Areca PCIe SAS/SATA 12G Hardware RAID Controller

*12Gb SAS Expander Technology

Enterprise Class MRAID Management Utility

Supports up to 30 SAS Expander Enclosures
Windows - Linux - Solaris - FreeBSD

Mac OS - 10.4 through current - PCIe MacPro and Server

Thunderbolt Compatible

  ARC-1883x 12Gb SAS RAID controller for use with expander enclosures with SAS or SATA drives. This 12Gb/sec card has a dual core RAID-on Chip 1.2 Ghz processor and 2GB onboard DDR3-1866 SDRAM cache. Can be run with SAS or SATA drives.

Performance

   This 8 Lane PCIe card has the bandwidth for 3000+ MB/sec RAID arrays. Each MiniSAS port can attach up to 15 chained expander enclosures giving enormous capacities.

MRAID Management Utility

   Included with the controller card is Areca's world class - Enterprise Class MRAID Management Utlity. Fully functioned, years of maturity. It can handle all the tasks required for server or workstation RAID reliability, expansion and maintenance.

Compatible with:

• Mac OS 10.4 through Latest OS
• WIndows 10, Windows 8/Server2012/7/2008/Vista/Server 2003/XP
• Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris 10/11

SAS Expander Technology

  If you need expandability to go with high performance and reliability, then SAS Expanders are for you. Each of the two external 8644 MiniSAS connectors on this card can connect to up to 15 chained expander enclosures. Using the iStoragePro IR16 16 drive rack enclosure we're talking 256 drives on the one connector. 

12Gb SAS Specification

  12Gb is the newest SAS specification. At this time, there is no way to run 12Gb on a Mac since it requires Revision 3 PCIe slot to allow that bandwidth. MacPro Tower with PCIe slots were Revision 1 PCIe until 2009, then were updated to Revision 2. So far, there are no Thunderbolt to PCIe expansion boxes with PCIe revision 3 slots. In spite of this, even using SATAIII drives, speeds in excess of 2GB/sec have been reached. THis is with 32 drives in a RAID5. Amazing.

Cabling and Connectors

  12G connectors (8644 external, 8643 internal) and cabling have twice as many data channels as older 6G (8088 external, 8087 internal). When attaching to a 12G enclosure you will need 8644 to 8644 MiniSAS cable (included with iStoragePro Expander enclosures).

  When ordering an 1883x 12G RAID card to use with a 6G Expander enclosure like the iStoragePro IR16SAE6G, you must also order an 8644 to 8088 MiniSAS cable

Personal observations: I am always impressed at how good high end Enterprise equipment is. Like all Areca products, the 1883x is a fully capable Enterprise class RAID controller. The most important part of a RAID controller, and the most expensive, is its RAID Management Utility. Areca's MRAID Utility is fully mature world class with years of engineering investment by Areca. The capabilities of the utility are what make the RAID reliable, functional and capable of recovering from any of the possible problems with a big multidrive RAID environment. If reliability, performance and capacity are important to you, I cannot but recommend this system.   ~Rick