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

For those of you with the Areca 1680 series cards and Hitachi drives, when creating the volume set, did you choose the LBA64 or 4k sector option?
 
I think everyone goes with 64 bit LBA. 4K blocks are pretty much only used if you're running Windows XP (which you shouldn't be at this point) and then you are limited to 16TB.
 
danman said:
I got rid of the Areca. I tried every setting possible and nothing fixed it.
Click to expand...

I was actually able to get decent performance by adjusting some Linux kernel values. Things are ok for now. I had to adjust nr_requests and queue_depth for each /dev/sdX.
 
I was wondering if anyone knew the return process for Areca, my 1680 literally fried (smoke came off the card and comp shut off, any attempts to boot with it result in card not being picked up or doing a POST beep) on me 3 days ago.
 
You can contact support (at) tekram.com or call 714 961-0800

describe the problem and they'll issue you an RMA sheet to fill out and send the card to them. Tekram is the U.S. distributor and thus also tech support..
 
Same thing happened with the 1680 cards. They just went 'poof' and showed up on the market one day...
 
Quick question for the group,
The Areca 1880s are going to be PCIE 2.0.

Does anyone know a motherboard that has a PCIE 2.0 slot with built on Video?

Out of the 100+ I7 motherboards I searched through almost none have built on video.
The ones that do are Mini ITX boards with one PCIE 2.0 slot. This single slot does not help power a Areca with HP SAS expander.

Any ideas on what CPU/MB/Video combo is going to work well with a PCIE 2.0 Areca and an HP SAS expander taking up a second slot (for power)?

After some more research I found a nice MSI motherboard:
http://us.msi.com/index.php?func=proddesc&maincat_no=1&cat2_no=&cat3_no=&prod_no=1942
H55-GD65 : Has builtin video (VGA-dvi-hdmi) Two PCIE v2.0 slots both at x16, Seven Sata2 ports, and you can slap an I7 in there.
Buy.com has them new for $130.00

Sadly MSI has the matching twin of this board but without the extra PCI slots but it costs an extra 30 bucks.....
http://us.msi.com/index.php?func=prodmbspec&maincat_no=1&cat2_no=170&cat3_no=&prod_no=1941#menu
 
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P55/H55 boards are socket 1156, and the only i7s in that socket are the i7 860 and 870 which are fairly expensive. Just saying, in case you were trying to use a i7/socket 1366 processor you already had on hand.
 
With the new Areca 1880s coming I was just trying to get a feel for what motherboard others plan to use.

I'm unsure of any server boards that have PCIE V2.0

And a lot of other boards with PCIE V2.0 do not have video thus requiring a video card in a PCI or PCIE slot. Further, some boards down clock a PCIE slot if you have a 16x card running in one the second drops to 8x or 4x.

To get performance out of the 1880s you need a dual or tripple x16 PCIE board.

I just dont see a lot of people that are waiting for the 1880s running to buy an ASUS P6T7 WS Supercomputer board for a Norco build.

I have an ASUS P6T that will be perfect for it but I dont want to junk my old ga-965p-dq6 thats running in the norco now.
 
Well the 1880 is only x8 anyways so it doesnt really matter if it drops to x8.

also v2 is 500mb/s per lane so unless you have a 4gb/s setup it wont much matter.

Bus speed isnt really limiting anything on the current setup.
 
Think im going to pull the trigger on getting a ARC-1680.

Waiting for the 1880s is going to be a battle.
Areca is working with a chip vender to replace faulty chips on the current production line. I'm not sure if I want to risk testing new cards on a production system just because its twice as fast.

Areca tells me its going to be July before any real production hits the streets.
They should release new prototypes out to testers at the end of May.

Bad timing for me but great for those who can wait.
 
well hell nicholas you have managed to get more info than anyone has in MONTHS!! crap. i guess no news was better than this bad news :(
 
One cool thing that I like about Areca is the user API that is available. With the API, you can basically do anything that want that is available to the web interface or SNMP. I am using it to monitor events, RAID state, drive temps, etc. The help is pretty well documented and I was able to get up and running quickly.

Has anyone else on here tried using their API? I have created a DLL that exports quite a few of the main functions, but they expose a lot of functions.
 
So the 1800 series will be PCI-E 2.0, but is there any word on whether or not it'll be backward compatible PCI-E 1.x? I'm not exactly in the mood for even more upgrades.
 
kennypowers said:
So the 1800 series will be PCI-E 2.0, but is there any word on whether or not it'll be backward compatible PCI-E 1.x? I'm not exactly in the mood for even more upgrades.
Click to expand...

All PCIe 2.0 is backwards compatible
 
The PCIE v2 spec requires that it is backwards compatible but not all cards adhere to this spec.
I know a few video cards that are PCIE v2 and will not work in a v1 slot. One of them even prevents the computer from posting in bios if placed in a v1 slot.

So we can hope that Areca is smart enough to ensure the backwards compatibility but they did state in the conference that the 1880 series are for "high end performance." I can see a future firmware update to force the cards to down clock for the v1 slots but expecting it on release could be risky.
Worse case, you buy the card and it does not work so you wait for the firmware update, or we get impatient and buy a new motherboard, CPU, and Ram.

My demand for instant gratification always makes me spend too much money on toys.
 
Quick question for the Areca Owners.....

Why do so many websites list the ARC-1680s with 256MB of cache when Areca.com lists 512MB?

