Thunderbolt ARC-8050T3U 3 RAID Storage User Manual

: June 12, 2024
: Thunderbolt

Table of Contents

Thunderbolt ARC-8050T3U 3 RAID Storage
Product Information
Product Usage Instructions
Copyright and Trademarks
INTRODUCTION
INSTALLATION
References
Read User Manual Online (PDF format)
Download This Manual (PDF format)

Thunderbolt ARC-8050T3U 3 RAID Storage

Product Information

Product Name| ThunderboltTM Product ARC-8050T3U (4/6/8/12-bays ThunderboltTM
3 RAID Storage)
---|---
Model Name| ARC-8050T3U-6 (6-bay), ARC-8050T3U-8 (8-bay), ARC-8050T3U-12
(12-bay)
Form Factor| Desktop
Disk Interface| 12Gb/s 2.5/3.5 SAS/SATA
I/O Processor| Dual Core 1.2 GHz SAS ROC

Product Usage Instructions

Overview
The ThunderboltTM Product ARC-8050T3U is a ThunderboltTM 3 RAID storage solution available in 4, 6, 8, or 12-bay configurations. It offers unparalleled performance for 4K workflows and supports both Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.2 Gen2 protocols.

Features
The ARC-8050T3U has the following features:

USB-C Computer Port Compatibility Mode: Supports basic compatibility when connected to a USB-C or USB X.X computer port.
Bootable Drive Support: Allows the addition of a bootable drive via Thunderbolt on Apple thunderbolt-capable machines.
Controller-level Hardware Encryption: Provides board-level hardware encryption for drives attached to ARC-8050T3U (except for the 4-bay model) without impacting performance.
Intelligent Power On/Off Function: Turns ARC-8050T3U power in unison with the host computer power status for data integrity.
Front Panel LCD and Buttons: Easy access for configuration and status report.
Network Interface: Embedded web server for remote control from one 10/100/1000 Ethernet (RJ-45).

System Controls
The ARC-8050T3U comes with system controls including:

Power Button: Press to turn the unit on/off.
LCD Screen: Displays configuration and status information.

Drive Management
The ARC-8050T3U allows for various drive management functions:

Identify Drive: Use the Identify Drive feature to locate a specific drive in the unit.

Self-Encrypting Disk (SED) Encryption
The ARC-8050T3U supports Self-Encrypting Disk (SED) encryption for added security. Please refer to Appendix E in the user manual for more information.

Full Volume Encryption
The ARC-8050T3U also supports Full Volume Encryption. Please refer to Appendix F in the user manual for more information.

ThunderboltTM Product
ARC-8050T3U
(4/6/8/12-bays ThunderboltTM 3 RAID Storage)
User Manual
Version: 2.5 Issue Date: June, 2022

Copyright and Trademarks

The information regarding products in this manual is subject to change without prior notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of the vendor, who assumes no liability or responsibility for any errors that may appear in this manual. All brands and trademarks are the properties of their respective owners. This manual contains materials protected under International Copyright Conventions. All rights reserved. No part of this manual may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without the written permission of the manufacturer and the author.

FCC Statement
This equipment has been tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class B digital device, pursuant to part 15 of the FCC Rules. These limits are designed to provide reasonable protection against interference in a residential installation. This equipment generates, uses, and can radiate radio frequency energy and, if not installed and used in accordance with the instructions, may cause harmful interference to radio communications. However, there is no guarantee that interference will not occur in a particular installation.
Manufacturer’s Declaration for CE Certification
We confirm ARC-8050T3U series has been tested and found comply with the requirements set up in the council directive on the approximation of the low of member state relating to the EMC Directive2004/108/EC. For the evaluation regarding to the electromagnetic compatibility, the following standards where applied:

EN 55022: 2006, Class B EN 61000-3-2: 2006 EN 61000-3-3: 1995+A1: 2001+A2: 2005

EN 55024:1998+A1:2001=A2:2003 IEC61000-4-2: 2001 IEC61000-4-3: 2006 IEC61000-4-4: 2004 IEC61000-4-5: 2005 IEC61000-4-6: 2006 IEC61000-4-8: 2001 IEC61000-4-11: 2004

INTRODUCTION

This section presents a brief overview of the Thunderbolt 3 desktop SAS/SATA RAID storages, ARC-8050T3U series.

Overview
Unleash Your Creativity Faster Than Ever
ThunderboltTM 3 brings Thunderbolt to USB-C at speeds up to 40 Gbps, creating one compact port that does it all delivering the fastest, most versatile connection to any dock, display, or data device. ARC-8050T3U is equipped with dual Thunderbolt 3 ports for connecting to any Thunderbolt 3-enabled host and offers an additional Thunderbolt 3 port for daisy-chaining other peripherals, while also supplying power for quick notebook charging. The Thunderbolt daisy- chaining allows connection of up to six devices, so customers can connect ARC- 8050T3U for massive amounts of video storage with a single Thunderbolt connection to their host computer. If an ARC-8050T3U is plugged in a USB-C (or) USB X.X computer port, a USB device controller inside the ARC-8050T3U- enabled system is activated, and the inside USB device controller drives USB (2.0, 3.2 Gen 1, or 3.2 Gen 2) signals to the USB-C port. In this condition, the ARC-8050T3U Thunderbolt 3 port behaves exactly like a typical USB-C 3.2-enabled connector. The ARC-8050T3U also sports a full sized DisplayPort 1.4 video output on its rear, allowing for a quick and easy 8K 30Hz display setup.
Unparalleled Performance for 4K Workflow
ARC-8050T3U is the most complete 4/6/8/12-bay Thunderbolt 3 desktop SAS/SATA RAID storage with RAID control capabilities solution for both PC and Mac. ARC- 8050T3U incorporated on-board RAID-On-Chip and ECC SDRAM memory to deliver true high performance hardware RAID protection against drive failure.This combination helps to provide a high performance storage device perfect for the video editor working with Real time multi-stream HD and 4K workflows. It is so quick it allows for 4K displays at the same time as daisy chaining ARC-8050T3U and doing a simultaneous 4K output and file transfers while maintaining maximum throughput.
8

