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

Hi, do you have a link for the firmware? I only see 1.50 for the 1882 series. I have a 1880 card. Thanks, hammer.
 
Hi, I have a 1880 card with originally 11 3TB hitachi drives setup as a raid6 array and a single volume. I added 2 of the same drives and initiated a raidset expansion. The expansion went smoothly and I proceeded to expand the volume so my os can see the added space. I did that by logging into the card and modifying the volume size to 33000 GB and select apply (and checked the confirm box). However, the reinit does not start. I did this a few times, but same result. Any ideas? Thank, hammer.
 
So you use Expand Raid Set, (Under RAID Set Functions), to add your disks then Volume Set Functions to Modify Set Volume (Volume Growth)?

What is shown under Volume State? Migrating?
 
I just got my new 1882ix-24 with 2GB upgrade + BBU.
For testing purposes I plugged 8 x 3TB Hitachi drives into a Norco 4224. (I am using 6 x SFF8087 cables)

Although I initially selected "foreground" initialization, I stopped it, deleted the array and created a new one in RAID6, background initialization. (It was about 1 hour into the process and was about 17% done when I stopped it).

I immediately plugged my gear to a brand new Cisco SG200-50P switch, (Jumbo Frames enabled) CAT6 wiring, and used link aggregation in my server for a 4Gbps link.

I was in a hurry, so right after the array was created, I launched Windows 2008R2, and presented the partition, formatted, and started copying 5TB through the network from my desktop and 2 x 3TB external drives USB 3.0 I saw transfer rates of 80ish MB/S to the NAS from one single nic. Copying from a local HDD (In my Desktop) to the NAS it will not go over 58MB/S. :(

I assume the array is running in degraded mode since it is still initializing? (I set to 80% priority)
It has been around 16 hours and only 38% completed. Anyone with real-world results with this card?
 
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LowBoost said:
I just got my new 1882ix-24 with 2GB upgrade + BBU.
For testing purposes I plugged 8 x 3TB Hitachi drives into a Norco 4224. (I am using 6 x SFF8087 cables)

Although I initially selected "foreground" initialization, I stopped it, deleted the array and created a new one in RAID6, background initialization. (It was about 1 hour into the process and was about 17% done when I stopped it).

I immediately plugged my gear to a brand new Cisco SG200-50P switch, (Jumbo Frames enabled) CAT6 wiring, and used link aggregation in my server for a 4Gbps link.

I was in a hurry, so right after the array was created, I launched Windows 2008R2, and presented the partition, formatted, and started copying 5TB through the network from my desktop and 2 x 3TB external drives USB 3.0 I saw transfer rates of 80ish MB/S to the NAS from one single nic. Copying from a local HDD (In my Desktop) to the NAS it will not go over 58MB/S. :(

I assume the array is running in degraded mode since it is still initializing? (I set to 80% priority)
It has been around 16 hours and only 38% completed. Anyone with real-world results with this card?
Click to expand...

Yeah it is going to take a LONG ass time for a 24TB RAID6 init. See what it does when it's finished. I've had arrays take 10hrs for a 4TB RAID5 with a 1680i or 1220.

-J
 
Yes, I figured it would take a long time… though I have read some people initializing bigger arrays in around 20hours. As of this moment mine is at 47%. That is fine… my main question is if the array performance is slower due to that initialization?

I still wonder if that explains why I can't get better writing speeds from one PC to the array.
 
LowBoost said:
Yes, I figured it would take a long time… though I have read some people initializing bigger arrays in around 20hours. As of this moment mine is at 47%. That is fine… my main question is if the array performance is slower due to that initialization?

I still wonder if that explains why I can't get better writing speeds from one PC to the array.
Click to expand...

Have you made sure that multiple GE links are being used on your FEC trunk?

It's been a while since I used a Cisco, but I seem to recall that FEC load balancing was by MAC or source/destination IP address. Presumably those will all be the same when transferring between host A and host B meaning that you will only be using one of the links, not all four. Just a thought.
 
@LurkerMike:

You are correct. Yes, I made sure about multiple GE Links in my FEC trunk. It will use more than one link if one of them is already saturated. Which is not the case with me. I can't go past 60% in my desktop or 10% in my server (NIC Teaming - Static Link Aggregation).

