Areca ARC-1223-8I Worth it?

Hi Everyone,
First time posting but sure enjoy reading.
Is this Areca Raid card a waste of money for my editing rig that i just built.
Areca ARC-1223-8I-MS PCI-Express 2.0 x8 Low Profile SATA / SAS RAID Controller Card
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816151130
Or should I bite the bullet and get something like this with more cache.
Areca ARC-1231ML-2G PCI Express SATA II (3.0Gb/s) Controller Card
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816151033
The Rig
2X Samsung 840 SSD
8X Western digital Black
Intel I7 3930K
64Gb Corsair Vengence Ram
Asus GTX 680
Asus Rampage IV Extreme
1050 Corsair Power Supply
Corsair H110 Water Cooler.

Thank you Harm and Jim,
For saving me some money but at the same time costing me more.
One more question can I or should I install the Areca ARC-1882ix-12 on a fresh Windows 7 pro install or can I install the card after Windows is installed?
Here are some pics of the rig that I have decided to call Little HARM, because without a doubt it was inspired by Mr. Harm Millard and his vast knowledge of NLE systems.
Thanks again!

Similar Messages

ARECA ARC-1880-i vs. Intel RS2BL040

I was originally planning on using RAID 10 from my MOBO, but am having second thoughts. I will run the the raid with four Samsung Spinpoint F3R Raid Class 1TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Enterprise Hard Drive HE103SJ (4 TB total), and my OS will be separate on a Western Digital VelociRaptor WD6000HLHX 600GB 10000 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive. In my readings, I believe it is generally accepted that Raid 3 is the best for video editing, but Raid 5 has basically closed the gap to make it more attractive than it has been in the past (please advise if I am off base with this comment). That being said, in review of Raid controllers, the two I am considering are:
1.) Areca ARC-1880-i ~$552
2.) Intel RS2BL040 ~$353
Both appear to have similar characteristics (the Intel does not have Raid 3 capabilities but believe I will run Raid 5 unless someone thinks this will decrease performance vs. 3), and I would buy the SATA III (6 GB) for future considerations, as I only now have SATA II (3 GB) for my Raid drives.
That being said, is it worth the additional $200 for the Areca vs. Intel? I see a lot of favorable posts for Areca, not not Intel. Both seem to have an I/O processor at 800MHz with on board 512 MB Cache Memory (not expandable).
Any guidance will be appreciated.

Intel SAS RS2PI080 8 Port controller with 512 DDR2 Ram
8x
WD VelociRaptor 600 GB, SATA 6 Gb/s, 32 MB Cache, 10,000 RPM
8x Drive Raid 5 - 745MB/s read 735MB/s Write
WD 1TB SATA 6 Gb/s, 64 MB Cache, 7200 RPM
8 Drive Raid 5 - 703.8MB/s read 670MB/s Write
These benchmarks were run back when the Intel card first released. There have been several firmware and driver updates optmizing the 6GB/s performance. These have been consistant plus or minus 20MB/s for several months.
The raid 6 volume was reading 650MB/s and writing at 605MB/s to 635MB/s
Eric
ADK

Can I swap out my old Areca 1880-ix with the newer Areca ARC-1883

Hello everyone. It's been a while since I've been here.
I think, but am not sure, that my Areca 1880-ix is dead. I'll be contacting Areca support to see if I can have them help me troubleshoot it. Like they did a year or so ago.
In any case I see a new Areca ARC-1883 added to their line. Areca Technology Corporation and here Areca Technology Corporation
And if I can't get the old 1880-ix working, I am wondering what the Abobe forum's thought might be about this new Areca ARC-1883.
To summarize, I have one system hard drive, and 4x 1TB hard drives = 4 TB.
Based on anyone's experience here, does such a swap make sense?
Looking forward to a discussion here about my choices.
I do see Bill's post here: Upgrading HD Capacity Areca
Thanks all!
Rowby

