Areca ARC-1880i or something else?

[Rusting In Peace]

I'm looking at this card for my Ubuntu 10.10 NAS to run RAID 5 or 6 with 4x2TB drives.

Does anyone have this card? I've read some reviews about it but the tiny fan looks, sounds and performs terribly. So I'm somewhat concerned.

Perhaps someone has another card suggestion? I can spend up to £500. Any suggestions must be available from the UK, work under Ubuntu and must support at least 8 SATA drives.

Thanks!

 

[thenewnumber2]

I'm looking at this card for my Ubuntu 10.10 NAS to run RAID 5 or 6 with 4x2TB drives.

Does anyone have this card? I've read some reviews about it but the tiny fan looks, sounds and performs terribly. So I'm somewhat concerned.

Perhaps someone has another card suggestion? I can spend up to £500. Any suggestions must be available from the UK, work under Ubuntu and must support at least 8 SATA drives.

Thanks!

I have the 1680i, and love it. I expect the 1880 is of comparable quality.

You're right about the stock cooling being minimal, though. I have a water- cooled system, so I just swapped out the fan with a water block and was good to go.

 

[saiyan]

I have been using a ARC-1880i controller for about 5 months and I don't have any problems. It gives me better RAID5 and RAID6 performance than my old ARC-1220 controller using the same set of hard drives (eight 1TB SATA 3Gb/sec hard drives).
I expect its performance will be even better after I replace those 1TB drives with the latest 3TB SATA 6GB/sec hard drives.

The fan on the card is not loud at all. It's more or less the type of small fan you would see on various hardware RAID controller.

I'm curious what reviews showed ARC-1880i performs badly.
Care to provide some links to those reviews?

 

[Rusting In Peace]

The fan on the card is not loud at all. It's more or less the type of small fan you would see on various hardware RAID controller. I'm curious what reviews showed ARC-1880i performs badly.

Had hoped you'd comment Saiyan as I saw you mentioned this card in another thread!

What I really meant was that the fan wasn't performant.This YouTube review mentions that the fan is loud and the card runs quite hot. He blabs on a bit so you might want to skip on towards the end.

I'm extremely interested in your opinion on how hot the card gets. If you could detail what kind of case and cooling you have that would be sweet.

Don't really understand how SATA3 drives will make the RAID run faster though? As far as I'm aware it's a bit of a marketing ploy because these drives won't saturate SATA2; they've just adhering to the newer standard?

 

[Rusting In Peace]

I have a water- cooled system, so I just swapped out the fan with a water block and was good to go.

Unfortunately this is a NAS box so there is no water cooling.

I'm reluctant to replace the fan though as I'll end up voiding the warranty which is a bit of a pain when it's a nice round 3 years!

 

[saiyan]

What I really meant was that the fan wasn't performant.This YouTube review mentions that the fan is loud and the card runs quite hot. He blabs on a bit so you might want to skip on towards the end.

I'm extremely interested in your opinion on how hot the card gets. If you could detail what kind of case and cooling you have that would be sweet.

The card has two temperature sensors; one for the processor and one for the controller itself.

The highest temperature I have seen by looking at the card's browser based admin page is 47C for the processor and 43C for the controller itself.
47C is no hotter than your most mainstream to high end graphic cards.
Also my chasis is has very good air cooling so I am not too concerned about the card's temperature.

As for fan noise, I cannot really tell if I can hear it because other fans in the chasis (power supply fan, video card fan) seem to be louder.

Don't really understand how SATA3 drives will make the RAID run faster though? As far as I'm aware it's a bit of a marketing ploy because these drives won't saturate SATA2; they've just adhering to the newer standard?

I don't mean to say SATA3 itself will make RAID perform faster but newer and larger drives tend to have higher density per platter which should translate to faster performance at the same RPM. Based on benchmarks I have seem for Hitachi 1TB drives and the latest 3TB drives I expect to see some improvement in overall performance if I replace my 1TB drives with 3TBs.

 

[Rusting In Peace]

Thanks for the info buddy just a few more questions for you:

Also my chasis is has very good air cooling so I am not too concerned about the card's temperature. As for fan noise, I cannot really tell if I can hear it because other fans in the chasis (power supply fan, video card fan) seem to be louder.

When you say very good air cooling you mean there is significant air flow right? Approx 50c doesn't seem too bad but if you have superior cooling the regular temperature is going to be a bit higher.

I know it's a total pain in the arse but I don't suppose you can list the fans you use and what power supply you have? This will let me look up decibel numbers for those products to figure out how quiet this fan is or isn't.

I'm running a fanless gold rated PSU you see and with the proximity of this card to the PSU I'm slightly concerned the two 120mm fans I've got blowing through 4 HDDs isn't going to be enough. So I'm trying to figure out if I need an exhausting fan either by PCI or just a regular 120mm.

Much appreciated dude!

 

[xer0]

Test work PC with Areca 1880i:
i2600K @ 4.4Ghz, ASUS P8P67, 8GB RAM
4-256GB C300's RAID0, 2-512GB C400 (M4's) RAID0
1-120mm rear case exhaust fan, 1 standard PSU internal fan; no other intake or exhaust fans in closed Cooler Master cheapo ATX case

Areca Temp:
44deg cpu 41deg controller,

 

[Rusting In Peace]

Test work PC with Areca 1880i:
i2600K @ 4.4Ghz, ASUS P8P67, 8GB RAM
4-256GB C300's RAID0, 2-512GB C400 (M4's) RAID0
1-120mm rear case exhaust fan, 1 standard PSU internal fan; no other intake or exhaust fans in closed Cooler Master cheapo ATX case

Areca Temp:
44deg cpu 41deg controller,

Thanks for the info!

Do you have any comments on the noise of the Areca's fan?

 

[xer0]

Can't hear the Areca fan over any of the other fans (at least with this PC) and it sits 2.5 feet from my ears.

 

[Rusting In Peace]

Thanks everyone for their answers. I went ahead and picked up this card.

 

[Rusting In Peace]

Best answer selected by Rusting In Peace.