To answer your question:
The Best (Garunteed to work, cause no problems, and hit your pocket the hardest) are the cards from www.3ware.com They've been working on linux even before SATA was supported.
Opinion seconded.
--Danny, running several 3ware RAID cards right now
I run several 3ware solutions as well. No major problems, no failures, and great functionality.
But the "hit your pocket the hardest" line I have to disagree with.
3ware may cost a little more than a Promise, but it is still a low cost solution compared to other hardware raid solutions.
Thanks to all of you! I've spent some time surfing around but didn't find much worth making a decision from. It seems like the Promis solutions doesn't support RAID entirely in hardware, but needs CPU intervention and specialised drivers. Not good. Adaptec doesn't give any info worth mentioning, and buy-to-try isn't really a good option. 3ware on the other hand are really well seen almost everywhere, but I have no experience whatsoever with their products, that's why I popped the question, to get some feedback from people using a S/ATA RAID solution successfully. 3ware it'll be! Again, thanks! Anders.