I will double check my NICs settings, but so far everything looked OK.

The array initialization is most llikely hurting my performance, so I will wait after initialization is complete to run a few benchmark tests. (ATTO, CrystalDisk, etc)
 
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Hammer8 said:
Hi, do you have a link for the firmware? I only see 1.50 for the 1882 series. I have a 1880 card. Thanks, hammer.
Click to expand...

Firmware 1.50 is still unreleased for the 1880 unless you get a beta from support. Its mostly bug fixes, especially for SSD's.
 
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So Areca told me I need to RMA my 1680ix-16. In the meantime I bought a 1882ix-16. Put it in and it recognized my array from the 1680ix-16. I didn't get the BBU and just set it to write through for now.

Now whenever I copy a large file to the array, the system hangs and I get these errors in the system event viewer

Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort0, was issued. Event 129
Areca RAID controller wait to abort all outstanding command timeout. Event 18
Followed by 8 The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\DR1. Event 11

I can see there is no disk activity, then the OS hangs and I have to reboot. No errors 1882 event logs.

If I enable write back, the system runs just fine.

Latest drivers and firmware at 1.50
7 hd204ui in RAID 6
 
So my 1882i is going quite nicely with 8x 4tb hitachi 7200rpm (aka the Deskstar 7k4000), I did enable disk write cache during the array build and it does have dual links from the 1882i to the RES2SV240 intel sas expander.

The 4tb hitachis do appear to run hotter but the Norco RPC-4224 w/ 3x120mm internal fans had 12*2tb samsungs which I removed for the duration of the array build. As well as turning on the ceiling fan above the case and the AC in the room which has dropped ambient by a bit appears to have kept the temperatures to something reasonable.

The hitachi's aren't going to live in that case, as I was using it as it had spare slots & power capablity to replace an exiting set of drives in another computer once the data is copied over. I'll post some benchmarks once the array has finished initializing but before I copy data to it.

odditory said:
Firmware 1.50 is still unreleased for the 1880 unless you get a beta from support. Its mostly bug fixes, especially for SSD's.
Click to expand...
If it's like the version for the 1882 (which was released on the 2012-02-16), Configurable SATA sync speed for Hitachi & Western Digitals is a nice feature. As is reporting the RPM the drive claims to spin at.
 
I just bought new Areca ARC-1231ML with 1 GB memory and BBU. I would like to upgrade memory to 4 GB. My card is PCB revision B. Which module I should use ?
 
LowBoost said:
I was in a hurry, so right after the array was created, I launched Windows 2008R2, and presented the partition, formatted,
Click to expand...
Be aware, that having Windows installed on your raid volume will cause a lot of random reads & writes to hit the disks. Depending on what the OS does could also dramatically impact performance as the low RPM drives generally have much worse seek speeds.

Also, Windows 8 Server disk-based dedupe is hardlocked to not work on the OS volume, so any files you want to be deduped need to be on a seperate volume from the OS.
 
In case any of you have the Supermicro X8DTi-LN4F motherboard there is a resource conflict with the 1882ix-16 (and probably the others in the 1882 series). Areca is aware and Supermicro is too. The fix will need to come from Supermicro.
 
I bought an Areca 1280ML, and it's a great card, though a bit overkill for my uses as I only have 6 drives and I don't plan to get any more for a while. If anyone is looking to do a cross-trade for a card with less capacity, or is looking for a 1280ML in general, let me know.
 
Darren1 said:
In case any of you have the Supermicro X8DTi-LN4F motherboard there is a resource conflict with the 1882ix-16 (and probably the others in the 1882 series). Areca is aware and Supermicro is too. The fix will need to come from Supermicro.
Click to expand...
How does this conflict show up? Stuff not working or just degraded performance?
 
Xon said:
How does this conflict show up? Stuff not working or just degraded performance?
Click to expand...

On a cold boot no matter which PCIe slot I put the card, the 1882 BIOS isn't loaded. On a restart the BIOS is loaded. So after a restart in Windows (08 R2 doesn't really matter) if I copy a large file with write through enabled I get these errors in system event log:

Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort0, was issued. Event 129
Areca RAID controller wait to abort all outstanding command timeout. Event 18
The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\DR1. Event 11

If I have write back enabled card works fine in Windows but on a cold boot still won't show up.

