Z77 Extreme4 and Adaptec 5405? Or other SAS/SATA RAID Controllers?

[Hollowpoint1911]

Hi TweakTown,

I have a system built on the Z77 Extreme4 motherboard which I'm trying to run ESXi 5 on. Since the onboard RAID won't pass through, I'm finding myself in need of a ESXi 5 compatible RAID controller card. After a day of research, I've found that most SAS/SATA RAID cards don't like UEFI and in some cases they don't like the Z77 chipset (LSI cards).

Adaptec has stated that their cards aren't UEFI-compliant, but they say their cards should work so long as the motherboard supports legacy BIOS boot. The ASRock Z77 Extreme4 has a option for PCI legacy boot, which makes me think I have a small chance at making this work. Before I go buy a $360 card to test (and then maybe pay 15% restocking), I wanted to check and see if there was anyone out there running a Z77 Extreme4 with Adaptec 5405.

If there are any others out there using the Z77 Extreme4 with a different brand SAS/SATA RAID card, I'd like to know what you're running as well! I've read through reviews that LSI MegaRAID doesn't like the Z77 chipset, but maybe Dell PERC works?

Thanks

[Hollowpoint1911]

Adaptec 5405 aside, is anyone using a hardware RAID controller with this motherboard?