INTRODUCTION
Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.2 Gen2 Ready
ARC-8050T3U Thunderbolt 3 port supports both Thunderbolt 3 & USB 3.2 Gen 2 protocol.
9

INTRODUCTION

Features
Controller Architecture · 800 MHz one core (for ARC-8050T3U-4) / 1.2 GHz dual core (for
ARC-8050T3U-6/8/12) ROC for RAID core and SAS microcode · 1GB DDR3-800 (for ARC-8050T3U-4) / 2GB on-board DDR3-1866
(for ARC-8050T3U-6/8/12) SDRAM with ECC protection · Redundant flash image for adapter availability · System status indication through LCD, LED and alarm buzzer
RAID Features · RAID level 0, 1, 1E, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60, Single Disk or JBOD · Multiple RAID selection · Support up to 1MB stripe size · Online array roaming · Online RAID level/stripe size migration · Support global hot spare and local hot spare · Instant availability and background initialization · Advanced configuration for smooth data streaming · Disk scrubbing/ array verify scheduling support · Multiple pairs SSD/HDD disk clone function · SSD automatic monitor clone (AMC) support · SED (Self-encrypting drives) function support · Support HDD firmware update · Support for native 4K and 512 byte sector SAS and SATA device s · Redundant flash image for adapter availability · System status indication through LCD, LED and alarm buzzer · Complete configuration management suite
– McRAID manager browser-based management tool (LAN or Thunderbolt)
– ArcSAP manager multi-language management software – Push Buttons and LCD Display panel for setup and status – Command Line Interface (CLI)- scriptable configuration tool – API libraries support – combine GUI with user management
utility – SNMP support for remote monitoring – SMTP support for email notification System Environment · Operating Temperature : 0 ~ 35°C · Operating Humidity : 5% ~ 95 %, Non-condensing
10

INTRODUCTION

Function Advantages

Features
USB-C Computer Port Compatibility Mode

Benefits Supports basic compatibility when ARC-8050T3U is connected to a USB-C (or) USB X.X computer port.

Bootable Drive Support Advanced Configuration

Provides user the capability of adding bootable drive via Thunderbolt on Apple thunderbolt-capable machine.
Provide optimized parameter to adjust controlled firmware behavior for smooth data streaming.

Controller-level Hardware Encryption
Intelligent power On/Off function Front Panel LCD and Buttons

Board-level hardware encryption manages any kinds of drives attached to ARC- 8050T3U without impacting the performance for higher levels of security. (not available for 4-Bay)
Turns ARC-8050T3U power in unison with the host computer power status for data integrity.
Easy access for configuration and status report.

Network Interface

Embedded web server for remote control from one 10/100/1000 Ethernet (RJ-45).

Product Features

Thunderbolt 3 desktop SAS/SATA RAID storages

Model Name

ARC-8050T3U-6

ARC-8050T3U-8

ARC-8050T3U-12

Form Factor

Desktop 6-Bay

Desktop 8-Bay

Desktop 12-Bay

Disk Interface I/O Processor

x 6

x 8

x 12

12Gb/s 2.5″/3.5″ SAS/SATA

Dual Core 1.2 GHz SAS ROC

On-Board Cache

2GB DDR3-1866

Expansion Support SFF-8644 (2-lanes)

N/A

SFF-8644 (4-lanes)

Cooling Fan

1 x 2700rpm

2 x 2700rpm

Power

180W

300W

400W

Dimension (W/H/D)

4.8 x 8.45 x 9.11 in 5.7 x 11.8 x 11.4 in 8.1 x 12.2 x 11.4 in

(146 x 255 x 290 (146 x 302 x 290 (206 x 310 x 290

mm)

Weight

13.2 lbs/6.0Kg

14.9 lbs/6.8Kg

20.8 lbs/9.5Kg

DC_IN

N/A

RAID Level

0, 1, 10, 3, 5, 6, 30, 50, 60, Single Disk, JBOD

Connection
Computer Port Type

Thunderbolt 3 x2/Display Port x1 ThunderboltTM 3, USB-C, USB X.X

INTRODUCTION

Thunderbolt 3 desktop SAS/SATA RAID storages

Model Name

ARC-8050T3U-4

ARC-8050T3U-6M

Form Factor

Desktop 4-Bay

Desktop 6-Bay

Disk Interface I/O Processor

4 x 6Gb/s 2.5″/3.5″ SAS/SATA 6 x 12Gb/s 2.5″ SAS/SATA One Core 800 MHz SAS ROC Dual Core 1.2 GHz SAS ROC

On-Board Cache

1GB DDR3-800

2GB DDR3-1866

Expansion Support

N/A

SFF-8644 (2-lanes)

Cooling Fan

1 x 2700rpm

Power

150W

Dimension (W/H/D)

4.84 x 6.51 x 9.11 in (123 x 165.6 x 232mm)

Weight

8.0 lbs/3.6 Kg

DC_IN

N/A

4-pin XLR

RAID Level

0, 1, 10, 3, 5, 6, Single Disk, 0, 1, 10, 3, 5, 6, 30, 50, 60,

JBOD

Single Disk, JBOD

Connection Computer Port Type

Thunderbolt 3 x2/Display Port x1 ThunderboltTM 3, USB-C, USB X.X

2. Installation

INSTALLATION

This section describes how to install the ARC-8050T3U Thunderbolt 3 RAID storage with host computer and disks.

