Areca 1680ix time out error with SSD Drives

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samfisher1

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I recently purchased and installed an Areca 1680ix-12 Raid Controller on my new system. I am using an ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 with a core i7 920 processor & 12gigs of Kingston HyperX. I have 5 Super Talent SSD’s (FTM16GL25H) configured in a raid 5 on the areca. I was able to create and build the array without any trouble. I started the win7 installation and when prompted installed the storport driver for the areca. I’m using the win7 x64 driver from the areca website. Everything started fine. However, the installation eventually errored out during the “expanding files” stage. Somewhere around 29%. I took a look at the event viewer on the areca and I noticed that the SSD drives were the issue. It showed that the SSD’s encountered a “Time Out Error”. The array was still in a “normal” not “degraded” state. Thinking that something must have gone wrong along the way….I deleted the array, rebuilt it again and attempted to reinstall win7. The same thing happened. The install errored out again. This time it got to 13% before failing. Checked the log…same thing…time out error on the drives. So, I decided to do some further testing. I have a 4 disk SAN running Seagate SAS mechanical drives. I connected it to the Areca and installed win7 without any issues. I’ve been running the system like this for a week and it’s stable. For another test I booted the computer from the SAN. Went into the disk manager and selected the earlier created SSD raid 5 array. I formatted it and then attempted to transfer a large file to it. The transfer started fine but eventually locked up my computer. Booted my netbook, went into the areca controllers http interface, checked the event viewer and sure enough…time out errors on the SSD drives again. Are there known issues with SSD’s on Areca raid controllers? I’ve been researching the heck out of this situation and I can’t find any. I’ve updated all the firmware files on the controller as well as the bios on the mother board. Also, I checked the firmware version in the SSD’s and it’s the current one listed on the Super Talent website. I’ve tweaked every setting I can possibly think of the on the controller to no avail. Help please…pretty please??
Oh yea, here’s another fun fact, the SSD’s run fine on the mother boards ICH10r controller in a raid 5 array. Now if I could just get them to work on the ARECA!!! Grrrrr….
 
Areca SAS controllers are very picky about drives. My 1680ix-24 has time-out errors with Seagate desktop drives as well. Honestly, I wish there was an easy fix, but I don't think there really is. Unless a firmware update fixes it, you're pretty much screwed for now as far as I know.
 
Just a few minutes ago, I got a reply from the Areca tech department. They stated that the only known issue they have encountered with drives failing with "time out errors" under heavy loads is SSC. I looked it up and it stands for Spread Spectrum Clocking. Apparently it has to do with limiting EMI emissions?? For whatever reason it is known to mess with their controllers. He suggested that I contact Super Talent and see if I can disable the SSC feature on the drives or see if they have firmware that can do it. Apparently there are some devices that allow it to be toggled on or off. I'll have to do some more research on this one. He did mention that some Seagate devices have the ability to disable it somehow. Maybe that would help your system?
 
WD lets you put jumpers on their drives to enable/disable it (off by default). I haven't seen any jumpers like that on Seagate drives (desktop line at least) however. Hmm, looks like Seagate has a utility to toggle it.
 
I was just on the Seagate site and they have a utility that can do on some models. That must be what the Areca guy was refering to.
 
Here's another one for you guys....

I tried a Areca 1210 4 port SATA controller with my same Super Talent Drives. The 1210 works fine with my SSD's. Now...what the heck is different with these two controllers? Why does the 1680 generate constant timeout errors with my SSD's. Is anyone else out there using SSD's on a 1680ix?
 
samfisher1 said:
Here's another one for you guys....

I tried a Areca 1210 4 port SATA controller with my same Super Talent Drives. The 1210 works fine with my SSD's. Now...what the heck is different with these two controllers? Why does the 1680 generate constant timeout errors with my SSD's. Is anyone else out there using SSD's on a 1680ix?
Click to expand...

My guest:

1680ix = SAS controller
1210 = SATA controller

Like Blue Fox said, SAS controllers are very picky.
 
yea, I know the 1210 says its for SATA.....

What I dont understand is why Areca Advertizes the 1680 as SAS and SATA compliant when it clearly is not.
 
samfisher1,

Yes, I'm using two 1680ix's (in different systems), each with two Intel X25-Ms attached, and other drives, both SATA and SAS. No problems with the X25's yet.

It doesn't surprise me that you get better results with the 1210. The 1210 is SATA only.

