rating: 
Summary: Does not play nice-nice with XP
Review: For raid-0 had to shut the computer off after the file copy process and physically move the card to a new pci slot to get it to work off of a fresh format. After that, many blue sreens and freezes. Ended up pulling the card and just keeping the hard drives as two seperate drives. All in all not worth the (cheap) price. More of a pain in the @$$ than anything. In case you were wondering, I have a very good pc (dell 4300 w/ p3 1.8) with A LOT of bells and whistles. This should have not performed this poorly on the pc I built.
Rating:
Summary: Does not play nice-nice with XP
Review: For raid-0 had to shut the computer off after the file copy process and physically move the card to a new pci slot to get it to work off of a fresh format. After that, many blue sreens and freezes. Ended up pulling the card and just keeping the hard drives as two seperate drives. All in all not worth the (cheap) price. More of a pain in the @$$ than anything. In case you were wondering, I have a very good pc (dell 4300 w/ p3 1.8) with A LOT of bells and whistles. This should have not performed this poorly on the pc I built.
Rating: 
Summary: quick & easy with a low price to boot
Review: I built my own computer from the ground up and, in doing so, did lots of internet research. I wanted to include a RAID 0 array in my gaming system to cut down on long loading times which drive me insane. The daunting task of installing this array was much simplified by the included instructions with this card. Setting it up was extremely easy. Following the instructions to the letter was required, even though they did not specify instructions for Windows XP upgrade editions (for the record, install exactly like they say for full edition, and insert your win 98 disk to prove you own it and all is well). All you have to do is set the BIOS to use the SCSI device as the "boot device" on initial setup and set everything else to auto. I'm using two Maxtor 40GB hard drives which Windows now sees as one big 80GB partition. One is ATA100 and one is ATA133 and the card allows this minor frontwards compatability. Following setup of the RAID 0 array, Windows XP installed in less than 15 minutes, not including the format. With the array, programs now install with lightning speed. If you are like me, and you don't have a lot of important data that you wouldn't be backing up anyway on a CD anyway, RAID 0 is the way to go. The speed is amazing and the setup is way easy with this card. Hope this helps.
Rating:
Summary: quick & easy with a low price to boot
Review: I built my own computer from the ground up and, in doing so, did lots of internet research. I wanted to include a RAID 0 array in my gaming system to cut down on long loading times which drive me insane. The daunting task of installing this array was much simplified by the included instructions with this card. Setting it up was extremely easy. Following the instructions to the letter was required, even though they did not specify instructions for Windows XP upgrade editions (for the record, install exactly like they say for full edition, and insert your win 98 disk to prove you own it and all is well). All you have to do is set the BIOS to use the SCSI device as the "boot device" on initial setup and set everything else to auto. I'm using two Maxtor 40GB hard drives which Windows now sees as one big 80GB partition. One is ATA100 and one is ATA133 and the card allows this minor frontwards compatability. Following setup of the RAID 0 array, Windows XP installed in less than 15 minutes, not including the format. With the array, programs now install with lightning speed. If you are like me, and you don't have a lot of important data that you wouldn't be backing up anyway on a CD anyway, RAID 0 is the way to go. The speed is amazing and the setup is way easy with this card. Hope this helps.
Rating:
Summary: DON'T BUY!
Review: I have a Compaq NT4 Server I have tried for two days to install this card. It does not work. NT4 does not recognise the driver on a fresh NT install. Worse still when I plugged hard drives into the card the my origonal raid array (which is rock solid) wasn't reconised as the boot device. Do yourself a favour spend a little extra cash and buy a card that works!
Rating:
Summary: Forget for XP or 2003
Review: I have been building and using comptuers for 15+ years and this is the hardest piece of hardware I have EVER had to install. I could never get it to work reliably with XP (SP2) or Server 2003 (it would work fine with Win. 2000). I followed the instructions to the letter on the Adaptec site but to no avail. Sometimes my computer (XP) would boot fine, other times it would lock up. I finally gave up and went with software RAID which worked perfectly. Save your money or purchase another card if you are using XP or Server 2003.
Rating:
Summary: XP Setup Tricky, But Worth It
Review: No thanks to Adaptec for poorly written documentation but MANY, MANY thanks to "steve-indiana" here at Amazon for pointing me in the right direction for setting the card up. Here is my additional feedback (also posted to Google):
Dell & Windows XP Pro SP1 & Adaptec ATA RAID 1200A Install Instructions
For anyone struggling to find information about properly installing an Adaptec 1200a into a Dell workstation running Windows XP Professional + SP1. I found the Adaptec documentation lacking the necessary, detailed information.
My old setup:
Dell Dimension 8100 (just over 3yrs old)
XP Professional
Dell XP2 BIOS
A master CD-ROM drive and slave DVD drive on the Secondary IDE channel
1 Maxtor 60GB (original OEM drive) on the Primary IDE channel
My new (target) setup:
Dell Dimension 8100 (same machine as above)
XP Professional
Dell XP2 BIOS
A master CD-ROM drive and slave DVD drive on the Secondary IDE channel
2 Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 Plus Hard Drives (part #ST3160023A)
Adaptec ATA RAID 1200A (Mirrored - RAID 1)
* My old Maxtor hard drive failed so I removed it from the case and replaced it with one of the new Seagates. I did not change any BIOS settings and the new drive was plugged into the Primary IDE channel, just like the old one.
* I reinstalled XP by booting from the CD-ROM. Once XP was installed, I installed Service Pack 1 + Critical Updates via the Windows Update site.
* I shut down the computer and installed the Adaptec card into one of the available PCI slots (slot #5, the bottom-most slot) ... no disk drives attached.