2.1 Before You First Installing
Thanks for purchasing the ARC-8050T3U as your RAID data storage. The following manual gives simple step-by-step instructions for installing and configuring the ARC-8050T3U RAID storage.

Checklist · 1 x ARC-8050T3U-4/6(M)/8/12 bays RAID storage unit · 1 x 40Gbps Thunderbolt 3 Type-C cable · 1 x RJ-45 LAN cable · 1 x Power cord · 16/24/32/48 x Drive mounting screws (4 per drive tray) · 1 x Quick installation guide

System Requirements · Computer with Thunderbolt 3 port (macOS 10.12 or higher,
Windows 8/10 or higher) · Computer with USB-C/USB X.X port only
You can connect your ARC-8050T3U device Thunderbolt 3 port to a host computer that supports one of the following interfaces.

– Thunderbolt 3 ( ): Transfer rates up to 40Gb/s

– SuperSpeed USB 3.2 Gen 2 ( – SuperSpeed USB 3.2 Gen 1 (

):Transfer rates up to 10Gb/s ):Transfer rates up to 5Gb/s

– Hi-Speed USB 2.0 (

): Transfer rates up to 480 Mb/s

INSTALLATION
2.2 Summary of RAID Storage Setup Steps
· For macOS
Step 1. Physically Install the Hardware (Chapter 2.4.1) 1. Install HDDs. 2. Connect power cord. 3. Connect Thunderbolt cable.
Step 2. Install the Thunderbolt Software Package (Chapter 2.4.2.1) 1. Download the install_thunderbolt installer from the website
at “https://www.areca.com.tw/support/downloads.html”. 2. Navigate to your Downloads folder and double-click the in-
stall_thunderbolt software. 3. Follow the installer on-screen steps to complete the installa-
tion. Step 3. Configure RAID Volumes (Chapter 2.4.2.2) 1. Double-click on the “MRAID” icon on the desktop. 2. Double-click on the “ArcHTTP64”. 3. Locate “ARC-8050T3U Web Management” and launch the
McRAID storage manager. 4. Login User Name “admin” and the Password “0000”. 5. Click on the “Quick Create” to configure the volume. 6. Follow the on-screen steps to complete the configuration.
Step 4. Format RAID Volumes (Chapter 2.4.2.3) 1. macOS recognizes that a new disk is available. 2. Follow the Disk Utility on-screen steps to initialize and parti-
tion your unit. 3. Icons for each new partition show up on your desktop. 4. They are now ready to use.
14

INSTALLATION
· For Windows
Step 1. Physically Install the Hardware (Chapter 2.4.1) 1. Install HDDs. 2. Connect power cord. 3. Connect Thunderbolt cable.
Step 2. Install the Thunderbolt Software Package (Chapter 2.4.3.1) 1. Download the install_thunderbolt installer from the website
at “https://www.areca.com.tw/support/downloads.html”. 2. Double-click on the install_thunderbolt zipped file. 3. Double-click on the “setup.exe” unzip file. 4. Follow the installer on-screen steps to complete the installa-
tion.
Step 3. Configure RAID Volumes (Chapter 2.4.3.2) 1. Right-click on the “Start” icon on the desktop. 2. Click on the “MRAID”. 3. Click on the “ArcHTTPSrvGUI” to install the “ArcHTTP Task
Bar”. 4. Double-click the “ArcHTTP Task Bar” on the Windows taskbar
to launch the ArcHTTP Configuration. 5. Locate “ARC-8050T3U Web Management” and launch the
McRAID storage manager. 6. Login User Name “admin” and the Password “0000”. 7. Click on the “Quick Create” to configure the volume. 8. Follow the on-screen steps to complete the configuration.
Step 4. Format RAID Volumes (Chapter 2.4.3.3) 1. Click “Start” => right-click “Computer” and select “Manage”. 2. Click “Disk Management” in the left pane. 3. Scroll down to the bottom of the middle pane. Windows will display a list of new drives attached to your system with a label such as “Disk 1” or “Disk 2”, etc. 4. Right-click on the drive you want to partition and then again to format it. 5. Once it’s formatted, Windows automatically assigns the next available drive letter to it and then it will appear in Windows Explorer. 6. They are now ready to use.
15

INSTALLATION
2.3 RAID Storage View
The following diagram is the ARC-8050T3U 4-bay RAID storage front view and rear view.

Front View
1. Disk Activity LED 2. Disk Fault / Link LED 3. Power and Global Fault LED

Rear View
4. Thunderbolt & USB 3.2 Port1 5. Thunderbolt & USB 3.2 Port2 6. Display Port 7. Reset Button 8. LAN Port 9. Power Connector 10. System Fan 11. LCD Panel with Keypad

INSTALLATION
The following diagram is the ARC-8050T3U 6-bay RAID storage front view and rear view.

Front View
1. Disk Activity LED 2. Disk Fault / Link LED 3. LCD Panel with Keypad

Rear View
4. Thunderbolt & USB 3.2 Port1 5. Thunderbolt & USB 3.2 Port2 6. Display Port 7. LAN Port 8. SAS Expansion Port 9. Reset Button 10. System Fan 11. Power Connector

INSTALLATION
The following diagram is the ARC-8050T3U-6M RAID storage front view and rear view.

Front View
1. Disk Activity LED 2. Disk Fault / Link LED 3. LCD Panel with Keypad

Rear View
4. Thunderbolt & USB 3.2 Port1 5. Thunderbolt & USB 3.2 Port2 6. Display Port 7. LAN Port 8. SAS Expansion Port 9. Reset Button 10. System Fan 11. 4-Pin Male XLR (DC_IN) 12. Power Connector (AC_IN)

INSTALLATION
The following diagram is the ARC-8050T3U 8-bay RAID storage front view and rear view.