Hi Bill
Checking some of my older forum posts I found that I had encountered this issue before.
ASUS P6X58D Memory OK (MEMOK!) issue DRAM LED Stays solid red.
It turned out that my problem was just the motherboard's battery had died. We're talking about a 99 cent battery!
I replaced the battery with a new one.
And the PC booted up just fine.
(This was after I totally disassembled the computer -- testing the power supply with the "paper clip" method, reconnecting all of my cables.
By chance, I found that old post. And, at least for now, all is fine.
Great to have this forum and pros like you -- and Harm -- and all the others -- as a great place for troubleshooting and expert help!!!
Rowby

Areca ARC-1882i & SATA drive suggestions

I am considering the Areca ARC-1882i for my new build. I have been a fan of Western Digital drives for years. I was going to buy a bunch of the 1.5GB Caviar Black SATA III 64mb cache HDDs. Then I read something disturbing on the spec sheet. See snapshot below... It seems RAID is supported on the Caviar Black drives, but not with HBAs and expanders. So I think that means I can't use these drives with the ARC-1882i
source: http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-701284.pdf
I will probably start off with 6 HDDs in two RAID 0 configerations, but I'd like to have the option to go with RAID 5 in the future as I can afford more HDDs. I want speed. I don't necessarily need lots of space. I'm now considering the 600GB Velociraptors, but I'd like some advice from you guys before I buy.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Steve,
My recommendation would be to go with RE drives for your situation. They will generally work OK for RAID 0 service, and they are better for the task of parity RAID (ie RAID 5) when your plans evolove there.
And, now for some "fine print" regarding WD's Black design (for single drive and RAID 0 arrays) and RE Enterprise RAID design:
RAID stands for Redundant Array of Independent Disks and the intent is to maintain an array where a drive, or 2 drives in the case of RAID 6, could fail and NO data would be lost. Enter RAID 0; some people even call it non-RAID or AID 0 (missing the R), because there is nothing redundant about it. RAID 0 is all about speed, and if any drive fails, all is lost. WD, and their competitors, typically manufacture and market separate drive designs intended to serve single drive and full RAID (Enterprise) duty. And, the best fit for RAID 0 use is actually the single drive design, NOT the Enterprise RAID design.
In WD's case I understand the differences of Enterprise RAID (RE) vs. single drives (Black) to include:
1) RAID drives are said to use hand picked platters with less defects, and may also receive better overall QA and testing during manufacture
2) Firmware is generally tweaked slightly to perform better for typical RAID needs (note that "typical RAID needs" means handling lots of simultaneous reads and writes, which is not actually what we need for video editing - no need to worry though, RAID drives work fine for video)
3) RAID drives are said to have better bearings, and designs that are less bothered by neigboring drives in a long hot-swap bank where heads are all seeking at the same time and in the same direction
4) Finally, TLER stands for Time Limit Error Recovery; it means that the drive will limit how long it will try to recover an error. The purpose is to have a drive "fail" and drop off of the RAID quickly (default is set to 7 seconds), so that the performance of the RAID will continue to serve its users instead of hunting, seeking, and trying to recover of what was "lost" on just one drive; at this point a spare or hot-spare drive is brought in to replace the "dropped" drive and the array auto-rebuilds with the replacement.
For desktop users the needs are quite different, and it is more desireable for a failing drive to continue to work and NOT ever drop out. In practice, I had a failing laptop drive that never lost any data, but just before I replaced it just opening a small file could take as long as 30 seconds while the drive used it's built-in ECC (error correction) to get the job done.
Regards,
Jim

