Areca 1882IX-12 (+ SAS Expander) - Emergency!

terayon1515

Weaksauce
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
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Hey Guys,

I'm looking to upgrade, and given the prices of HDD's I have saved up enough to pick a decent RAID HBA. A softRAID5 of six 2TB WD Green drives is on what appears to be a failing motherboard controller, as different drives are erroring and I have been re-rebuilding over half a dozen times now.

I am looking at the Areca 1882IX-12 - I have a 4020 case that is half empty ATM due to a failed Dell PERC 5i (CPU failure). Hence the need to get a new controller pronto!

I need to give life back into the case - I was almost hitched on getting a Highpoint 4321 and a Chenbro SAS expander, but the total was $800 with an 8088 to 8088 cable. So why not get a brand new Areca on DDR3 with just enough internal ports to hold me over (for $900), and get an HP SAS expander later?

The system:
Asus P5K-E | 8GB DDR2 | PP&C 750W | 4x WD15EADS (in a cr@p Drobo ATM)
6x WD10EAVS in softRAID5

So, couple questions:
1) Anyone have any real-world comments on these newer cards?
2) How are their drive compatibility? (any chance of a WD20EARS drive working without TLER?)
3) Do they play friendly with the HP SAS Expanders?

Thanks so very much!
 
So, couple questions:
1) Anyone have any real-world comments on these newer cards?
2) How are their drive compatibility? (any chance of a WD20EARS drive working without TLER?)
3) Do they play friendly with the HP SAS Expanders?

Thanks so very much!

1. I have replaced a 1230, 1231ML and 1680 with 3 1882i's with HP SAS Expander in the past 3 weeks. Much faster builds (And Rebuilds) even over the 1880's I am using.
2. Won't recommend ANY green drive with hardware raid. In fact, the only non-enterprise drives I recommend are the hitachis in hardware raid.
3. They work fine. The only oddity I have seen is that one my hp expanders only wants to negotiate SATA-1 with the drives, not that it really matters as the drives aren't capable of even that threshold and seems to be an HP expander issue with a number of host adapters (eg that particular expander did the same thing hooked up to 2 different host adapters). That particular expander was at 2.06 as were the rest of mine.
 
Thanks so much for the reply!!!

I have always been a WD fanboy, but understand the need to switch to these fabulous 5K3000 and 7K3000 drives. The Deathstar name just rings really loud when I think of them, but with 1-2% failure rates, to Seagate and WD's 4-6%, I'll take them and love them.

Is buying a large port count card a bad idea if SAS expanders are going to be used down the road?
I heard buying a card with lots of ports, like a 12, 16, 24 - is a bad idea, as those cards already manifested their ports via an expander internally. (Or is the external port 'a goodie', as it is more direct?)
 
You know, if you want to stick with software RAID and RAID5, you can also use that card as a pass-through node, aka a HBA.

Also, definitely steer clear of Green drives in a hardware RAID array if they are WD, you will be sad when one of them hangs up because of the lack of TLER and they array goes *boom*.
 
I am looking to invest in a solution that will last the next 10 or more years and allow me to continually add more 24port chassis via SAS expanders as budgets come and go.

I also want to put my trust into RAID6 finally, as two day+ rebuilds are becoming far more apparent as drives get to 4 and 5TB sizes. Even on these fast cards, rebuilds will still be counted in days, plenty of time for a second failure as all array members crank away to rebuild a lost comrade.

Any of you pulled apart many Hitachi 2TB or 3TB Touro external drives?
It would save me almost $100 to buy externals and do away with the warranties.
 
I am looking to invest in a solution that will last the next 10 or more years and allow me to continually add more 24port chassis via SAS expanders as budgets come and go.

I also want to put my trust into RAID6 finally, as two day+ rebuilds are becoming far more apparent as drives get to 4 and 5TB sizes. Even on these fast cards, rebuilds will still be counted in days, plenty of time for a second failure as all array members crank away to rebuild a lost comrade.

Any of you pulled apart many Hitachi 2TB or 3TB Touro external drives?
It would save me almost $100 to buy externals and do away with the warranties.


Well, quite honestly 10+ years is a stretch and if you are looking into 100+TB storage tanks you need to think about more than just a single card solution. You also need to anticipate the costs of a proper backup solution if your data is important to you. I am sure I have said 100 times, RAID is not a backup and too many people see it as it is. As to external drives, keep in mind that many external drives have different firmware revisions than the same drive as an internal model, because they are expected to have different use patterns.
 
Well, quite honestly 10+ years is a stretch and if you are looking into 100+TB storage tanks you need to think about more than just a single card solution. You also need to anticipate the costs of a proper backup solution if your data is important to you. I am sure I have said 100 times, RAID is not a backup and too many people see it as it is. As to external drives, keep in mind that many external drives have different firmware revisions than the same drive as an internal model, because they are expected to have different use patterns.

Absolutely - I agree 100.0% that my RAIDs are not a backup, I tell people the same myself. I have monthly offsite backups for my important data and daily's internally.

I just like the idea of a card that will service 20-60 drives without breaking a sweat, I think the 1880 and 1882's can do that. I use these arrays for nearline storage of media, this is a purchase that I hope I will admire for many years to come.

Now I just need to find out what drives are in these Touro's, I am not keen on paying $130+ for a 2TB, when the externals are $100 CAN...
 
Pulled the trigger.

Once I get it and the fanout cables for my 4020 - I will post compatibility with various drives and get more Hitachi's as the prices drop this year.

I'll pick up some Hitachi Externals possibly, and post what drive is inside.

I can't wait to adore this card on lots of HDD's and SSD's as they both drop in price and this thing fly's to 3GB/s+ R/W

All the best!
 
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