Front View
1. Disk Activity LED 2. Disk Fault/Link LED 3. LCD Panel with Keypad

Rear View
4. Thunderbolt & USB 3.2 Port1 5. Thunderbolt & USB 3.2 Port2 6. Display Port 7. LAN Port 8. Reset Button 9. System Fan1 10. System Fan2 11. Power Connector

INSTALLATION
The following diagram is the ARC-8050T3U 12-bay RAID storage front view and rear view.

Front View
1. Disk Activity LED 2. Disk Fault/Link LED 3. LCD Panel with Keypad

Rear View
4. Thunderbolt & USB 3.2 Port1 5. Thunderbolt & USB 3.2 Port2 6. Display Port 7. LAN Port 8. SAS Expansion Port 9. Reset Button 10. System Fan1 11. System Fan2 12. Power Supply Fan 13. Power Connector

INSTALLATION
· Disk Slot Numbers
To perform a disk hot-plug procedure, you must know the physical disk slot number for the drive that you want to install or remove. The number on the drive tray shows how RAID subsystem disk slots are numbered. Disk slot number is reflected in the RAID manager interface. The sequence of disk slots goes from the top of the enclosure to the bottom, from left to the right. (as shown in storage front view figures)
· Drive Tray LED Indicators

Figure 2-1, Activity/Fault LED (ARC-8050T3U-4/6/8/12)

Figure 2-2, Activity/Fault LED (ARC-8050T3U-6M)

The following table describes the RAID storage disk drive tray LED behavior.

Tray LED 1. Activity LED
(Blue)
2. Fault/Link LED (Red/Green)

Normal Status
1. When the activity LED is lit, there is I/O activity on that disk drive.
2. When the LED is not lit; there is no activity on that disk drive.
1. When the fault LED is lit, there is no disk present.
2. When the link LED is lit, there is a disk present.

Problem Indication N/A
1. When the fault LED is off, the disk is present and status is normal.
2. When the fault LED is blinking (2 times/sec.), the disk drive has failed and should be hotswapped immediately.
3. When the activity LED is lit and fault LED is fast blinking (10 times/sec.) there is rebuilding activity on that disk drive.

INSTALLATION
· LCD Panel LED Indicators There are a variety of status conditions that cause the RAID storage panel monitoring LED to light. The front panel LCD comes with three (3) status-indicating LEDs. The LEDs on the front panel are defined, from top to bottom, Power, Busy, and Caution, as shown in Figure 2-3.

Figure 2-3, LCD Panel LED

The following table provides a summary of the front panel LED.

Panel LED

Normal Status

1. Power LED Solid green, when power on. (Green)

2. Busy LED (Amber)
3. Caution LED (Red)

Blinking amber during host accesses RAID storage.
Unlit indicates that the RAID storage and all its components are operating correctly.

Problem Indication Unlit, when power on.
Unlit or never flicker.
Solid indicates that one or more component failure/Urgent events have occurred.

· Rear View Function Description Thunderbolt 3 Ports: Use the included Thunderbolt 3 cable to connect to a Thunderbolt 3 port on your computer or other Thunderbolt 3 devices. Use the included USB Type-C cable on your USB- only computer.
Display Port: DisplayPort 1.4 is a digital display interface used to connect all displays with DisplayPort and Mini DisplayPort. DisplayPort is backwards compatible with HDMI, DVI, and VGA interfaces via an adapter (not included).

INSTALLATION
LAN Port: User can remote manage the RAID enclosure without adding any user specific software (platform independent) via standard web browsers directly connected to the 10/100Mbit RJ45 LAN port. SAS Expansion Port: The ARC- 8050T3U-6/6M/12 contains one expansion port that can connect up to 7 expander enclosures. The maximum drive no. is 256 through this RAID storage with 7 expander enclosures.
Rest Button: Intelligent power On/Off function on storage turns power in unison with the host computer power status. You can press and hold the “Reset Button” for 3 seconds to force the RAID storage power on or off in case you don’t connect the host. Power Connector: Use this connector to connect the included power cord. XLR Connector: 4-pin XLR on the ARC-8050T3U-6M to accept alternative power from a 4pin XLR power source
2.4 Setting Up RAID Storage
Setting up your ARC-8050T3U RAID storage involves these main steps: · Physically Install the RAID Storage and Drives · Install the MRAID Software · Configure RAID Volumes · Format RAID Volumes · Unmounting RAID Volumes Details about these steps are described in the following sections.
2.4.1 Physically Install RAID Storage and Drives
Please follow the steps below in order they are given to ensure that your ARC- 8050T3U connected on your Thunderbolt computer.
23

INSTALLATION
Step 1. Install the Drives in the ARC-8050T3U Storage
Your RAID storage supports up to 4/6/8/12 x 3.5-inch disk drives or 4/6/8/12 x 2.5-inch SAS or SATA 6.0Gb/s drives, each one contained in its individual hole on the disk carrier. Each drive is hot-pluggable, allowing you to remove and insert drives without shutting down your RAID storage. Installation in this section describes how to install or remove 3.5 inch drives in your RAID storage.
1. Gently slide the drive tray out from the ARC-8050T3U RAID storage.
2. Install the drive into the drive tray and secure the drive to the drive tray by four of the mounting screws.

Figure 2-4-1. Installing 2.5-inch Figure 2-4-2. Installing 3.5-inch

SAS/SATA Drive

3. After all drives are in the drive tray, slide all of them back into the ARC-8050T3U RAID storage and make sure you latch the drive trays.

