Nex

Probably not, if you're thinking of a simple SATA controller on a PCI board. The "true hardware RAID" cards can be distinguished by their on-board processor, usually with heatsink and perhaps a fan, and on-board memory. They're also significantly more expensive.

I don't believe so. I have 6 5000AAKS drives in a RAID5 on an Areca ARC-1230. I get over 300MB/s read, and over 200MB/s write. WD5000AAKS-00TMA0 f/w 12.01C01 I can second that. I'm running 4 WD5000AAKS drives in RAID-5 on an ARC-1210 with excellent performance. (Would be even nicer with 6 disks of course. )

I'm using an Areca ARC-1210 card in the secondary PCIe x16 (x8 electrically) slot on an Asus P5N-E SLI motherboard (which uses the nForce 650i SLI chipset). No problems at all for me. Areca have a list of compatible motherboards at www.areca.com.tw, but they haven't tested with all 253425 different motherboards on the market of course.