SATA II and SAS RAID CARD ROUNDUP

Areca ARC-1220

Areca is a relative newcomer to the world of high-end RAID controllers.  A Taiwan-based company, Areca has built a reputation on very strong performance, and unfortunately, on weak after sales support as well.  The Areca ARC-1220 is one of the earlier Areca RAID cards which took the storage world by storm.  Its performance in many tests ported on other articles were simply astonishing.  Now, we include it in our roundup here as a point of reference.  Here are its manufacturer's specifications:

ARECA PCI-Express RAID Card Model Name ARC-1220 RAID Processor IOP333 Host Bus Type PCI-Express X8 RAID 6 Support YES Cache Memory 256MB Drive Support 8*SATA ll   Adapter Architecture ARC-1220 uses Intel(R) IOP333 I/O processor PCI-Express X8 bus 256MB on-board DDR333 SDRAM with ECC protection One SODIMM socket with default 256MB of DDR333 SDRAM with ECC protection, Upgrade to 1GB. An ECC or non-ECC SDRAM module using X8 or X16 chip organization (12/16/24-port) Write-through or write-back cache support Support up to 8 SATA II drives Multi-adapter support for large storage requirements BIOS boot support for greater fault tolerance BIOS PnP (plug and play) and BBS (BIOS boot specification) support Intel RAID 6 Engine to support extreme performance NVRAM for RAID event & transaction log Redundant flash image for adapter availability Battery Backup Module (BBM) ready ARC-6120BA-T1xx, xx means version no. RoHS Compliant   RAID Features RAID level 0, 1, 1E, 3, 5, 6 (if RAID 6 engine supported) and JBOD Multiple RAID selection Array roaming Online RAID level/stripe size migration Online RAID capacity expansion and RAID level migration simultaneously Instant availability and background initialization Automatic drive insertion/removal detection and rebuild Greater than 2TB per volume set Support S.M.A.R.T, NCQ and OOB Staggered Spin-up capable drives Support spin down drivers when not in use to extend service life (MAID)   Monitors/Indicators System status indication through HDD activity/fault connector, LCD Connector and alarm buzzer SMTP support email notification SNMP support for remote notification I2C Enclosure management ready   RAID Management Field-upgradeable firmware in flash ROM   In-Band Manager Hot key boot-up McBIOS RAID manager via BIOS Support controller's API library for customer to write its own AP Support Command Line Interface (CLI) Browser-based management utility via ArcHttp Proxy Server Single Admin Portal (SAP) monitor utility Disk Stress Test (DST) utility for production in Windows   Out-of-Band Manager Firmware-embedded Browser-based RAID manager, SMTP manager, SNMP agent, and Telnet function via Ethernet port (for 12/16 port Adapter) Support controller's API library for customer to write its own AP (for 12/16 port Adapter) Push Button and LCD display panel     Software Drivers Windows 2000/XP (Scsiport Driver) Windows Server 2003 (Scsiport Driver and Storport Driver) Redhat Linux and SuSE Linux FreeBSD Solaris 10x86 UnixWare 7.1.x Netware 6.5 Dimension: 64(H) x 168(L) mm   SATA Interface: Multi-layer SATA connector         Environmental Specifications   Operating: Temperature:+5°c to +50°c   Humidity: 15-80%   non-condensing   Storage Temperature: Temperature:-40°c to 70°c   Humidity: 5-90%   non-condensing         Electrical   Power Requirements: 4.95W max. on 3.3v   6.22W max. on 12v

Click on the photos below for much larger images.  We lost the full-height bracket of this card so we had to glue-gun another bracket to it:

Note that the ARC-1220 uses standard SATA connectors located at the top of the card.  Using this card in a 2U case requires not only the low-profile bracket but also right-angle SATA cables.  Also, the presence of a fan makes this product look more like a graphics card.  Nevertheless, it sure lets you know that it is one high-performance unit. 

Areca has a browser-based management utility called ARCHTTP.  The main window shows all Areca controllers controllable from this network location, and a log of events:

The window for the selected controller opens into the following page on the browser.  On the left are the various options while the main window shows the settings:

Creating an array is very simple.  Here, we select RAID-0 from the drop-down menu:

2TB is a hard limit in 32-bit OSes, so support for arrays greater than 2TB can done easily here:

Here are the benchmark results.  Note that some tests do not show the WRITE speeds because initialization of the array was required, and simply took an impossibly long time.  In the real world, this can and must be accomplished over the weekend prior to deployment.  But for our testing purposes, it became impractical.  Relative performance of write speeds can be ascertained by looking at the other tests:

Hardware RAID-0, 4k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 8MB Zones

Hardware RAID-0, 4k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 32MB Zones

Hardware RAID-0, 4k Stripe, ATTO Mark

Hardware RAID-0, 128k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 8MB Zones

Hardware RAID-0, 128k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 32MB Zones

Hardware RAID-0, 128k Stripe, ATTO Mark

Hardware RAID-1,  HD Tach 3.0 8MB Zones

Hardware RAID-1,  HD Tach 3.0 32MB Zones

Hardware RAID-1, ATTO Mark

Hardware RAID-3, HD Tach 3.0 8MB Zones

Hardware RAID-3, HD Tach 3.0 32MB Zones

Hardware RAID-3, ATTO Mark

Hardware RAID-5, 4k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 8MB Zones

Hardware RAID-5, 4k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 32MB Zones

Hardware RAID-5, 4k Stripe, ATTO Mark

Hardware RAID-5, 128k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 8MB Zones

Hardware RAID-5, 128k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 32MB Zones

Hardware RAID-5, 128k Stripe, ATTO Mark

Hardware RAID-6, 4k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 8MB Zones

Hardware RAID-6, 4k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 32MB Zones

Hardware RAID-6, 4k Stripe, ATTO Mark

Hardware RAID-6, 128k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 8MB Zones

Hardware RAID-6, 128k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 32MB Zones

Hardware RAID-6, 128k Stripe, ATTO Mark

Software RAID-0, ATTO Mark

Now, one can truly see the sheer power of the Areca card.