Is this the right 2GB memory for my Areca ARC-1880ix

Hello
My Areca ARC-1880ix came with 1GB of onboard memory. I am able to upgrade it to 4GB of memory. But I am only upgrading it to 2GB of memory, swapping out the 1GB stick for the 2GB memory.
I want to double check to make sure the new memory is "compatible". One of the reasons I'm checking is, while it appears that the stick will indeed fit in the board, the stick is not as "tall" as the original memory stick.
I assume I am being overly careful. I guess I could just stick the memory into the card and see if it blows up. But I figure I'd run the sticks through the experts here.
See the attached photo of the two sticks, side by side. BTW the slots align up.....
The memory stick that came with the card has these specs:
UNIGEN
UG 12T7200M8DR-8CR
1GB DDR2 800 RDIMM 240PIN
1116-ME75TDM80018CUEKRS
The memory I bought is 2GB and here are the specs:
Kingston
9905429 - 028.AOOLF
KTD-DM8400A/2G
1.8V
0000005468831
Specifically this stick:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000ACZC9C
Product Features and Technical Details
Product Features
Includes one 2GB module of 533MHz DDR2 Desktop Memory for Dell
Replaces Dell A0515351, fits dimension 4700c, e520, xps gen 5, optiplex 210l,740,745,gx280,gx520,gx620, gx745, sx280,
Memory designed, manufactured and tested to the specifications of each particular brand name computer system
From the industry leader in PC memory
240-pin DIMM type
Precision workstation 380,390, xps 600,700, and 710
Technical Details
Model: KTD-DM8400A/2G
Item Package Quantity: 1
Hardware Platform: PC
RAM Memory Technology: DRAM, DDR2 SDRAM
Form Factor: DIMM 240-pin
Memory Storage Capacity: 2 GB
Memory Speed: 533 MHz
Memory Specification Compliance: PC2-4200
Warranty: Limited lifetime warranty
OEM Equivalent Part Number: DELL A0515351

Rowby,
Do NOT order the 2GB stick from the link you provide above for a ARC-1880 series controller card. The only one that they show on that link that would be compatible is the $249 4GB 800MHz stick. If you click on the "details" button by each you can view what cards each RAM stick is compatible with.
If I were you, I would just stick with the 1GB RAM. And, if that is not fast enough for your needs, buying more hard drives would probably help your system's performance more than the cache upgrade.
Jim

Areca ARC-1680i-12 - Help

I am running Win 7 64bit, 64GB RAM,
Areca ARC-1680i-12 (6TB Raid 0 and 3TB Raid 3 .... all Samsung F1) firmware 1.49 + BPM, Asus P9X79 WS, i7 3930 (OC 4,2), GTX 685 4GB
POWER Corsair Gold 1200W
Using 50% PPr CS6 and 50% AE CS6, XDCAM 422 files
The system was running very stabile without any problems during months . Areca Monitor history did not show any issues.
Since 2 weeks i got ARECA HW-Monitor (history) messages als following:
Ctr low Voltage V-1,92...restart with battery pac module.
Since the problem appears, no hardware components werde installed.
What does this message mean, where could the bottlenec be, how can i solve the problem.
Is Areca ARC 1680i "in danger", do i have to grade up and change?
Pls explain easily, i am not hardware-experianced.
thanks for help,
klfi, Austria

Thanks Harm and Jim,
my comments:
1. CPU Temp ?, Noctua -14 is full running. Without stress CPU ASUS TurboEV sais temp is now 39 (3,9 GH), Motherboard 35, CPU-Fan 1218rmp, same time without stress Areca sais CPU temp 82
2. When i start, windows7 opens normal. In Start up menu (counting up 20/300) i can see Areca 2 raid-config and 2 pass thrugh config, which seems to be ok.
3. Windows 7 opens. After opening a programm or search in Explorer, everything stops and hang up....or i can open Explorer, choose a areca drive or another... and then explorer hang up...only reboot helps.
4. When PC ist shut down and i open the case i can hear a sound like clock-ticks every 3 seconds, seeems to come from installed battery pack module.
5 firmware 1,49, 1.51 is not installed ... i am too afraid now --))
Following Jims suggestion, can i remove battery pack module without more problems- as the first search-step.
or any othersuggestions ?
Thanks
Klaus, Austria

Opinion of Areca ARC-1110 RAID Controller?

