need help choosing a SCSI controller

[Mikhail Teterin]

Hello!

I'm constructing a new system which will have 3 or 4
SCSI drives (U320 or U160). I don't plan to use RAID-5 --
maybe just striping (hardware or ccd).

I'm looking for a controller with battery backup so
that it can safely cache writes. It must fit into PCI-X
motherboard and be offered on EBay for low price.

My current choices are:

	. HP Compaq Smart Array 642	- U320
	(128Mb battery module optional, but available)

	. AMI 493 - U160  (128Mb and battery included)

	. Mylex DAC960PL (4Mb cache and battery included)

HP looks best, but will be twice more expensive than AMI. Will things
be at least 30% faster? The Mylex is dirt cheap, but is a PCI, and my
motherboard will only have 1 "legacy" PCI slot.

The quality of the FreeBSD driver is also of concern, especially since
this will be an amd64 system (running 5.x).

Thanks in advance for any comments, suggestions, experiences. Yours,

	-mi