Areca 1880 series posted

[Computurd]

Well guys, they have posted info on their site for the new line of arecas, the long awaited line! Cant wait to see what they have in store for us, can anyone find pricing or where to buy?

http://www.areca.com.tw/products/1880.htm

There still isnt any performance information that i can find as of yet, but it is very exciting to see that they have geared this for use with ssd's in mind.
My main question is...how is the low QD random file performance?

Perusing the manual as we speak, for any clue as to performance

tentative pricing here:
http://www.eurostor.com/english/ArcRAID.E.php

will need to do some conversions though./..

[Johnny87au]

thanks computurd, wanna see this compare to the lsi cards..

[Computurd]

yes looks exciting. frankly im astounded at the lack of enthusiasm to the release!
There is a little bit of an unknown with the roc though, they arent listing which one they are using. some speculation around that they aren't using the marvell. this isn't verified of course, but since they have had so many delays due to a malfunctioning chip, it wouldn't surprise me.

[bot@xs]

a new player in the game. good to see

[Johnny87au]

@ computurd yes ive been searching and cant find which controller it uses, u think the marvell though? that would suck.. As for pricing i cant find anything on this card yet..

[mbreslin]

If that tentative pricing is correct I may get one for bananas and giggles. If it's awesome pick up some g3 ssds later. More pcmv possibly?

[stevecs]

No mention of DIX/DIF (fat sectors) and nothing explicit (implied by the >2TB per disk line) about 4KiB sector sizes. Argh.

[stevecs]

well just got a response back from Areca on the 1880 w/ my q's above:

regarding your questions :
1. currently our controllers supports drives with 512byte sector size only,
not 4KB or fat sectors.
2. these currently available 4KB sector drives report 512byte to host, not
4KB. 4KB is drive internal sector size.
3. our controllers do not support DIX/DIF

The above really sucks which basically means that I have to probably use the LSI HBA's (non raid) that can support fat sectors for DIX/DIF and/or use ZFS under solaris for data integrity options. Really a shame that raid companies are not all over support for data integrity options.

[Gogeta]

The above really sucks which basically means that I have to probably use the LSI HBA's (non raid) that can support fat sectors for DIX/DIF and/or use ZFS under solaris for data integrity options. Really a shame that raid companies are not all over support for data integrity options.

Here's hoping Oracle has beneficial plans for OpenSolaris. I am in the middle of tinkering with a proof of concept for my own storage centered around ZFS that would replace hardware raid with Linux. It's a shame Sun licensed the filesystem into oblivion as it's very hard to find a comparable solution, especially when it comes to cost.


Back on track, I'm looking forward to see what SteveRo can do with these new Arecas if their performance is competitive.

[saint-francis]

well just got a response back from Areca on the 1880 w/ my q's above:

regarding your questions :
1. currently our controllers supports drives with 512byte sector size only,
not 4KB or fat sectors.
2. these currently available 4KB sector drives report 512byte to host, not
4KB. 4KB is drive internal sector size.
3. our controllers do not support DIX/DIF

The above really sucks which basically means that I have to probably use the LSI HBA's (non raid) that can support fat sectors for DIX/DIF and/or use ZFS under solaris for data integrity options. Really a shame that raid companies are not all over support for data integrity options.

Makes me wonder what exactly these new cards are bringing to the table?

[Computurd]

I agree, and as much as i want to buy one to test, there is no information on them, and their many problems, that they have acknowledged publicly, makes me wonder.....the fact that they arent publishing the type of ROC is also particularly troubling.

[NKrader]

I have to probably use the LSI HBA's (non raid) that can support fat sectors for DIX/DIF and/or use ZFS under solaris for data integrity options.

Its not the size of your sector... its how you use it.

[stevecs]

Its not the size of your sector... its how you use it.

Yeah from what I can see on these cards they don't seem to really buy a lot. Sure there /may/ be a little more performance but so what? data integrity is more important than speed, at least to me. And speed can be easily designed, you can pick up two or four of the 1680 cards and stripe across them to push out the individual performance limits per card (heck I'm running 3 here now and plan on moving over a 4th on my array server).

But with the news of no 4k sectors really brings into question the whole issue on using large HD's (>2TB) this late in the game those drives will start showing up by the end of the year. This tells me that there is going to be a bunch of 'beta testers' out there while areca figures it out assuming they can without any revisions.

Then there is issue of lack fat sector support (T10 PI extensions really; DIX/DIF) which granted is for SAS people not sata but that's really the only way to notify of torn/lost/wild/ et al writes. Lacking those items I don't really see much a benefit over a plain jane HBA with ZFS/BTRFS or something that does at least data/metadata checks.

[Sandon]

I would think something like sector size could be supported with a firmware upgrade? Or is it something really special?

[stevecs]

It depends on the controller chip and the expander chips (on the models that have more than 8 ports, those use an expander). Since you are in essence switching the blocks through the controller changing the size, though logical, may require hardware modifications (similar to say a switch that is set up for a 1518byte ethernet frame not being able to handle 9000 byte frames). Not the best analogy but hopefully you get the idea.

We won't know until someone tries it unfortunately.

[dinos22]

so this is a sata3 version of 1231ML pretty much

[Computurd]

pretty much it appears. there has been no sata 3 only devices released for 6gb.s other than the rocketraids, which are underpowered from the tests that i have seen. seems sas/sata is the way of the future right now.

[Serra]

I am resolved not to be disappointed by the questions popping up here, RAID cards always suck on release as drivers and firmware is never where it should be. It's a shame really, but it's true... you always see much better performance and typically at least a few improved/new features a few months later (though, I admit, lacking DIX/DIF is a bother as it seems unlikely that they would omit a feature like that if they meant to implement it later).

Still, can't wait to see some benches and a comparison vs. LSI-based cards.

[Computurd]

very true on that serra. the 9260 was a slow bastard at first...but it came along nicely. I have faith in areca, they make great cards! Just makes me hesitant to drop that much coin to be the initial tester...kinda want someone to test the waters first

[mbreslin]

Being the initial tester is fun! I was the first I saw other than Anand (who's drive died :X) to have a go with the 256gb c300s, and still the only 8 drive array benchmarks I've seen.

I expected 1200-1500$. For ~850$ I will consider being the initial c300+1880 tester. My wife had our second child just 2 weeks ago so I have even less time than before but I managed to find time for benching before, I can probably do so again.

[SteveRo]

If/when we can get it from the egg - use to be all you payed to return it was the 15% restocking fee.
100$ or so to give it a try - count me in unless there's some showstopper that I have yet to see.

[Computurd]

+1 steve, you have read my mind sir. surprised you were so late to the 1880 unveiling party I am definitely going to do the "egg trick" it is just that they are probably not gonna be on the egg for awhile, they are always slower than tekram and scsi4me and the other places i usually buy my uber raids..

[SteveRo]

been on vaca - just got back yesterday.

[Computurd]

damn i feel sorry for you. spent a week in Galveston a month back...didnt want to come home, the vertex LE in the mailbox made it slightly better...

[safan80]

You guys need to realize that areca will support 4K with a firmware upgrade. It's funny how people expect support for things that are not even out yet. Areca has been good to do firmware updates granted they might be slow but they get them out the door. The big question is: Do the 4K hard drives report their sectors as 4K to the hard drive controller? Chances are they don't because it would break compatibility for a lot of motherboard controller and apps.