I'm planning on adding a RAID set to my computer. I'm looking for a good RAID card in the $200-300ish range. What is the opinion of this card? I've been reading that Areca is an excellent product, but I wasn't sure if there were any strong opinions or fineprint about this card.
Using an Asus Sabertooth X58 motherboard
Also, did I hear something about installing a card like this will hurt my graphics card performance, or was that my imagination? GPU is Nvidia Quadro 4000
Thanks,
Bryan

Bryan,
Like Harm stated, that particular Areca card is an old, outdated design. Unfortunately, most RAID cards under $500 do not improve editing performance sufficiently over an onboard software RAID to justify even their seemingly low cost. In other words, you will need to spend well over $1,000 (for the card by itself), plus the cost of any additional drives, in order to get a card that actually improves performance and reliability noticeably over onboard software RAID or an onboard aid0.
And the ARC-1110 that you're considering will not fit into any of the PCI-e slots at all. That's because that card is a PCI-x card which is not compatible at all with PCI-e but is compatible with legacy PCI slots. That means that on your particular Sabertooth X58 mobo, the only slot that you can use that card in is a legacy PCI slot, which is limited in maximum theoretical bandwidth to 133 MB/s. Unfortunately, modern hard drives (even single ones) can (and do) exceed that already, making the entire PCI-Legacy bus a bottleneck for any single modern hard drive. And forget about using the ARC-1110's RAID feature since it will still be limited by the PCI-Legacy bus (whiose maximum practical bandwidth is limited to only about 125 MB/s even with no other legacy PCI cards installed).
In other words, you are trying to buy the wrong RAID card for your particular system. You were trying to believe that PCI-x is the same as PCI-e when they are both totally different interfaces.

Areca Arc-1210 SATA ll vs Arc-1212 SAS/SATA ll

Hi
I was thinking to get a Arc-1210 card to make an internal raid 3 with my 4 samsung F3 1TBSATA ll. During
my research about where to buy the card, i found the Arc-1212 with better bus speed and support SAS/SATA ll
peripheral devices for just few bucks more. So I was thinking to get the 1212.
I contacted Areca to verify the usability of my samsung F3 with the Arc-1212 card. they wrote me back:
both 1210 and 1212 are 3Gbp controllers, one important difference between
1210 and 1212 is the 1210 is a SATA controller and the 1212 is a SAS
controller.
the 1212 SAS controller use newer processor than 1210 used, faster and more
throughputs, so you may got higher performance on 1212 if your drives have
higher throughput than 1210 can handle.
but because the 1212 is a SAS controller which mean it may not fully
compatible with SATA drives like SATA controllers did. and the drive you
used is desktop drives which may not reliable enough for array application.
so i can not tell you use 1212 with these drives is a good configuration or
not.
With this answer from Areca i still get no clear answer if it will work. I found a lot of information for
the arc-1210 on this forum and it seems to be a good purchase but mostly nothing about the 1212.
Someone made successful job with the Arc 1212 with F3 Drive or with other sata drive? or knows where I
can find the answer ?
1210
http://www.areca.com.tw/products/pcie.htm
1212
http://www.areca.com.tw/products/pcietosas01.htm

First of all, according to experiences of a lot of people here, the F3 are perfectly OK in a raid array. Even my older and slower F1's work without a hiccup.
Second, if you have the choice to go for a 1680 or even a 1880 card, you will benefit a lot from the much faster IOP and the faster cache. I'm not familiar enough with the 1200 range to say the 1210 or 1212 is better.

MSI 975X Platinum PowerUp and Areca arc-1220 problem

intel e6600 core duo
975x platinum powerup
2x kingston ddr2 PC6400 800Mhz CL5 Dual Channel Kit (KVR800D2N5K2⁄2G)
Sapphire ATI X1950XTX 512MB
4x Samsung spinpoint 500gb
Windows 2003 r2 sp2
Zalman ZM600-HP 600W
i have an ati radeon 1950xtx in my first pcie slot and the arc 1220 (sata raid)in the second pcie slot.
i dont see the card in bootup, already installed bios 7.7
tried the card in an other sytem works fine
also installed the latest firmware on the arc-1220 card
anyone have an idea which bios i should try

