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SATA II and SAS RAID CARD ROUNDUP
Areca ARC-1680
Areca has dominated the
SATA RAID card scene for a few years now, and many
have wondered when the company would launch a SAS
RAID card. Only in the summer of 2007 was that
question finally answered. The ARC-1680 is one
of the members of the latest family of Areca RAID
cards. It is a fairly large 8-port card, most
likely because of its DIMM slot. Strong
performance is what is expected, and we're about to
find out if that's the case.
This is what the
ARC-1680 retail package looks like. The two
cables just don't make sense. Note the
external connector and the Ethernet port:
    
Manufacturer's specifications:
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ARECA PCI-Express RAID Card
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Model Name |
ARC-1680
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RAID
Processor |
IOP348
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Host Bus
Type |
PCI-Express X8
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Cache
Memory |
One
DDR2 DIMM upgradeable to 2GB
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Drive
Support |
Up to
128 using SAS expanders
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Connector
Type |
Internal:
2x SFF-8087
External: 1x SFF-8088 |
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Adapter
Architecture |
 |
Intel(R) 800MHz IOP348 I/O processor with SAS controller |
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PCI-Express X8 bus |
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One 240-pin DDR2-533 DIMM socket with default 512MB of SDRAM with ECC protection, upgrade to 2GB
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Write-through or write-back cache support |
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Supports 8
SAS ports |
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Multi-adapter
support for large storage requirements |
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BIOS boot
support for greater fault tolerance |
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BIOS PnP
(plug and play) and BBS (BIOS boot specification)
support |
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Intel RAID 6
Engine to support extreme performance |
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NVRAM for
RAID event & transaction log |
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Redundant
flash image for adapter availability
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Battery
Backup Module (BBM) ready
ARC-6120BA-T1xx, xx means version no. |
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RoHS
Compliant |
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RAID Features |
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RAID level 0, 1, 1E, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60 and JBOD |
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Multiple RAID
selection |
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Array roaming |
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Online RAID
level/stripe size migration
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Online RAID
capacity expansion and RAID level migration
simultaneously |
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Online volume
set growth |
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Instant
availability and background initialization |
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Automatic
drive insertion/removal detection and rebuild |
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Greater than 2TB per volume set
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Disk Scrubbing / Array verify scheduling for automatic repair of all configured raid sets |
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Support spin
down drivers when not in use to extend service life
(MAID) |
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Support NTP protocol to synchronize RAID controller clock over on-board Ethernet port |
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Disk Bus Interface |
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Automatic detect eight internal ports or four internal & four external ports
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Up to (128) SAS or 3Gb/s SATA II drives using SAS expanders
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Up to 3Gb/s per port |
| |
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Monitors/Indicators |
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System status indication through Global HDD activity/fault connector, Individual fault connector, LCD/I2C connector and alarm buzzer
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SMTP support email notification
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SNMP support
for remote notification |
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Enclosure management (SES2 and SGPIO) ready |
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RAID Management |
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Field-upgradeable firmware in flash ROM |
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In-Band
Manager |
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Hot key
boot-up McBIOS RAID manager via BIOS |
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Support
controller's API library for customer to write its own
AP |
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Support
Command Line Interface (CLI) |
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Browser-based
management utility via ArcHttp Proxy Server
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Single Admin
Portal (SAP) monitor utility |
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Disk Stress Test (DST) utility for production |
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Out-of-Band Manager |
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Firmware-embedded Browser-based RAID manager, SMTP
manager, SNMP agent, and Telnet function via
on-controller Ethernet
port |
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Support controller's API library for customer to write
its own monitor utility |
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Push Button
and LCD display panel |
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Software Drivers |
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Windows 2000/XP |
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Windows Server 2003 |
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Linux |
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FreeBSD |
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Solaris 10x86/ x86_64 |
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SCO
UnixWare 7.x.x |
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Novell
Netware 6.5 |
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Mac OS X (no_bootable) |
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Dimension: |
98.4(H) x
217(L) mm |
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Environmental
Specifications
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Operating: |
Temperature:+5°c
to +50°c
|
|
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Humidity:
15-80% |
|
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non-condensing |
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Storage
Temperature: |
Temperature:-40°c
to 70°c
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Humidity:
5-90% |
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non-condensing |
Electrical
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Power
Requirements: |
1.10W max.
on 3.3v |
|
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10.92W max.
on 12v |
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Like other Areca products, ARCHTTP is the
browser-based configuration application used to
manage the ARC-1680. However, the current
versions simply does not work properly with the
card, and causing the browser to crash and the proxy
server service to stop. After many days of
testing and searching, a beta version of ARCHTTP was
found on Areca's FTP site, and fortunately, it
worked with the ARC-1680. Cosmetically, it
looks the same as the other version, but
functionally, it is much more stable, and provides
easier management without restarting the OS or
power-cycling the RAID card. As you will see
in the results, all tests ran, unlike the other two
Areca cards where some tests were could not be
executed for one reason or another.
Here are the benchmark
results:
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
Hardware RAID-10,
4k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 8MB Zones
Hardware RAID-10,
4k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 32MB Zones
Hardware RAID-10,
4k Stripe, ATTO Mark
Hardware RAID-10,
128k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 8MB Zones
Hardware RAID-10,
128k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 32MB Zones
Hardware RAID-10,
128k Stripe, ATTO Mark
Hardware RAID-30, HD Tach 3.0 8MB Zones
Hardware RAID-30, HD Tach 3.0 32MB Zones
Hardware RAID-30, ATTO Mark
Hardware RAID-50,
4k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 8MB Zones
Hardware RAID-50,
4k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 32MB Zones
Hardware RAID-50,
4k Stripe, ATTO Mark
Hardware RAID-50,
128k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 8MB Zones
Hardware RAID-50,
128k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 32MB Zones
Hardware RAID-50,
128k Stripe, ATTO Mark
Hardware RAID-60,
4k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 8MB Zones
Hardware RAID-60,
4k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 32MB Zones
Hardware RAID-60,
4k Stripe, ATTO Mark
Hardware RAID-60,
128k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 8MB Zones
Hardware RAID-60,
128k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 32MB Zones
Hardware RAID-60,
128k Stripe, ATTO Mark
Software RAID-0,
ATTO Mark
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