Areca or 3ware RAID controllers

[Michael S. Peek]

Hi all,

I'm looking at buying some large (32-drive) raid boxes from a company 
that gives me the option of choosing 3ware or Areca RAID controllers, 
and I'm trying to decide which to choose.

I have experience with 3ware, but not Areca.  3ware is supported by 
standard kernels out of the box, but I had to download the managing 
software from 3ware's site.  3ware also has a BIOS interface you can 
enter on boot-up to create/manage your arrays (which I thought useful if 
all else fails).  I've only had one problem with a 3ware card that was 
replaced under warranty, the rest are ticking away solidly, even after 
multiple AC outages that led to overheating problems in the past.

Does anyone have any experience w/ using Areca RAID controllers under 
Ubuntu?  Can you give me any pointers?

Michael Peek