February 4, 201214 yr Hi everyone, Does anyone know this controller. just need a couple of extra ports. They are based on the Sil 3132 chipset. Does it support 3 TB drives? Will they work with Unraid?
February 4, 201214 yr in search of..... the missing link. You just need to sharpen your psychic skills. I immediately narrowed it down to one of the cards based on the Sil 3132 Chipset. Joe L.
February 4, 201214 yr in search of..... the missing link. You just need to sharpen your psychic skills. I immediately narrowed it down to one of the cards based on the Sil 3132 Chipset. Joe L. LOL! I got that.. but I thought there was a question of a specific card.
February 4, 201214 yr in search of..... the missing link. You just need to sharpen your psychic skills. I immediately narrowed it down to one of the cards based on the Sil 3132 Chipset. Joe L. LOL! I got that.. but I thought there was a question of a specific card. I'm sure there is... but my psychic skills are not good enough either to narrow it even to a manufacturer, never mind a specific card. You are in excellent company.
February 9, 201214 yr Author I guess it is a many branded OEM card then. Are there cheaper alternatives for an ARD-1200 or AOC-SAT2-MV8?
February 9, 201214 yr I guess it is a many branded OEM card then. Are there cheaper alternatives for an ARD-1200 or AOC-SAT2-MV8? The SIL3132's are among the cheapest for 2 ports. Supports PMP The ARC-1200 is a specialized 2 port card, it is not cheap, I would only recommend it if you had to have the highest parity speed possible along with a RAID1 protected cache drive. For me it was worth it. The AOC-SAT2-MV8 is not a bad price for an 8 port card,but it's also PCI-X(pci) not PCIe Figure around $12 a port The AOC-SASLP-MV8 card is PCIe and still not a bad price for an 8 port card. Figure $14 a port or so... The Rosewill RC-218 is a 4 port PCIe card for around $70. about $17 a port. (supports PMP) The Rosewill RC-216 is a 2 port SATA/1 Port PATA PCIe card for around $20. It supports PMP, but I also read you cannot have more then one in a machine (I dunno for sure). The Rosewill RC-209-EX PCI 2.3, 32bit, 33/66Mhz SATA Controller Card is around $22 for 4 ports, but it is PCI not PCIe.
February 9, 201214 yr Author Thanks Weebo for the fast and thorough reply, I see in your sig you have a ARC-1200 for both parity and cache? I guess for a raid1 protected cache drive, I would need 2 disks? This can be per port configured on the ARC-1200? Or how is this configured/set-up? Here in the Netherlands those cards are high priced if at all available. The rosewill cards are the biggest problem. That is why I asked about alternatives.
February 9, 201214 yr on the ARC-1200, I have 2 1.5GB Seagate 7200RPM drives in a RAIDSET. The RAIDSET is divided into two volumes. Volume 1 is a RAID0 array using 66% of the two drives to make a 2.2TB virtual drive. I use this for parity. Volume 2 is a RAID1 array using 33% of the two drives to make a 350GB virtual drive. I use this for cache. unRAID sees two drives. Volume 1 (assigned to parity), Volume 2 (assigned to cache). I got the ARC-1200 on eBay for a little under $100. It was worth the investment to me as it improves the responsiveness of the system and provides a boost in parity operations.
February 9, 201214 yr Author Thanks for clearing things up Weebo. Are there other cards that can do the same as the ARC-1200?
February 9, 201214 yr I had a 3ware 9550sx4-lp, it did raid1 or raid0 but not both. The only "other" way to do the hybrid RAID1/RAID0 is with a steelvine processor either by controller or external eSATA unit. Example. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111038 I've used something like this once. You need a port capable of a port multiplier support. I.E. Marvel or SIL3132. It worked. It wasn't as fast as the ARC-1200, but it did work and you gain internal slots. Other product examples that use port multiplier technology. http://www.addonics.com/category/port_multiplier.php and another product which may have been retired. http://net.addonics.com/products/host_controller/ad2sahpmeu.asp
February 10, 201214 yr Author Thanks again Weebo, Currently I have a mainboard with 6 SATA300 ports controlled by the Intel ICH9R chip and 2 SATA300 ports controlled by the Jmicron JMB363 chip. These would suffice for my data disks I think. I also have a Sans Digital 5 bay eSATA tower. So I might want to add an eSATA port. An ARC-1200 might be the only card I want to by in the future if I want protected RAID1 cache and RAID0 parity. Can you mix RAID0 and RAID1 on that RAIDset you mentioned? Would a SASLP-MV8 card bring any speed improvements compared to the onboard ports?