I've had issues with some non-enterprise SATA drives, including timeout errors, and the 1680ix that I haven't seen with other RAID controllers. Never, ever had a problem with SAS drive though, and the Intel X25-Ms so far have been quite happy too.

I believe that...

On the SAS RAID controllers, SATA is supposed to be emulated rather than native. The Intel IOP ROC that Areca uses has only partially open firmware or something, and the SATA emulation bit is closed so when there are problems with SATA compatibility, Areca have to go back to Intel for a fix. Intel pulled out of the ARM based ROC market a few years back and sold the IP to Marvell. So the IOP chip used in the 1680ix (and the high end Adaptec boards) is the end of the line and presumably not getting much support. Newer boards from Areca use Marvell chips and Areca say they get much better support from Marvell, so the upcoming 1880 line, which is SAS2, will hopefully have better SATA compatibility.

Also the problem is compounded by using non-enterprise drives. These may not have been tested thoroughly for use in 24/7 RAID environments, so there may be problems with the drives that don't come out during tests for desktop use. SOmetimes the firmware of the drive may actually have a feature which makes it unsuitable for RAID use.
 
aitoribarra,

Thank you for the info. I have noticed the same thing. Any SAS drives I use work great on this card. I was trying these Super Talent SSD's because I got a really good deal on them and I figured they would give me good numbers in a raid......and they do if I use the 1210. However, I have a SAN unit that I also want to connect which is why I decided to try out the 1680. Oh well, maybe I'll just bite the bullet and get the X25's. Thanks again.
 
Just in case anyone wants to know....I tried a single 64gb Runcore Pro IV SSD and it seems to be fine on the 1680ix. A single Super Talent SSD generated a time out error no matter what the configuation was. Sooo, I'm going to let it run for a couple of days and see if it's stable. If so, I'll buy a few more, raid them and see what happens.
 
aitoribarra said:
<snip>On the SAS RAID controllers, SATA is supposed to be emulated rather than native. The Intel IOP ROC that Areca uses has only partially open firmware or something, and the SATA emulation bit is closed so when there are problems with SATA compatibility, Areca have to go back to Intel for a fix. Intel pulled out of the ARM based ROC market a few years back and sold the IP to Marvell. So the IOP chip used in the 1680ix (and the high end Adaptec boards) is the end of the line and presumably not getting much support. Newer boards from Areca use Marvell chips and Areca say they get much better support from Marvell, so the upcoming 1880 line, which is SAS2, will hopefully have better SATA compatibility.

Also the problem is compounded by using non-enterprise drives. These may not have been tested thoroughly for use in 24/7 RAID environments, so there may be problems with the drives that don't come out during tests for desktop use. SOmetimes the firmware of the drive may actually have a feature which makes it unsuitable for RAID use.
Click to expand...

My man, I just wanted to say really great info and explains a lot as to why companies like Adaptec haven't been forthcoming with fixes to their IOP348 based (5 series) cards in terms of SATA issues. Areca, OTOH, i never hold my breath on firmware because we're lucky to get one firmware bump a year as it is. I saw the video of the prototype 1880LP card back from June at Computex '09 and it looks wicked. I'm going to hold off buying any more raid cards until 1880 comes out. I absolutely love Areca, my desert island brand, and from the looks of it, the 1880 series will finally unseat the 1280ML as my "desert island card" - a feat that I'd hoped my 1680ix-24 might do, but fell short in many ways.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9hwx4_areca-computex-2009_tech
 
resurrecting an old thread, but I have a 1880 with ssds and i just experienced a time out error. This system has been up for 4 months till I got hit with this. The drive seems to have dropped out of the raid, but was still recognized by the card in a normal state. I just set it as hot spare and it started rebuilding the raid. Anybody experienced this with the 1880?
 
zeki893, mates,

hmm, I'm just open my storage project and have some issue with Areca arc-1880ixl-12 with OCZ Vertex3 MaxIO drives, tahat supossy should work fine because they have RAID Support, and Areca tech guys says that they should work ok and everything other states that it shoud work ok, but with firmware v1.50 (default on the controller) it doesn't... it's just give "Device Time Out Error" on almost every SSD drive... :(( - it happens especially during write operations then controller can even halt !!! yep halt as a broken, but i don't beleve that it's broken... it have some problem with SSD...:(

hmm, after updating firmware to v1.51 (2012/7/4) it looks like there is much better, maybe even ok, I have to check it now and post some results soon.

regards
NTShad0w
 
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