Budget Raid card for VMWare Esxi

[hyarion]

I'm working on a very small budget here, mostly since this is a test vmware, not a production one, so please bear with me

I've got a vmware esxi3.5 server running which I setup some time back, but with needing to run vms for server 2008 for testing, the throughput is just not sufficient in harddrive activity (I've had to link it to a linux pc running iScsi) - which means that server 2008 vms land up hogging the hd connection and sometimes causing other vms to be rebooted as they lock up.

I have been given approval to look at a raid card so I can install the drives directly on the server, however finding something that is supported without costing a fortune is not easy.

The "whitelist" of hardware for esxi can be found here (this is the 3.5 list):
http://www.vm-help.com/esx/esx3.5/Whiteboxes_SATA_Controllers_for_ESX_3.5_3i.htm

Can anyone recommend a raid card that can be bought from local distributors that would be compatible?

 

[Cruelty]

Need more information than provided:

What is your budget?
What interface is required (PCI, PCI-x, PCI-e (1x, 2x, 4x, 8x))?
How many ports are required?
What RAID level are you running? How many drives? What drives?
Is battery backup required?
Is onboard memory required?
Define a "local distributor". Local to where? Are you a registered dealer with any of the major distributors?

That pages lists a number of controllers that are not true RAID (such as the Intel ICH). These, in reality, run software RAID; is this acceptable?

 

[zeroc001]

look at picking up a decently priced PROMISE RAID card , they have worked tirelessly in my experience especially on cheaper ESXi builds