CONCLUSION

Areca has long been one of the most sought after producers of RAID solutions, for enterprise and enthusiast users alike. With many features that simply aren’t offered with other companies, such as large amounts of cache, Areca definitely has carved itself out a spot in the high performance market.

A key to remaining competitive for Areca, as with any other company, is the constant evolution of their product line. With the 1882 series, Areca is building upon its proven performance of the 1880 series. The 1880 is widely used, and certainly a high performance controller.

To enhance upon that performance is key with the move to a dual core ROC. The 1882 series is using the new LSI2208 ROC, which is a generational leap over the previous LSI2108 controller that they put to use in the 1880 series.  The dual core ROC will allow the Areca engineers to enhance and speed up the controller by large amounts.  One must bear in mind that this is ‘virgin’ silicon at this time, and as time progresses, the controller will mature.

One of the greatest aspects of Areca is the fact that their firmware updates are released frequently. With each firmware release the controllers continue to get better and better. I have personally used the 1880IX-12 in my main system for some time, even water cooling it, just for the “cool” factor. I purchased the 1880IX on the very day it was publicly available, and the truly great thing is that performance of this controller has actually progressed and become much better over time.

As it stands, the 1882 is a solid upgrade path for those in search of a 6GB/s controller. Its out of band management capabilities are superb, and the GUI is functional and easy to use.

A large amount of parameters can be adjusted to deliver the performance that the customer desires, allowing full total customization of performance that many RAID manufacturers simply do not offer.

A real key to all of this also revolves directly around the service that a customer receives after the sale. Over the years I can personally attest that Arecas support is friendly and forthcoming. They are extremely helpful with any situation.

Here at The SSD Review we have even used the previous generation 1880IX-12 to set a PCMark Vantage World Record in the past, so we are definitely big fans of the performance that Areca delivers. I can honestly say that they are among the top of the RAID controller manufacturers today.

Having experienced their reliability and high-end performance for many years, with several of their RAID controllers in my own personal use with SSD arrays, I have no problem recommending this controller to users!

EDITORS COMMENTS!

Once again Paul AMAZING work and the bar has been pushed just a bit further!

QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS!  TAKE IT TO THE THREADS!!!