Figure 2-5, Sliding Drive Tray into Enclosure 24

INSTALLATION
Step 2. Connecting Thunderbolt 3 Ports on RAID Storage Thunderbolt connectors are provided on the back of the ARC8050T3U RAID storage for connecting the array to Thunderbolt host or USB host. · Thunderbolt Computer Port Connection
There are two Thunderbolt connectors on the rear of ARC8050T3U RAID storage for connecting the array to Thunderbolt host and next Thunderbolt devices. Connect ARC-8050T3U RAID storage and Thunderbolt capable computer Thunderbolt port with the Thunderbolt 3 icon using the included Thunderbolt 3 cable as shown below:
Figure 2-6, Connecting to Thunderbolt computer
25

INSTALLATION
Note:
Thunderbolt Daisy Chain Topologies A single Thunderbolt technology daisy chain can have seven devices, including the computer. Connect the cable to one of the interface ports on the back of your ARC8050T3U RAID storage and to your Thunderbolt capable computer. The additional port may be used to daisy chain compatible computer peripherals, such as hard drives, monitors, and much more.
Figure 2-7, Thunderbolt Computer Daisy Chain
26

INSTALLATION
· USB-only Computer Port Connection Your USB-only computer can recognize up to 1 volume when connecting any Thunderbolt 3 port on the ARC-8050T3U. Connect the cable to one of the Thunderbolt 3 ports on the back of your ARC-8050T3U RAID storage and to your USB-only capable computer. The additional port can’t support the daisy chain function. – Computer with a USB-C port Connect ARC- 8050T3U RAID storage and USB-only computer USB-C port with the USB 3.2 Gen 1 or USB 3.2 Gen 2 icon using the included USB-C cable as shown below:
Figure 2-8, Connecting to computer USB-C port with the USB 3.2 Gen 1 or USB 3.2 Gen 2 icon 27

INSTALLATION
– Computer with a USB 3.2 Gen 1 or USB 2.0 port (Type A) Use the USB 3.2 (USB-C)toUSB Type A cable for compatibility with USB-only computers that do not have a USB-C port. Connect ARC-8050T3U RAID storage and USBonly computer USB X.X port with the USB 3.2 Gen 1 (USB 3.0) or USB 2.0 icon using the optional USB 3.2 (USB-C) to USB Type A cable as shown below:
Figure 2-9, Connecting to computer with a USB 3.2 Gen 1 or USB 2.0 port (Type A)
28

INSTALLATION
Step 3. Expansion Connection (Optional)
The ARC-8050T3U-6/12 12Gb/s SAS RAID storages contain one expansion port that can connect up to 7 expander enclosures. The maximum drive no. is 256 through this RAID storage with 7 expander enclosures. Enclosures installed with SAS disks or SATA disks can be included in the same daisy-chain. The following figure shows how to connect the external SFF-8644 cable from the 12Gb/s SAS RAID storage to the external JBOD. Daisy-chains longer than the limitation of storages are not supported even if it may be workable.

Figure 2-10, Module Daisy-chain

The following table is the maximum number of ARC-8050T3U-6/12 RAID storage supported:

Max No.

Disks/Enclosure Expander Disks/Controller

128

256

Volume 128

Note:
Turn on the JBOD first to make sure the ARC-8050T3U-6/12 RAID storage recognizes the drives in the JBOD.

INSTALLATION
Step 4. Connecting Monitor Port (Optional) You can connect LAN port to the manager clinet system, if you want to configure and manage the RAID storage from the clinet system through out-of-band manager. · LAN Port Connection
User can remote manage the RAID enclosure without adding any user specific software (platform independent) via standard web browsers directly connected to the 10/100Mbit RJ45 LAN port. Connect LAN port of the ARC-8050T3U using the included Ethernet cable and then to a LAN port or LAN switch. Step 5. Connecting RAID Storage Power · To power the RAID storage: 1. Using the included power cord, connect this power cord to a
grounded electronical outlet and to the ARC-8050T3U RAID storage. 2. ARC- 8050T3U RAID storage will automatically turn on when host computer power on status is received from the thunderbolt cable. It takes about 30 seconds to fully start up the RAID storage.
Figure 2-11, Connecting the Power to Enclosure 30

INSTALLATION
3. ARC-8050T3U RAID storage automatically turns off when the computer to which it is attached sleeps or is disconnected.
· To power the ARC-8050T3U-6M using 4-Pin XLR D.C. Power Connections:
There is an industry standard 4-pin XLR on the ARC-8050T3U6M to accept alternative power from a 4pin XLR power source (use battery power or supplied AC Adapter). There is no universal standard for this, however the most common convention for DC power on ARC-8050T3U-6M XLR 4-pin connectors is:

pin 1

GND (0V)

pin 2

pin 3

pin 4 EXT DC (+11.5~15.5V)

The connector on ARC-8050T3U-6M is male. Check and double check that the wiring is correct to your equipment before connecting DC power source to ARC- 8050T3U-6M.

Note:
You can press and hold the “Reset” button for 3 seconds to force the RAID storage power on or off.
When you are finished installing the ARC-8050T3U RAID storage, you can set up the RAID volume using McRAID storage manager or LCD to set up RAID volumes.

INSTALLATION
2.4.2 Mac Users 2.4.2.1 Install Areca driver for Mac
On November 10, 2020, Apple revealed new Mac hardware with the revolutionary Apple Silicon M1 processors. Since external boot via 3rd party drivers is not allowed on Apple Silicon based Macs, the default Areca driver doesn’t work on new M1 Mac, only for Intel-based Macs. The macOS 11 had not been integrated any universal KEXTs into macOS, which means that users need to install universal KEXT to support Areca Thunderbolt devices on Apple Silicon. Areca universal KEXT’s on Apple Silicon can be installed in /Library/ Extensions/, even if Areca RAID storage x86-only versions persists on the system in /System/Library/Extensions/. In order to use 3rd party kernel extensions on Apple Silicon Macs, users must enable system extensions by changing their Mac’s Security Policy to Reduced Security and allow user management of kernel extensions from identified developers.