The 1882 event log gives no errors. This is both with drives and cables attached and not attached.

I've tried this card on multiple motherboards and it works fine. The Supermicro motherboard works fine with my 1680ix-16 and my 1220.
 
I am looking at a 24 drive rack setup and I was wondering if there is a reason to put a 6 port internal Areca ARC-1880ix-24-4G vice using a an expander card like a Chenbro and a smaller Areca card?
 
scuppasteve said:
I am looking at a 24 drive rack setup and I was wondering if there is a reason to put a 6 port internal Areca ARC-1880ix-24-4G vice using a an expander card like a Chenbro and a smaller Areca card?
Click to expand...

A six-port 1882 like the model you posted would give you 24 drive ports, so if that is all you plan for this install you wouldn't need an expander. With a smaller Areca, like a 2 port 1882 to maintain a dual linked connection to the expander you would lose the 2 ports on the areca and 2 ports on the expander, yielding you not-all-that-much more with something like a HP expander, just 1 4 drive port more. If you don't need more and to keep things easier (cuts 2 cards/slots to 1, cuts out 2 internal SFF-8087 cables), I would just go with the 6 port Areca with its built-in expander as opposed to a smaller areca with an external expander.
 
Lets say i wanted to expand it to another 24 bay case but wanted to just use a single mb / cpu what would be the best way to do 2 (24) drive setups?

Thanks
 
scuppasteve said:
Lets say i wanted to expand it to another 24 bay case but wanted to just use a single mb / cpu what would be the best way to do 2 (24) drive setups?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Would the best bet be just to use a HP expander card in the other case and just run a cable from the external port on the areca and call it good? Are there major speed bottlenecks over these types of links or is it unnoticeable for a media server? The main reason im looking at an expander card is due to energy usage, Would it be better to just put a cheap atom and another areca card in the second case?
 
Darren1 said:
On a cold boot no matter which PCIe slot I put the card, the 1882 BIOS isn't loaded. On a restart the BIOS is loaded. So after a restart in Windows (08 R2 doesn't really matter) if I copy a large file with write through enabled I get these errors in system event log:

Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort0, was issued. Event 129
Areca RAID controller wait to abort all outstanding command timeout. Event 18
The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\DR1. Event 11

If I have write back enabled card works fine in Windows but on a cold boot still won't show up.

The 1882 event log gives no errors. This is both with drives and cables attached and not attached.

I've tried this card on multiple motherboards and it works fine. The Supermicro motherboard works fine with my 1680ix-16 and my 1220.
Click to expand...

When did this issue start for you? I have an ARC-1222 that just started throwing the exact same errors in the Event Viewer. I've had the card for less than a year and now the array is unusable in windows. The array check from the Areca tool doesn't find any errors when I run a check as well. The array does appear just fine in Windows and looks normal, but whenever I attempt to access it it, it just hangs.

I have not contacted Areca yet, but it sounds like there is not a smooth RMA process.
 
SioPao said:
When did this issue start for you? I have an ARC-1222 that just started throwing the exact same errors in the Event Viewer. I've had the card for less than a year and now the array is unusable in windows. The array check from the Areca tool doesn't find any errors when I run a check as well. The array does appear just fine in Windows and looks normal, but whenever I attempt to access it it, it just hangs.

I have not contacted Areca yet, but it sounds like there is not a smooth RMA process.
Click to expand...

This issue started right when I got the card. I got the 1882 on Feb 20th. BIOS 1.50. I've since RMA'd it back to Newegg. Supermicro and Areca are looking into it.
 
Did my 1231 just die? Seems less likely I really lost so many disks all at one time, but entirely possible but can I safely take an 1880i and plug in disks from Raid Set # 00 then Raid Set # 01 to see if each of the array's get listed OK then go back to a replacement 1231 if the card is in fact bad?

arecafail.jpg
 
Start a new recovery thread
Be patient
Dont do anything
Post your error log.
 
nitrobass24 said:
Start a new recovery thread
Be patient
Dont do anything
Post your error log.
Click to expand...

