I've got a couple boxes with some 3ware 9550 controllers, and I'm less than pleased with performance on them.. Sequential access is nice, but start seeking around and you kick it in the gut. (I've found posts on the internets about others having similar issues). My last box with a 3ware I simply had it in jbod mode and used sw raid and it smoked the hw.
Anyway, anybody have experience in 3ware vs Areca - I've heard plenty of good anecdotal things that Areca is much better, just wondering if anybody here has firsthand experience. It'll be plugged into about 8 10k rpm sata disks.