ARECA Owner's Thread (SAS/SATA RAID Cards)

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odditory

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Thread for the discussion of all things Areca. Feel free to share your comments, questions and tips.

TIPS:

1) For proper array spindown on RAID arrays with Hitachi 2Tb (7K2000) drives, the "Stagger Power On Control" value needs to be increased to 1.0, 1.5 or 2.0 seconds. You'll need to experiment to find the lowest setting. For testing set "Time To Spin Down Idle HDD" to 1, wait a minute for the array spindown, then access the drive with the array data and wait for it to spin back up. Watch the event log for any drive timeouts- if you see any, you'll need to hard-reboot the computer and try a higher stagger power on value (i.e. try 1.0, then 1.5, then 2.0 seconds).

2) MASTER PASSWORD for managed Areca raid cards: MNO974315743924
 
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ARC1231ML-2G with 11x 2TB Seagate LPs in Raid6. Mixed CC32, 34 firmware.

I use the storport driver. I noticed theres a driver dated dec 2009 on the areca site so I'm probably running an outdated driver already. My firmware is up-to-date though.

As for power settings... I disabled them all. If I tried enabling it, the raid would actually drop-out when the spin-down kicked in, at least for the Seagate drives. Obviously undesirable behavior.
 
i use spin down on my 1280ml with seagate drives works no problem. I actually have it set to 15 min
 
Using the storport drivers on both my 1280ML and 1680ix-24 (though I used scsiport back when I had my 1130ML). I never have my array set to spin-down since it is always being used for something. Only data corruption I've had has been my fault, so, so far so good.
 
when will the 1880lp be out, and why is it sas/sata? are they gonna release a sata only variant of the 6gb/s controllers....so far i have seen tons of mentions of sas sata 6gb/s devices....why no more sata only????
 
Computurd said:
when will the 1880lp be out, and why is it sas/sata? are they gonna release a sata only variant of the 6gb/s controllers....so far i have seen tons of mentions of sas sata 6gb/s devices....why no more sata only????
Click to expand...
Probably in 4-5 months. As for the SAS/SATA, there is no reason to release a SATA only device at the moment. They would only be limiting their market that way. I mean, would you spend $1500 on a RAID card that only supports 8 drives (since without SAS, there is no expander support)? I wouldn't.
 
very good point. it is just that with ssd in particular many have achieved "better" results with sata only cards ex. the 1231ML.....
 
SSDs are faster on the 1680ix if I remember correctly. The current fastest cards are all SAS anyway (LSI 92xx series). The IOP348 brought some drive incompatibilities, but the new 1880 series cards use a different chip.
 
yeah i have had some seriously awesome results with teh 9260..and in testing the 1231 does not match my controller, but the 9211 is the shocker out there right now, i have obtained some ridiculously awesome results with it for only 233 dollars. over 450 random 4k performance.
 
I'll have my 9280 in tomorrow and I'll be able to compare results to my 1280ML and 1680ix-24.
 
40 drives. The 1280ML can't handle that many, but the 1680ix-24 and 9280 can. I'll probably do 2 arrays of 20 drives each.
 
Yeah, I don't have the money for 40 SSDs. I've only bought one SSD and I wanted quality, so I got a SLC one. This is for my storage server, not desktop.
 
Blue Fox said:
Why would you say that?
Click to expand...

Only because the topic is VERY general. People will ask all sorts of various questions, which is great, but for someone looking for an answer maybe posted here, it's gonna be a search nightmare if the thread grows to mega proportions!:D
You better subscribe if you wanna keep tabs on the info shared!:)
 
Just in case this might help out someone, I seemed to have fixed my I/O blocking problems with the Seagate 2TB LPs by changing the write cache policy from "write back" to "write through." It seems like if too many writes were being sent using write back, the drives would get overwhelmed and would eventually get so bogged down that they couldn't even service a mp3 read stream. Granted, this results in a performance penalty since writes have to be flushed to disk, but it's better than ending up in I/O wait hell.
 
Can someone recommend me a mobo socket 775 for the 1220 controller? P45 or X48 chipset would be nice. The motherboard compatibility list on areca's site is a little bit old.
 
I have a P5Q-Deluxe with that controller. Get one if you dont mind the 8x link to the video card.

Edit: I'm also using a P5Q-E with a 1680ix.
 
I'm running mine on a X38 chipset board (Asus Maximus Formula). I have tried P965 and X58 boards as well. The cards don't seem too picky about motherboards (at least on Intel chipsets).
 
Another update. The problem actually wasn't the cache settings or NCQ at all - it was just that the card couldn't keep up with the RAID6 write processing without getting bogged down - at least for the Seagate 2TB LPs. I've since switched the main array from 11 drives in RAID6 to 10 drives in RAID5+hot spare and it's very fast now.
 
Computurd said:
when will the 1880lp be out?
Click to expand...

March 31, 2010

Areca ARC-1880LP (4x SAS2.0/SATAIII Marvel 88RC9580 PCI-E 2.0 6G x8)

Photo is pre-production. Retail version will obviously include heatsink/fan. The 1880LP will be one of several models based on the 1880 line.