Yeah..... this didn't work out so good. I don't think step 3 is going to get me anywhere so I guess I'll go start rippin 'n tearin'. I did get a reply back from Areca support saying I can roam my raidset to another host with an 1880i so worse case is, I'll be restoring from backup after buying a replacement card.
 
vr. said:
Yeah..... this didn't work out so good. I don't think step 3 is going to get me anywhere so I guess I'll go start rippin 'n tearin'. I did get a reply back from Areca support saying I can roam my raidset to another host with an 1880i so worse case is, I'll be restoring from backup after buying a replacement card.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you don't need any help anymore then? :confused:
 
About 3 weeks ago I installed a ARECA 1882ix-16 and it has been running great until today...
Now the system will not recognize the card during POST or in Windows. I tried swapping it to a new slot, but still the same.
There is a red light blinking extremely fast on the bottom of the card and a blue on on the back doing the same. Any ideas?
 
I just got a 1882ix-12 and just set it up. the card is recognized during post and it sees my two drives. I would like to set the drives up as just regular drives. I tried to use pass-through, but the drives are not recognized after Win7-64 boots up. I suspect I have not set the pass-through correctly (ID, LUN, etc). The drives are connected to SCN6 (the bottom connector on the card) and the cables in use are P1 and P2. What is the correct setting for LUN etc? Is there anything else I need to do?
 
Create a passthrough drive by selecting it from the physical drive menu. The controller will do the rest for you. When booting into your OS it will be seen as a SCSI device.
 
I was able to get pass-through to work, but not raid set. Here is the message I sent to Areca tech support.

I am not able to see my raid set in Windows. Here is what I have done (brand new 1882ix-12):
Install card and 2 HDD's
Add SCSIPORT via Device Manager.
Boot into McBios and set raid 0.
Boot into Windows. Raid set not seen.
Install ArcHTTP
Update Firmware to 1.50
Use ArcHTTP to set pass-through for both HDD's. Windows sees pass-through drives OK.
Delete pass-through drives.
Set Raid 0 set. Again not seen in Windows.
Repeat above steps, except install Storport drivers using Device Mangr.
Results are the same - pass-through works OK, raid 0 not seen in windows.
Note: Message during post:
No bios disk found - Raid controller bios not installed.

EDIT: Just for future reference - which bios to use? scsiport or storport? Using Win7-64
 
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Note: Message during post:
No bios disk found - Raid controller bios not installed.
Click to expand...

I was able to get this to work. However, I used arcHTTP (browser) to set pass-through, then rebooted. Now, during post, the bios raid disk IS FOUND. Then in the browser again, I am able to set RAID 0 and reboot. Still have a few questions:

1) Is this normal? That is, having to set pass-through and reboot to get the bios recognized to set a raid array. I wonder what will happen if I try to make this raid set bootable and do I have a compatibility issue with my M/B bios? I saw some others that had that problem.
2) Why is my raid only 2.04 GB? I am using 2 2TB drives - shouldn't it be about 3.8 GB?
3) I'm still not sure which driver to use? SCSIPORT or STORPORT? I am currently using scsiport.
 
Darren1 said:
In case any of you have the Supermicro X8DTi-LN4F motherboard there is a resource conflict with the 1882ix-16 (and probably the others in the 1882 series). Areca is aware and Supermicro is too. The fix will need to come from Supermicro.
Click to expand...

Supermicro got back to me. They were able to replicate the issue. They were willing to fix the issue if I had enough boards. Since I only have the one 1882 and motherboard they don't seem interested in spending the time fixing it. I sent the 1882 back anyway.
 
thalantis said:
is anyone using these drives
Western Digital Caviar Green WD30EZRX, 3TB

Want to buy them for my areca 1880ix-24
Click to expand...

+1. ~$160ish for 3 TB sounds really tempting. I have WD10EACS right now, and I was able to use the WD tool to enable TLER on them but I'm hearing it won't work on the WD30EZRX. Does anyone know for sure? 16 of these drives RAID'd would make for a long time I could go without worrying about space issues :)
 
Darren1 said:
Supermicro got back to me. They were able to replicate the issue. They were willing to fix the issue if I had enough boards. Since I only have the one 1882 and motherboard they don't seem interested in spending the time fixing it. I sent the 1882 back anyway.
Click to expand...

So basically you had a problem telling them you were P.O.C. testing for 1500+ units for your data center? :D
 
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