* I restarted WinXP (should see Adaptec's RAID BIOS start message .. "Press to enter BIOS ..."). The operating system should detect the new hardware and prompt for a driver install. If not, open Device Manager (via Control Panel -> System -> Hardware tab), right-click on the unknown SCSI & RAID Controller item and select "Update Driver".
NOTE: at this point, the OS sees the new device as a generic "Mass Storage" device but we'll fix this shortly
* Here's where it gets a little tricky ...
If you choose "Have Disk" to update the driver using the supplied Adaptec floppy disk, the supplied Adaptec CD, or drivers downloaded from the Adaptec web site, the driver update will fail with the following message: "The driver installation file for this device is missing a necessary entry. This may be because the INF was written for Windows 95 or later. Contact your hardware vendor." (only a Finish button is available)
Instead, perform the following steps (these are taken directly from Adaptec web site knowledgebase article/answer #5123):
"The error message is displayed because Windows XP recognizes the Highpoint chipset on the 1200A and tries to load the driver embedded in XP for the Highpoint chipset. This driver is no longer embedded in the operating system release, so no driver is loaded.
To install the driver, follow this procedure:
1) In Device Manager, right-click on the Mass Storage Controller entry under SCSI & RAID Controllers and select Update Driver.
2) Choose to "Install from a Specific Location", then select "Don't search. I will choose the driver to Install." For the hardware type, select SCSI and RAID controllers and click Next. On the next screen Press Have Disk, then Browse to the location of the 1200A drivers. The Adaptec 1200A should show up in the list of Models to select.
3) Choose the 1200A and continue. If prompted that this driver is not signed or may be the incorrect driver, say Yes to continue.
4) During the driver installation, you may receive a message that a file being copied is older than the existing file, do you wish to keep the newer file? Select to overwrite the existing newer file with the older version from the Adaptec 1200A drivers. If you keep the newer driver, your card will not function properly.
5) Once the driver for the 1200A is loaded, Windows should now detect another device, "Adaptec RCM Device". Repeat steps 2 & 3 for the Adaptec RCM Device."
* Shut down the machine and plug the new, XP drive into the Adaptec card, channel #1.
* Restart the machine and enter the BIOS ... set the Primary Master IDE Channel to "None"/"Off" and bring up XP (note: leave Secondary IDE settings alone because the CD and DVD drives are on these). The OS should now recognize the hardware as an Adaptec 1200a (instead of the generic Mass Storage device). Install the Adaptec GUI software from the CD.
* Shut down the machine and plug the second hard drive into the Adaptec card, channel #2.
* Restart the machine and enter the BIOS ... set the Primary Slave IDE Channel to "None"/"Off" and bring up XP (note: leave Secondary IDE settings alone because the CD and DVD drives are on these).
* Open the Adaptec GUI (there should be a system tray icon per GUI install) and configure for RAID1 per instructions. Mirroring my 160GB drives took ~2.5 hours.
Hope this helps ...
Rating:
Summary: Cheap way to protect your data or improve performance
Review: This is a good solution for the home user who is looking for either faster transfers from his hard drives (RAID 0) or to secure his data (RAID 1). I use it on my Windows XP system and never had any problems. It's easy to install and configure. Windows XP supports it natively, but you should get the latest drivers and BIOS to support drives larger than 137GB. The down sides, in my opinion:
. Doesn't offer RAID 3 (parity: 3 drives give you the capacity of 2 with the benefits of RAID 1) or RAID 5.
. In RAID 1 mode, it only supports 2 drives, even if you have 4. You cannot, for example, mirror a set of 200 GB + 60 GB drives to form a mirrored 260GB drive.
. No drivers offered for Linux. It is a good idea to read more about the different types of RAID before purchasing your RAID adapter. For about the same price, the Promise FastTrak SX4000 offers a much better product that supports RAID 5 and up to 256MB of on-board cache memory.
Rating:
Summary: Incredible speed, easy to install, stellar price
Review: This is the best IDE RAID solution. Offering striping (level 0), mirroring (level 1), a combination with mirrored striped arrrays (0+1), and "just a bunch of disks" (JBOD), this card allows tons of RAID flexibility at a price very competitive with an ordinary ultra ATA/100 adapter. Note that this is also a low-profile card, but it ships with a standard bracket as well, so you can put it in a 1U rackmount server or a standard desktop. The ease of installation was very nice--just copy the driver files from the included CD to a diskette and then wait for the Windows "Found New Hardware" prompt. You can even download the newest drivers from Adaptec's website and skip the CD entirely. If you want to move your single drive on an already-installed OS to a mirrored-drive configuration, here's how I did it. Leave your single drive hooked up to the current IDE controller and put this card in without any disks attached so that you can let Windows install the drivers. Next, move your drive from the onboard IDE to this card and Windows will boot normally from the new card. Then you can use the included GUI software to make your mirror while the system is running--very handy! The included documentation could be more clear on this point, but Adaptec's phone support is marvelous. Striping, on the other hand, takes a complete reinstallation of the OS. It is wonderfully fast and the onboard RAID controller from Highpoint lets your main CPU relax, even during the most intense disk activity. There have been some good online reviews that benchmark this card near the top--search around for other opinions and come back right here to Amazon[.com] for the best price. The only case where you wouldn't want this card is if you want RAID 5. Sorry, you'll need Adaptec's 2400A adapter, which costs more than 6 times as much as this card. You'd be better off to spend the money on faster, bigger hard drives and just mirror them if you want the fault-tolerant option. Remember, mirroring improves read access substantially, so contrary to some myths out there RAID 1 provides performance as well as redundancy. Enjoy! This is the fourth one of these cards I've purchased and they've been great.
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