can you see the card in windows if you boot off the on-board controller?
I know Intel boards are picky with RAID controller cards. If the Intel RAID is enabled then a lot of add-on cards won't work. Also, even with Intel RAID disabled some still won't work. I had to flash my SiI 3132 RAID card to non-RAID for it to work as a boot device.
I've had my system not even post at all when both RAIDS are enabled. But if I get a post and it boots from the Intel side, it always sees the add-on RAID card.
Also, do you have the latest BIOS? Hopefully that will fix the issue.
Myself, I have the ARC-1210 controller and have NOT had any issues on my 975, 965, P35, or X38 boards. However, only the X38 board has allowed my card to run at full speed. The other chipsets run the 2nd PCIe X16 slot at only X4. It seems it's too slow for the controller to work properly, or there is some issues still. But my X38 boards run great. I get over 300MB/s with my 4 x 150MB Raptors in RAID0.
Good luck
-=Mark=-

PPC G5 compatibility of Areca PCIE RAID controller arc-1280?

Subject: Mac compatibility of Areca ARC-1280 24 ports PCI Express to SATA II RAID adapter.
At Areca's Internet site ( www.areca.com.tw) consumers can read at pages concerning arc-1280 card that: « The SATA RAID controllers support broad operating systems including ... MAC ... ».
At Specifications page, under: Operating system, it is written: « Mac OS X (no_bootable) ».
Absolutely no other warning appear about MAC owners.
So, if you are just a basic computer consumer, you are now strongly tempted to believe that if you got a MAC with PCIExpress technology & OS X, you can safely buy arc 1280 PCIE.
This is because (nearly) everyone knows that in real pragmatic actual life OS X exclusively runs on Apple Mac machines. In the case of arc-1280, as it is a PCIExpress adapter, only two Apple Mac models are possible: the very recent MACPro (Intel cpu based) & late 2005 PPC G5 dualcore (IBM cpu based). As Areca mentions nowhere any warning between MACPro & G5 dualcore, only owners of either of those PCIE machines may logically have the opportunity to run OS X with an arc-1280 connected!
If you are a little bit more paranoïd, before to buy such an expensive adapter, you will check if there are other stuffs to confirm your deductions. You then will find Areca's online user's manual 3.2, where it is stated that a bios configuration utility, contained into card's firmware, is « OS independant » & can be accessed at startup by pressing TAB or F6. About « MAC X » driver installation, user is invited to follow a readme.txt (that in fact does not exist nowhere). It is the same for archttp proxy server installation, which is also asserted to support Mac OS.
Moreover, a Mac driver is freely downloadable online, called arcmsr-1.3.1.pkg. Now you are ready to trust!
Having arc-1280 plugged, you start your Mac (happy to hear that card beep after startup) then install driver (the same is present online & on Areca's companion CD). A text appear:
« This driver supports...arc 1280...PCIE... Please note that this is a pre-release version of the driver for testing purpose, and is *NOT * for general distribution. ». But installation completes succesfully and you pay no attention to this frightening sentence hidden into Areca's driver package.
What then arise when you have your computer restarted? Nothing: except the beep at startup, Areca's high end Raid controller simply do not appear anywhere into Mac OS X!
As I cannot afford paying more than 1200 euro for just a startup beep, I decided to require help from distributor & Areca's very enigmatic support. Lastly distributor decided to try with another arc-1280 which was as useless on my Mac than the first one. I again protested, Areca's support seeming to have totally resign for quite a lot of time now, distributor blaming me not to have been carefull enough ?!
Distributor ask me now to re-send back the card. They will try to get their money back from Areca, then maybe will I have my money back ? They asked me to write a letter with a description of the problem & why I want a full refund.
This is now done, hoping this will help to avoid further misinformation.

MacGurus PCIE which are supported.
I saw the Areca reviewed xbitlabs
AMUG http://www.amug.com does great reviews of Mac compatible drives, enclosures, and controllers.

Areca 1882x speed drop with a BBU - expected?

