HighPoint RocketRAID 620 PCI-Express 2.0 x1 SATA III (6.0Gb/s) Controller Card

Pros: Includes low profile bracket, inexpensive, SATA-III 6Gbps, supports FIS port multipliers.

Cons: Doesn't really work "out of the box" in Linux, it takes some work but it's not impossible if you're patient.

The RAID BIOS adds a bit of time to bootup searching for disks/arrays. Not really a big deal but annoying.

Other Thoughts: This is a great little card, but it doesn't quite work "out of the box" in Linux, it takes a bit of work to get it going. If you want to use the (software) RAID features of this card, you'll need to compile the closed-source HighPoint rr62x driver, which can be downloaded from their website.

Most people will want to use the Linux DM subsystem for RAID anyway because it's faster and more reliable than software "fakeRAID".

The Marvell 88SE9128 chip in this card presents an AHCI interface, however the Linux AHCI drivers don't recognize it because it's PCI ID isn't included (yet?). To get it working, you can either patch the kernel and add it's PCI ID to the ahci.c driver or you can simply add it via the sysfs interface by typing:

echo "1130 0620" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ahci/new_ids

If you want to boot off of this card, you can add the above command to your initrd.

This should also work for the RocketRaid 622/640 as well as the Rocket 620/640/640L, really any HighPoint card that uses the Marvell 88SExxxx chipset. Just substitute your card's PCI ID and use the above command.

Hope this helps someone!

Pros: I expected the install to be cumbersome after reading reviews here. I did not have any issues installing the card. It did not conflict with my On-board RAID. The firmware was actually up-to-date when I went to flash it. Documentation was actually well written and layed out nicely.

Cons: I expected the card to be fast. It was so very slow. When I run my SSD drives off of the Motherboard, they get around 300-350MB/s. I bought the card to create a RAID from two SSDs. The two drives in RAID actually run slower (125-300MB/s) than a sigle drive off of the built in controller.

Other Thoughts: I am using an Asus P6T Deluxe V2 and I set the onboard to AHCI so not to use the built in RAID and cause a possible conflict.

Pros: 64MB/s write and 138MB/s read in RAID 1 with two WD 3TB Red drives, great RAID alerting features lacking on cheaper cards, great for cheap enterprise servers not requiring the fastest backup

Cons: Price is still a tad high, but still the cheapest for what the Highpoint RAID software offers, would not recommend for SSD use.

Other Thoughts: I still gave this five stars considering it's the cheapest most reliable SATAIII card that offers true RAID enterprise features

Pros: The price was right.

Cons: The HP 620 software would not install on the Asus P7P55D Premium. It took 4 different calls to the Asus Tech Dept. to find out that the on board Marvell controller was not RAID capable.Win 7 64bit OS could not see the 2 WD Caviar Black 500GB SATA III HDs. The High Point website is less than a joke. I would not recommend this card.

Other Thoughts: Sadly, I had to return the card after much time and effort.

Pros: This works perfectly with FreeBSD 8 and adds two AHCI disks (eg: ada0, ada1). FreeBSD's GENERIC kernel supports it.

Cons: None

Other Thoughts: ahci0: <HighPoint RocketRAID 620 AHCI SATA controller> port 0x9000-0x9007,0x9100-0x9103,0x9200-0x9207,0x9300-0x9303,0x9400-0x940f mem 0xf1000000-0xf10007ff irq 16 at device 0.0 on pci1
ahci0: [ITHREAD]
ahci0: AHCI v1.00 with 2 6Gbps ports, Port Multiplier supported with FBS

Pros: Fast and easy to set up.

Cons: I have a couple of these and they both have 0 issues.

Pros: Cheap price

Cons: Before purchase, check compatibility list at http://www.highpoint-tech.cn/PDF/Non-IOP%20Compatibility_List.pdf

In a nutshell, a Marvell controller on your mobo appears to be a no-no. Likewise, the card appears to REQUIRE high-end RAID-rated hard drives.

Other Thoughts: Unusual card in that - running RAID 1+0 - as a single drive drop-out (probably on TLER) causes all other RAID members to drop out, too. I own both RR620 and RR622 cards...which, given that I own mobos with Marvell chips and I'm not using "recommended" drives, probably says I'm an idiot who deserves to periodically hear the intense screaming of the alarm on these RocketRaid cards - which I do.

Pros: Extra SATA III ports
Simple to get working
Generic AHCI driver in Linux works great for these.

Cons: None, just works

Other Thoughts: This is a software RAID card, so I use software RAID to configure the drives... not use the weird "RAID" firmware that comes with these cheap cards and then also configure them in the OS.

I've been using two of these cards since 09/2011 with no issues. As with all software RAID, don't bother with the "RAID" provided by the card, just leave them as JBOD and configure them with the OS (mdraid for linux), or other RAID software (ie: Veritas).

Server details: Gentoo linux (3.2.12 x86_64 kernel), ASUS M4A78T-E motherboard, AMD Phenom II X4 810 CPU, 16gb RAM, 5 x 3tb drives in RAID-6 (3 are connected to these HPT HBAs) -- soon to be 8 x 3tb in RAID-10. Will be upgrading to HPT 640L HBAs to accomodate the new drives... since these 620's have worked great so far.

Pros: None

Cons: Blue screens. Corrupt all data. Data lost. Windows doesn't boot. This card is terrible. All my customers are angry with me. Do not buy this garage. 8 grand down the toilet.

Other Thoughts: You are a fool to buy this card.

Pros: Works, Cheap, came with all drivers needed

Cons: None really.

Other Thoughts: CD doesn't find correct driver when WIN 7 is looking for driver, if you want to use the RAID to boot from. Had to open supplied CD in another system and place 64 bit Win7 driver on flash drive then direct Win7 to the flash drive on installation of OS. Running Win7 Pro on two Samsung 256gb SSD stripped.