If your mac version is below 11.0, you can skip this step Step 1. Start up your computer in macOS Recovery (1-1). Choose “Shut Down”. (1-2). Press and hold the power button on your Mac until you
see “Loading startup options”.
32

INSTALLATION
(1-3). Click “Options”, then click “Continue”. If requested, enter the password for an administrator account.
(1-4). In the Recovery app, choose Utilities > Startup Security Utility.
33

INSTALLATION
(1-5). Select the system you want to use to set the security policy and click “Security Policy”. If the disk is encrypted with FileVault, click Unlock, enter the password and then click Unlock.
(1-6). Choose “Reduced Security” and enable “Allow user management of kernel extensions from identified developers”.
(1-7). Click “OK” and confirm the action by entering your administrator credentials.
(1-8). Restart your Mac for the changes to take effect. 34

INSTALLATION
Step 2. Installing Areca driver (2-1). Download the driver from Areca website: https://www.
areca.com.tw/support/downloads.html (2-2). Double-click [ArcMSRu.pkg] in the mounted disk image to
start.
Follow the installer on-screen steps to complete the installation. (2-3). When Areca installation shows successful, system will pop
the following “System Extension Updated” warning message: A program tried to load new system extension(s) signed by ” Areca Technology corporation” but your security setting do not allow system extensions. To enable them, choose the “Open Security Preferences” to allow system extension.
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INSTALLATION
(2-5). On Security & Privacy’s General page · Make sure the message “System software from developer “Areca Technology Corporation” was blocked from loading.” · Make the setting to allow loading the driver. To unlock a preference pane, click the key icon at the lower left of the “Security & Privacy” screen. You are prompted to enter the password for the administrator account. Enter the information for “User Name” and “Password,” then click “OK”.
(2-6). Make sure “Areca Technology Corporation” is displayed as the developer and click “Allow”.

This message about being blocked is only displayed for only 30 minutes after installing the driver. When 30 minutes have passed after installing, the message is no longer displayed.
In the following condition, no message is displayed. Loading of the driver is permitted.
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INSTALLATION
· When a driver that has previously been allowed is reinstalled again.
· When you’re using a Mac on which the driver was installed before now updating to macOS 11
A message prompting you to restart appears. Click “Restart”.
This completes installation of the driver.
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INSTALLATION
2.4.2.2 Install the MRAID Utility This section describes detailed instructions for installing the Areca Mac utility on your Apple Thunderbolt capable machine. You must have administrative level permissions to install macOS utility. This can be done in just a few steps! 1. Download the install-mraid installer from the website at
“https://www.areca.com.tw/support/downloads.html”, the file name begins with “install-mraid” followed by the version control. 2. Navigate to your Downloads folder and double-click the install-mraid software. The Installer will open.
3. Click on the “Continue” button to begin the installation.
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INSTALLATION
4. If you have no need to change the install location or select to install special components, you can skip the step 4-1 and step 4-2, just click on the “Install” button to continue the standard (default) installation procedure.
4-1. Click on the “Change Install Location” button to select the disk where you want to install the MRAID software.
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INSTALLATION
4-2, Click on the “Customize” button to choose special components. Click on an icon to install special components and click the “Install” button to continue.
· MRAID is included below two applications for the ARC-8050T3U RAID storage. – ArcHTTP has to be installed for GUI RAID console (McRAID storage manager) to run. It also runs as a service or daemon in the background that allows capturing of events for mail and SNMP traps notification. Refer to the chapter 3 ArcHTTP Configuration on ARC-8050T3U user manual, for details about the mail and SNMP traps configuration. – CLI (Command Line Interface) provides the functionality available in MRAID storage manager through a Command Line Interface. You can set up and manage RAID storage inline. CLI performs many tasks at the command line. You can download CLI manual from Areca website.
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INSTALLATION
· ArcHTTP64 is required for ArcHTTP runing as a service or daemon, and have it automatically start the proxy for all controllers found.
5. Enter your system password and click the “Install Software” button.
6. The system will need to be restarted when the installation is complete. Click “Continue Installation” button.
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INSTALLATION
7. A program bar appears that measures the progress of the driver installation.
8. When this screen shows, you have completed the installation and click on the “Restart” button to reboot your computer in order to complete installation.
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INSTALLATION
9. There is a MRAID folder icon showing on your desktop. The folder contains two items (ArcCLI64 and ArcHTTP64) that are for you to launch the MRAID storage manager. If you have not yet installed the hardware, please follow the “2.4.1 Physically Install RAID Storage and Drives” section to install it. Otherwise, to begin the creation volume, go on the”2.4.2.3 Configure RAID Volumes” section to configure the volume.
2.4.2.3 Configure RAID Volumes There are often multiple ways to accomplish the same configuration and maintenance tasks for your RAID storage. Your ARC8050T3U RAID storage can be configured by one of the following methods: 1. McRAID Storage Manager from ArcHTTP. (Thunderbolt port) 2. McRAID Storage Manager Through LAN port. 3. LCD Panel with Keypad. · Method 1: McRAID Storage Manager From ArcHTTP
Start McRAID Storage Manager Browser Edition There is one “MRAID” icon showing on your desktop. Doubleclick on the “MRAID” icon to locate your ArcHTTP utility and CLI program file folder.
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INSTALLATION
When you double-click on the “ArcHTTP64”, it shows all RAID storages available on the system and create an individual RAID storage icon located on left column of the “ArcHTTP Configurations” screen.
Locate “ARC-8050T3U Web Management” and launch the selected McRAID storage manager. Enter RAID storage default User Name “admin” and the Password “0000” when the login page prompted for it. After logging in, the McRAID storage manager process starts.
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INSTALLATION
Click on the “Quick Create” in the main menu, your volume is automatically configured based on the number of disks in your system. You can create a RAID set associated with exactly one volume set. The user can change the Raid Level, Capacity, Initialization Mode, and Stripe Size. A hot spare option is also created, depending on the exist configuration. Tick on the “Confirm The Operation” check box and click on the “Submit” button, the RAID set and volume set will start to initialize. If you prefer to customize your volume set, please use the “Raid Set Functions” and “Volume Set Functions”. See chapter 4 of ARC-8050T3U user manual for information on customizing your RAID volumes using McRAID storage manager. Otherwise, to begin using the ARC-8050T3U right away, go on the next “Format the Volume” section to begin the formatting procedure.
· Method 2: McRAID Storage Manager Through LAN port User can remote manage the RAID storage directly connected to the 10/100Mbits RJ45 LAN port via standard web browsers. To configure ARC-8050T3U RAID storage using a LAN port, you need to know its IP address. The default IP address will be shown on the LCD initial screen. Launch your web browserbased McRAID storage manager by entering http://[IP Address] in the web browser. Enter RAID storage default User Name “admin” and the Password “0000” when the login page prompted for it. After logging in, the McRAID storage manager process starts. Follow the on- screen steps, responding as needed, to configure RAID volume. See the Chapter 4 of ARC8050T3U user manual for information on customizing your RAID volumes using McRAID storage manager.
· Method 3: LCD Panel with Keypad You can use LCD front panel and keypad function to simply create the RAID volume. The LCD status panel also informs you of the disk array’s current operating status at a glance. The LCD configuration is described in a separate manual: ARC-8050T3_LCD manual. You can download ARC-1009 (LCD Manual) from Areca website. The LCD provides a system of screens with areas for information, status indication, or menus. The LCD screen displays up to two lines at a time of menu items or other information. ARC-8050T3U RAID storage default User Name is “admin” and the Password is “0000”.
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INSTALLATION
The LCD initial screen is shown below:
2.4.2.4 Format and Partition RAID Volumes After the volume set is ready for system accesses, it needs to be partitioned, formatted, and mounted by the operating system. When you create a volume through McRAID storage manager, the macOS recognizes that a new disk is avail, and displays a message asking what you next want to do. If the message does not show up, start the “Disk Utility” manually from the “Finder”, use the “Go” menu and open the “Utilities” folder. Double-click on the “Disk Utility” program. To format and partition your unit