February 10, 201214 yr Would a SASLP-MV8 card bring any speed improvements compared to the onboard ports? No, and most likely it will be slower than the onboard ports
February 10, 201214 yr An ARC-1200 might be the only card I want to by in the future if I want protected RAID1 cache and RAID0 parity. Can you mix RAID0 and RAID1 on that RAIDset you mentioned? Yes it can do both raid0/raid1 on the same pair of drives. if you are going to use an external sata port with a PMP, the SIL3132 is a good choice for that. From my experience they work well together. The JMB363 supports PMP if yuo convert an internal port to an external via adapter. However the Sil3132 is a little faster.
February 10, 201214 yr Author @ Weebo and Prostuff1, You both strengthened my opinion that the only true upgrade to my server is an ARC-1200. Unfortunately I don't see any on ebay right now and new they are simply too expensive here in Holland (150 Euros=200US$ incl. p&p) and not in stock. I hope it will show up on ebay soon. Thanks again for all help aand info.
February 10, 201214 yr @ Weebo and Prostuff1, You both strengthened my opinion that the only true upgrade to my server is an ARC-1200. Unfortunately I don't see any on ebay right now and new they are simply too expensive here in Holland (150 Euros=200US$ incl. p&p) and not in stock. I hope it will show up on ebay soon. Thanks again for all help aand info. Patience. It took me a while and I got one for under $100. FYI, Areca has another model called the 1201.. It has 8 ports (on a PCIe x1) connector I may monitor that one myself. Of course you would not get full bandwidth, but it's an option if you are looking to maximize sata ports on motherboard slots. not sure how many slots you have available.
February 10, 201214 yr Interesting tidbits... Looks like the ARC-1200/1202 support port multipliers. w00t!
February 10, 201214 yr Author Patience, something i am not very good at. I already have 8 SATA ports available, and don't need much more. How is that E6600 holding? Plenty of processing power?
February 10, 201214 yr Patience, something i am not very good at. I already have 8 SATA ports available, and don't need much more. How is that E6600 holding? Plenty of processing power? E6600 way more then I need for basic unRAID. Sometimes I do md5sums on a large amount of files. Or unRAR. unZIP. tar gunzip files. so having it there is helpful.
February 13, 201214 yr Author Will the ARC-1200 need a firmware update to work in an Unraid server? Or any special setup? Can I put 2 2TB disks on it and create a 3 TB RAID0 array for parity and the rest for cache? How much will be left for cache? 500 GB?
February 13, 201214 yr Will the ARC-1200 need a firmware update to work in an Unraid server? Or any special setup? Can I put 2 2TB disks on it and create a 3 TB RAID0 array for parity and the rest for cache? How much will be left for cache? 500 GB? I think one of the other members has more experience with this subject. I'm still using 1.5TB drives with it. I believe if you get a used one, you will need to update the firmware for > 2TB support.
February 13, 201214 yr Author Will the ARC-1200 need a firmware update to work in an Unraid server? Or any special setup? Can I put 2 2TB disks on it and create a 3 TB RAID0 array for parity and the rest for cache? How much will be left for cache? 500 GB? I think one of the other members has more experience with this subject. I'm still using 1.5TB drives with it. I believe if you get a used one, you will need to update the firmware for > 2TB support. This updating and configuring (RAID set Volumes and so on) must this be done in another OS? Or can it be done in Unraid?
February 13, 201214 yr Will the ARC-1200 need a firmware update to work in an Unraid server? Or any special setup? Can I put 2 2TB disks on it and create a 3 TB RAID0 array for parity and the rest for cache? How much will be left for cache? 500 GB? I think one of the other members has more experience with this subject. I'm still using 1.5TB drives with it. I believe if you get a used one, you will need to update the firmware for > 2TB support. This updating and configuring (RAID set Volumes and so on) must this be done in another OS? Or can it be done in Unraid? It is handled in the bios. When you boot, there is a keystroke to bring up the controller bios. you configure raidsets and other options there. Then exit and reboot.
February 13, 201214 yr Author Ah yes, off course. In the same way as setting up the on-board Raid-controller. But can firmware be updated like that too?
February 15, 201214 yr Author On my hunt for a ARC-1200 I found different Revisions. It's printed on the front of the PCB. So far I found: ARC1200 Rev. A, Rev. B and Rev 1.0. Is there any difference? If so, which one to get? On the back of a Rev 1.0 PCB I saw a sticker listing Bios 1.21A, FW 1.45 (A128). What is the most current Rev. board?
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