Adapters

SATA RAID Adapters

ARC-1203 series

(PCIe 2.0 to SATA RAID Adapter)

Product Highlights

✵ Supports up to (8) 6Gb/s SATA or SSD drives

✵ Support up to 1GB DDR3-1066 cache

✵ Support read/write cache allocation by policy

✵ Support optional battery backup module (BBM)

✵ Self-encrypting drive management

✵ SGPIO enclosure management for ARC-1203-4i/8i

✵ Redundant flash image for adapter availability

✵ Support RAID 1 - Multi Mirroring and Mirrored Pass-Through Disk

✵ Broad operating support including Windows, Linux (open source),FreeBSD (open source), Soaris (open source), Mac and VMware

PCIe 2.0 to SATA RAID Adapter

ARC-1203 series internal PCIe 2.0 host RAID controllers are the cost-effective solutions for connecting 2/4/8 6Gb/s SATA peripherial devices. Areca’s ARC-1203 series entry-level RAID controllers cover the spectrum of wild range storage requirements for cost-sensitive applications that require robust data protection. The 2/4/8 port configurations are aimed at high-availability and capacity oriented applications, such as security systems, surveillance, multimedia content generation, large-volume data capturing, mail servers and entry-level database systems.

  ARC-1203 Series 6Gb/s SATA RAID Adapters
ARC-1203-2i ARC-1203-4i ARC-1203-8i
RAID-on-Chip Controller ARM_based storage I/O processor@ 1.066 GHz
Cache Memory 512 MB on-board DDR3-1066 SDRAM with ECC protection
(from Engineering Version D) 		1GB on-board DDR3-1066 SDRAM with ECC protection
(from Engineering Version E)
Host Bus Interface 1-Lane PCI Express® 2.0 4-Lane PCI Express® 2.0
Ports 2 x internal 4 x internal 8 x internal
Drive Connectors 2 Discrete SATA latch connector 1 x SFF-8087 2 x SFF-8087
Data Transfer Rate Up to 6Gb/s per port
Drive Support Up to 2 x SATA HDDs/SSD Up to 4 x SATA HDDs/SSD Up to 8 x SATA HDDs/SSD
Physical Dimensions Low Profile: 134(L) x 64(H)mm Low Profile: 168(L) x 64.4(H) mm
Power Dissipation Typical: 8W Typical: 10W Typical: 11W
Operating Temperature 0 °C to 60 °C with 200 LFM airflow
Operating Humidity 10% to 85%, non-condensing
BBM Support ARC-6120BA-T121-12G
RAID Levels RAID level 0, 1 and Single Disk RAID level 0, 1, 10(1E), 3, 5, 6, 30, 50, 60 and Single Disk
RAID Features
  • Multiple RAID selection
  • Configurable stripe size up to 1MB
  • Support HDD firmware update
  • Online array roaming
  • Online RAID level/stripe size migration
  • Online capacity expansion and RAID level migration simultaneously
  • Online volume set growth
  • SED (self-encrypting drives) function support
  • Multiple pairs SSD/HDD disk clone function
  • SSD automatic monitor clone (AMC) support
  • Instant availability and background initialization
  • Support global and dedicated hot spare
  • Automatic drive insertion/removal detection and rebuilding
  • Support for native 4K and 512 byte sector SAS and SATA devices
  • Support intelligent power management to save energy and extend service life
  • Support NTP protocol synchronize RAID controller clock over the on board Ethernet port

Operating Systems

  • Microsoft Windows
  • Red Hat Linux, Centos Linux, SUSE Linux, Fedora, Debian Linux, Ubuntu Linux
  • OpenBSD
  • XenServer
  • unRAID
  • Solaris
  • FreeBSD
  • macOS
  • VMware ESXi

    • Management Monitor

    McRAID Storage Manager

  • Web-based GUI management utility
  • Remote configuration, monitoring, and notification
  • Graphical-based management utility

    • McRAID Utility

  • Command-line interface
  • CIM provider for VMware
  • API code support

    • McBIOS Configuration Utility

  • Legacy configuration utility
  • Flashable BIOS support
  • Firmware built-in EFI Shell to launch configuration utility

    • Monitors/Notification

  • Global HDD activity/fault connector, individual activity/fault connector
  • LCD/I²C connector and alarm buzzer
  • Disk activity/fault LED on Bracket (ARC-1203-2i)
  • SNMP
  • SMTP

    • Downloads

    Documents
    File Version Date
    ARC-1203-2i Specification 1.1 2021/12/27
    ARC-1203-4i/8i Specification 1.1 2019/09/27
    ARC-1203 series Quick Installation Guide 3.0 2021/01/26
    ARC-1203-2i User Manual 1.10 2022/11/22
    ARC-1203-4i/8i User Manual 1.9 2022/11/22
    CLI Utility User Manual 5.2 download icon 2022/01/04
    ArcSAP User Manual 4.2 2020/11/03
    SNMP User Manual 1.0 2011/06/20
    Firmware
    File Version Date
    ARC-1203 series firmware 1.69 download icon 2023/12/15
    1. Add UEFI Shell virtual disk for UEFI BIOS to enter controller setup
    2. Modify boot code to auto detect 2Gb or 4Gb SDRAM chip
    3. Fix SCB sorting problem, may hang if UDMA and non-UDMA SCBs are intermixed
    Driver & Utility