Formatting a drive in Disk Utility is easy, though Disk Utility
uses a different term: Erase. When the Disk Utility window opens, find and select the desired drive in the sidebar that represents your RAID storage. This is how you prepare to erase and format the RAID storage.
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INSTALLATION
Choose OS X Extended (Journaled) for the Format, and, for the Scheme, choose GUID Partition Map. You could also choose MS-DOS as the format, if you want to be able to use the drive on both a Mac and a PC. In that case, choose Master Boot Record for the Scheme. Click “Erase” button in the toolbar, and Disk Utility will erase and format the RAID storage. When it is complete, icons for this partition shows up on your desktop. It is now ready to use. 2. You may want to divide a drive into more than one partition. When you do this, each partition is a volume, and each volume shows up as a separate drive on your Desktop. To partition a drive, select it in Disk Utility, and then click “Partition” in the toolbar. Disk Utility shows the RAID storage’s space as a pie chart. By default, RAID storage only contain a single partition, but to add one, click the + icon; you’ll see two partitions.
If you want to adjust their sizes, you can do so by dragging the circles dividing the partitions, or by typing a size into the Size field. When you click “Apply”, Disk Utility erases the RAID storage and splits it into the number of partitions you have selected. Each partition will appear as a separate drive on your Desktop.
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INSTALLATION
When a message asks you to confirm you want to partition the disk, click on the “Partition” button. This may take a couple of minutes, depending on the size of the drives in your RAID storage. When the partitioning is complete, icons for each new partition show up on your desktop. They are now ready to use.
2.4.2.5 Make A Bootable RAID Volume
You can follow the following procedures to add ARC-8050T3U RAID volume on Intel-based Mac bootable device listing.
1. Set the BIOS selection in System Controls: Advance Configuration to “UEFI” option for Intel-based Mac boot.
2. Download macOS Sierra and follow the https://support.apple. com/en- us/HT202796 link “How to set up and use an external Mac startup disk”.
3. Mac doesn’t see devices that have Option ROM firmware until you load the firmware by pressing “Option-Shift-CommandPeriod” at the Startup Manager window.
4. Do this each time you want to start up from ARC-8050T3U.
2.4.2.6 Unmounting RAID Volumes
To avoid possible data corruption, Areca recommends that ARC8050T3U RAID storages volume(s) be properly unmounted from the computer prior to turning off the RAID storage or safely removing the Thunderbolt interface cable.
1. Drag RAID storage volume(s) icon to the trash. The Trash will turn into an Eject arrow. This will assure that all data is properly cleared from the system memory before the volume is removed.
2. When the volume icon disappears from the desktop, RAID storage can be disconnected from the computer.
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INSTALLATION
2.4.3 Windows Users 2.4.3.1 Install the Thunderbolt Software
This section describes how to install the Thunderbolt software to your operating system. The software installation includes device driver, ArcHTTP and CLI utility. In this scenario, you are installing the Thunderbolt software in an existing Windows system. You can use the installer to install driver, ArcHTTP and CLI at once or “Custom” to install special components. Follow the steps below to install the driver & utility for Windows. 1. Download the install_thunderbolt installer from the website
at “https://www.areca.com.tw/support/downloads.html”, the file name begins with “install_thunderbolt” followed by the version control. 2. Double-click on the zipped file that comes from the website to unzip it. Double-click on the “setup.exe” file for installing thunderbolt software. 3. The screen shows Preparing to Install.
4. The Thunderbolt Installer (or InstallShield Wizard) opens, preparing to install and click on the “Next” button to continue.
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INSTALLATION
5. When the License Agreement screen appears, read and agree to the license information; then let the InstallShield Wizard guide you through the installation process.
6. On the Setup Type screen, use the settings to specify these things: and click on the “Next” button to continue.
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INSTALLATION
· “Complete” to install driver, ArcHTTP and CLI utility at once, check the first box.
· “Custom” to install special components and change the program directory. When this “Custom” check box is checked, go to the Custom Setup screen.
6-1. On the Custom Setup screen, click on an icon to install special components and click on the “Next” button to continue.
· Driver is required for the operating system to be able to interact with the ARC-8050T3U RAID storage.
· ArcHTTP has to be installed for GUI RAID console (McRAID storage manager) to run. It also runs as a service or daemon in the background that allows capturing of events for mail and SNMP traps notification. Refer to the chapter 3 ArcHTTP Configuration on ARC-8050T3U user manual, for details about the mail and SNMP traps configuration.
· CLI (Command Line Interface) provides the functionality available in MRAID storage manager through a Command Line Interface. You can set up and manage RAID storage inline. CLI performs many tasks at the command line. You can download CLI manual from Areca website.
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INSTALLATION
7. When you reach the installation page, click on the “Install” button to continue.
8. A program bar appears that measures the progress of the driver installation.
When this screen completes, you have completed the MRAID installation. If you have no ARC-8050T3U RAID storage unit yet connected or powered on, a “MRAID Installer Information” message displays.
9. After installation is complete, click on the “Finish” button to exit the InstallShield Wizard. 53