Anyone using an Areca ARC-1882x RAID controller with a BBU (Battery Backup Unit)? If so, any difference in performance with / without BBU, and did you have to change any settings?
Here is what I am seeing on a client's Mac Pro with a CineRAID 12-bay tower SAS Expander:
No BBU: 1000+MB/s write and 800 read speeds.
BBU connected: 500 write and 350 read (and the read is stuttering). No background processed or anything else apparent in the dashboard.
Areca's initial response: "When the BBU is connected, the controller will disable the disk internal cache for best data protection. A disk without internal cache will decrease performance."
I didn't have a chance to poke around the settings yet - there's probably a way to turn the internal cache back on since to me, that's the whole point of the BBU protection - keeping the cache alive until the power is back on.
Meantime, just I wanted to see if anyone ran into a similar issue and figured it out.

I admit I have not tried results without the BBU attached. If you get me really curious, I may, but with the results I got - although the different tests showed remarkably different results, HDTune Pro, Crystal Disk Mark and AJA tests - I do not have the impression that results are negatively influenced by the BBU.
It could be a MAC specific problem, since my observations are PC / Windows based.

ARECA RAID CARD PROBLEMS

I am in the middle of building my new system.
I am having problems with an Areca arc-1680 IX 16 Port.
Basically the card is running so slow, I have tried varios volumes from 2x hd in raid 0, to 10 raid 0, raid 30 ect. the higest i got is 170 ish mbs. peaks up and down.
I have tried with HD Tach & HD Tune.
Motherboard used:
Asus Z8NA-D6
HD: Samsung hd103sj
Windows 7 ultimate.
I have tried the only 2 available 8x pci-e slots. makes no difference.
waiting for areca to get back to me.
this is the second card i am testing this week. So i have 2 cards that cost ££££ and they are useless.
any sugestions what it could be.
baz

good chance its the motherboard you used. it would not have been my choice.
you should be hitting 195-215 for a 2 drive raid 0.
i have not tried the samsung drives so who knows...
what #s do you get with onboard raid 0?
Scott
ADK

Areca controller for the x2100 fire server

Hi
We just purchased the sun x2100 server, for the purpose of hosting some applications on the linux platform. Unfortunaly the nvraid controller is not well supported on the centos (red hat enterprise clone), and therefore we cannot get raid1 with failover to work on this server.
I have searched the market and found that the areca ARC-1210 controller to be a well supported controller on centos and other linux distros, and allso the best hardware raid controller for the pci-E port.
We have previously used 3ware controllers for this purpose, but amcc has not produced any controllers for the pci-e port.
Have anyone here any experiences with the areca controller on the x2100 server ? Its very important for us ta have a solid well working raid1 solution with failover and quick init restore while server is operative.

the areca controllers seem to have massive problems on the x2100 M2 (tested with areca 1210). Without disks attached to the controller the x2100 might boot (in some cases) but with disks attached to the controller it always fails. it couldbe / seems there is an interrupt problem (usb using irq15, controller using irq15).
this is even worse since areca is a very well supported controller on alot plattforms and the onboard nvidia fraid doesnt seem to work at all (rebuilding/state detection).
late reply, but better late then never :)

Areca Raid controller, which one?

I am looking at purchasing the Areca ARC-1880i. Is there a big difference in preformance between this controller that has 512mb and the next cards up (1880ix's) with 2g or 4g of memory.

I don't have hard figures to substantiate this, but comparing the 1680 with 512 MB versus 2 GB, the difference is clearly noticeable. The difference between 2 and 4 GB is less clear with video material, since often clips are a lot larger than 4 GB. For preview files or media cache it will be more noticeable.
Personally, I would always opt for the iX version and the largest cache that fits in your budget.

Using Areca 1221X with CineRAID external storage

Has anyone here used the Areca ARC-1221X RAID controller with the new Mac Pro, featuring the Intel Xeon “Nehalem” processor?
This card is included with the CineRAID 8TB external storage we also want to purchase to use with the new Mac Pro.

Hi,
Can you please verify that if processor on the new ARC-1221x included with the CineRAID is an Intel IOP 348 1.2GHz (1200MHz) processor? The original ARC-1221x had an 800MHz Intel IOP341 I/O processor on the board.
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/areca/1221x/
Could you also verify the watts provided by the CineRAID power supply? AMUG was set to review the 8TB CineRAID but we were told that the company wanted to increase the size of the power supply first.
Thank you!

Areca ARC-1223-8I Worth it?

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