Areca_ARC-1880.jpg
 
New firmware 1.48 posted for *all* Areca RAID cards comes with a pretty extensive changelog. albeit a lot of them vague. I really wish they'd put them out more frequently though, since things they already fixed back in July 2009 we're only now seeing in February 2010, in this one big cumulative update (I've stripped the dates for readability.)
http://www.areca.com.tw/support/main.htm

********* Change Log For V1.48 Firmware

Fix PING_PONG_PCIDMA support
Fix GUI raid5060 cannot modify raid attribute
Fix PMC Expander + SATA Hdd performance
Fix ARC1680:SATA HDD update microcode
Add SAS HDD update microcode function
Fix write through volume cannot be deleted after some times of operation
Clarify SUPERMICRO EXPANDER's enclosure temperature detection
Add PATCH_TYAN_7025S MB
ARC1680:Add SasStartStopUnit to start SAS/SATA Device
Fix ARCHTTP browser error when SUPPORT_128_VOLUMESETS is not defined
Add FailDisk feature for pure SATA model
ARC1201/1202/5020+WDC 1TB HDD problem
Display "ENC#3 SES2Device" timeout if SES2 service timeout
Fix SES2 disable support
ARC1200/1201/1202+Intel S5520HC M/B hang
IOP34X: adjust CPU VCore 1.2V high voltage detection
Fix PCI.C SetXferLen problem
Correct typo : Cannot Expand RaidSet 'Conatins' Raid30/50/60 Volume
Fix PCI.C SetXferLen problem
Fix ARC1680:if cpu fan detection is disabled, do not re-check cpu fan
ARC1680:fix hot plug of SMART failed HDD firmware hang
Add CheckChannel to errorHandler for 6081 models
Build All PCI RAID with 6081 chip
IOP331 ARC1110/1120/1130/1160/1170
IOP33x ARC1210/1220/1230/1260/1270
IOP34x ARC1211/1221/1231/1261/1280
Rebuild all SAS model
 
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I wonder how this will affect us with hp sas expanders
And if it will have any effect on chenbro sas expanders
 
not sure yet. The changelog mentions "PMC Expander + SATA Hdd performance" but that's too vague so hopefully Areca support will be able to elaborate, since of course the HP expander is PMC-based and it would be interesting to know what effect that may have.

@nitrobass: Was there any existing issue between Areca 1680 cards and Chenbro expanders?

I just installed the update without any issues on a 1680ix-24 connected to HP expander. Existing test arrays still working fine, not that I expected anything different but these days it helps to be cautious. Case in point, Adaptec put out a firmware update a few months ago that actually recommended people recreate their arrays after applying it. WTF.
 
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Blue Fox said:
Using the storport drivers on both my 1280ML and 1680ix-24 (though I used scsiport back when I had my 1130ML). I never have my array set to spin-down since it is always being used for something. Only data corruption I've had has been my fault, so, so far so good.
Click to expand...

Whats the difference between the storport and scsiport drivers? I don't have an areca raid card, just the 1300-ix, but was wondering the difference.
 
Ugh, now I have to retest my 1680ix-24 and Chenbro cards. I can't imagine performance being increased with the HP SAS expander though. It already caps out at 800mb/s (so, controller limited).
 
odditory said:
March 31, 2010

Areca ARC-1880LP (4x SAS2.0/SATAIII Marvel 88RC9580 PCI-E 2.0 6G x8)

Photo is pre-production. Retail version will obviously include heatsink/fan. The 1880LP will be one of several models based on the 1880 line.

Areca_ARC-1880.jpg
Click to expand...

Hi Odditory,

Do you have any info on other cards that may release on March 31st? Anything with 16 or 24 ports?
 
Areca has not released any information on the cards really, so you are going to have a hard time finding anything that isn't mentioned in this thread.
 
Is March 31st a guess?

I dont actually need the performance, its just the raid card is quite a small part of the cost when you need 12-24 2Tb drives. Has anyone tried the 2TB Samsungs with Areca?

Am I nuts to be considering the cheap Highpont 24port SATA 2 card? (Has 800Mhz Intel on board)
 
March 31st was based on an ETA that Areca gave one retailer in early January, however at this point it's anyone's guess- they haven't provided any updates, and I usually ask them every few weeks for one. All they've said is "soon."

I don't know about Samsung 2Tb's in RAID arrays except that most of what I've read has been complaints rather than success stories, but most of those stories were people complaining about the previous 1Tb Samsungs. If you already own some that's one thing but I would advise Hitachi 2tb over the Samsungs for raid arrays if you are buying new.
 
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I'm using
4x Samsung F1 1TB (HD103UJ) in RAID5
8x Samsung F2EG 1.5TB (HD154UI) in RAID5
on my Highpoint 4320 (via Chenbro SAS expander) without issue.
So I would suspect the 2.0TB version would also work fine.
I haven't used them with my Areca card.

If you want a lot of ports, I'd suggest getting a LOW port count card and getting a separate SAS expander. The onboard expanders on high port count cards seem to be rather picky and introduce incompatibilities.
 
i tire of waiting for areca. the lsi 6gb/s cards continue to evolve with newer firm2ware updates and better drivers. by the time the arecas come out lsi is gonna have it figured out LOL. i might have to wait about a year for the areca to catch up software wise :(
 
Computurd said:
i tire of waiting for areca. the lsi 6gb/s cards continue to evolve with newer firm2ware updates and better drivers. by the time the arecas come out lsi is gonna have it figured out LOL. i might have to wait about a year for the areca to catch up software wise :(
Click to expand...

LOL

LSI software management is complete shit compared to Areca's
 
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