DATOptic ARC-1680 Series - Manual (Page 10)

INTRODUCTION
10
1. Introduction
This section presents a brief overview of the SAS RAID controller, ARC-
1680 series. (PCIe to SAS RAID controllers)
1.1 Overview
SAS builds on parallel SCSI by providing higher performance,
improving data availability, and simplifying system design. The
SAS interface supports both SAS disk drives for data-intensive
applications and Serial ATA (SATA) drives for low-cost bulk storage
of reference data. The family includes 8-port model as well as
industry-first 8/12/16/24 internal ports with additional 4 exter-
nal ports. The ARC-1680LP/1680i/1680x support eight SAS ports
via one internal & one external/two internal/two external Min SAS
connector. The ARC-1680ix-8/12/16/24 or ARC-1680IXL-12/16
series attach directly to SATA/SAS midplanes with 2/3/4/6 SFF-
8087 internal connector or increase capacity using one additional
SFF-8088 external connector. When used with SAS expanders, the
controller can provide up to (128) devices through one or more
SAS JBODs, making it an ideal solution for enterprise-class storage
applications that called for maximum configuration flexibility.
The ARC-1680LP/1680i/1680x/1680ix-8/1680IXL-12/1680IXL-16
RAID controllers are low-profile PCI cards, ideal for 1U and 2U
rack-mount systems. These controllers utilize the same RAID ker-
nel that has been field-proven in existing external RAID controller
products, allowing Areca to quickly bring stable and reliable PCIe
RAID controllers to the market.
Unparalleled Performance
The SAS RAID controllers raise the standard to higher performance
levels with several enhancements including Intel new high-perfor-
mance I/O Processor, a DDR2-533 memory architecture and high
performance PCIe x8 Link host interface bus interconnection. The
low profile controllers by default support on-board 512MB of ECC
DDR2-533 SDRAM memory. The ARC-1680ix-8 and ARC-1680IXL-
12/16 default supports on-board 512MB of ECC DDR2-533 SDRAM
memory. The ARC-1680ix-12/16/24 controllers each include one