Areca showing 512MB: (DDR2-533 512MB)
http://www.areca.com.tw/products/pcietosas1680series.htm



E-stores with 256MB listed:
http://www.pc-pitstop.com/sas_controllers/ARC-1680series_1681.pdf
http://www.compsource.com/ttechnote.asp?part_no=ARC1680I&vid=2705&src=F
http://www.nextwarehouse.com/item/?527088_g10e
http://www.compuplus.com/ARECA-SAS-8-PORTS-RAID-1119248.html
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?EDC=1563761#TS
http://www.compuvest.com/Desc.jsp;jsessionid=511fd8e4784350f560eefdd69281?iid=1217799



Interesting enough, Newegg is the only site that lists 512MB:
Newegg with 512MB:
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?item=N82E16816151023

Any idea why they list 256MB?
I hope they are not pulling a Walmart and ordering the cards special with less Cache to stay competitive.
 
nicholasfarmer said:
The PCIE v2 spec requires that it is backwards compatible but not all cards adhere to this spec.
I know a few video cards that are PCIE v2 and will not work in a v1 slot. One of them even prevents the computer from posting in bios if placed in a v1 slot.

So we can hope that Areca is smart enough to ensure the backwards compatibility but they did state in the conference that the 1880 series are for "high end performance." I can see a future firmware update to force the cards to down clock for the v1 slots but expecting it on release could be risky.
Worse case, you buy the card and it does not work so you wait for the firmware update, or we get impatient and buy a new motherboard, CPU, and Ram.

My demand for instant gratification always makes me spend too much money on toys.
Click to expand...

Well are you sure that it wasnt an issue with a particular motherboard? I know some boards dont work properly with a Dell Perc5/i because of something on the SMBus.
Similarly Treadstone had issues with the HP expander on a certain motherboard.

Secondly V1 provide 250mb/s of throughput per lane, stepping up to PCIe2.0 is really doing nothing for us. We are not limited by V1 with the current controllers.
 
nicholasfarmer said:
Quick question for the Areca Owners.....

Why do so many websites list the ARC-1680s with 256MB of cache when Areca.com lists 512MB?
Click to expand...

Not just the amount of RAM but the processor is clocked at 1200mhz on the new revs vs 800mhz on the old revs.
 
There are two version, that's all. Used to be that only the models with removable memory had the higher clock speed, but they changed that. Those are the only two differences.
 
you know areca is really having issues with this controller (1880), or must be. they were demoing it in 2009 and it still isnt out? wow. LSI has had 6gb/s offerings, and entire line of them, for a year now.
 
StuckInTexas said:
One cool thing that I like about Areca is the user API that is available. With the API, you can basically do anything that want that is available to the web interface or SNMP. I am using it to monitor events, RAID state, drive temps, etc. The help is pretty well documented and I was able to get up and running quickly.

Has anyone else on here tried using their API? I have created a DLL that exports quite a few of the main functions, but they expose a lot of functions.
Click to expand...

Can you view the CPU utilization?
 
Computurd said:
you know areca is really having issues with this controller (1880), or must be. they were demoing it in 2009 and it still isnt out? wow. LSI has had 6gb/s offerings, and entire line of them, for a year now.
Click to expand...

Kind of a silly comparison, LSI might have SAS-2 in common with Areca's upcoming SAS-2 offerings but that's where the similarities end. Based on everything I've read LSI should've waited another year to put them out. By all means buy one if you're ready for a nightmare.

Areca always takes forever coming out with their new cards. The 1680 was the same way. My source tells me everything they throw at the 1880 is testing fine including the HP SAS Expander I sent them, but they don't have an ETA for mass quantities shipping out. I would be surprised if we didn't see an announcement by June 1.
 
hmm an nightmare? i had a 9260-8i airmailed to me the very first day it was available. never had any problems with it. has gotten me some high scores on stuff. like ninth in the world on PCMark Vantage...some high 05 scores, some extremely fast regular usage and whatnot. i am in contact with at least ten other users of both the 9260 and the 9211, which i also have. never not one problem.
 
I had a 9280-8e and returned it because it was nothing but a bloody headache. Brought it over to nitrobass' place to see if we could fix it together, but no luck. The software is pretty bloody awful and I couldn't even get an array up after hours upon hours of trying. Figured it would fare better being their most expensive RAID card available, but that didn't seem to be the case.
 
Blue Fox said:
I had a 9280-8e and returned it because it was nothing but a bloody headache. Brought it over to nitrobass' place to see if we could fix it together, but no luck. The software is pretty bloody awful and I couldn't even get an array up after hours upon hours of trying. Figured it would fare better being their most expensive RAID card available, but that didn't seem to be the case.
Click to expand...

What problems did you have?
 
The management software would freeze for ages when drives were inserted or removed and I couldn't get a single array up and running no matter what I did.
 
nitrobass24 said:
different revisions
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If the difference between a 256MB ARC-1680i and 512MB ARC-1680i is a version, who is a reliable (low cost) vender that I can trust to sell me the correct version?

Newegg is the only site listing the 512MB cache I know of.
Any other Etailers I should check?
 
What is the cheapest ARECA raid adapter I can get that will support a SAS expander?
 
All the 8 port 1680 series cards are priced similarly. They'll set you back about $650.
 
is it better off waiting for the new 18xx series then if I dont need it right away? Any idea how much that would set me back?
 
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