INSTALLATION
10. The ArcHTTP and CLI are installed at the same time on ARC8050T3. Once ArcHTTP and CLI have been installed, the ArcHTTP background task automatically starts each time when you start your computer. There is one MRAID icon showing on your “Programs” folder. This icon is for you to start up the McRAID storage manager (by ArcHTTP) and CLI utility. If you have not yet installed the hardware, please follow the “2.4.1 Physically Install RAID Storage and Drives” section to install it. Otherwise, to begin the creation volume, go on the “2.4.3.2 Configure RAID Volumes” section to configure the volume.
Note:
“For Windows, Install Driver First” For Windows PC: the Thunderbolt certified device driver must be installed before plugging in the device for it to function properly. 2.4.3.2 Configure RAID Volumes There are often multiple ways to accomplish the same configuration and maintenance tasks for your RAID storage. Your ARC8050T3U RAID storage can be configured by one of the following methods: 1. McRAID Storage Manager from ArcHTTP. (Thunderbolt port) 2. McRAID Storage Manager Through LAN port. 3. LCD Panel with Keypad.
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INSTALLATION
· Method 1: McRAID Storage Manager From ArcHTTP Start McRAID Storage Manager Browser Edition

The “ArcHTTP Taskbar”

icon shows on the button of

system tray by default. Double click “ArcHTTP Taskbar” to launch the ArcHTTP Configuration screen. It automatically

scans the localhost RAID units on the system and creates an

individual RAID storage icon located in the left column screen.

When you double click on a selected element the left col-

umn screen, child element belonged parent element appears. Locate “ARC-8050T3U Web Management” and launch the

McRAID storage manager.

Locate “ARC-8050T3U Web Management” and launch the selected McRAID storage manager. Enter RAID storage default User Name “admin” and the Password “0000” when the login page prompted for it. After logging in, the McRAID storage manager process starts.

INSTALLATION
The LCD initial screen is shown below:
2.4.3.3 Format RAID Volumes After the volume set is ready for system accesses, it needs to be partitioned, formatted, and mounted by the operating system. The following steps show how to make any new disk arrays or independent disks accessible to Windows system. 1. Click “Start” ==> right-click “Computer” and select “Manage”. 2. Click “Disk Management” in the left pane. 3. Scroll down to the bottom of the middle pane. Windows will
display a list of new drives attached to your system with a label such as “Disk 1” or “Disk 2”, etc. 4. Right-click on the drive you want to partition and then again to format it. 5. Once it’s formatted, Windows automatically assigns the next available drive letter to it and then it will appear in Windows Explorer. 2.4.3.4 Unmounting RAID Volumes To avoid possible data corruption, Areca recommends that ARC8050T3U RAID storages volume(s) be properly unmounted from the computer prior to turning off the RAID storage or safely removing the Thunderbolt interface cable.
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To unmount ARC-8050T3U RAID storage from a Windows system: 1. Click on the “Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media” icon
in the notification area, at the lower right-hand side of your screen, and then, in the list of devices, choose the Thunderbolt storage volume option that you want to remove.
Note:
You can also safely remove devices from the computer folder. Click the “Start” button, click “Computer”, right-click the device you want to remove, and then click “Eject”. 2. Windows will display a notification telling you it’s safe to remove the Thunderbolt storage volume. Now you can unplug the Thunderbolt cable.
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3. ArcHTTP Configuration
This chapter describes how to configure the “System Function” of ArcHTTP. The ArcHTTP proxy utility runs as a service or daemon, and has it automatically start the proxy for all RAID storages found. This way the RAID storage can be managed remotely without having to sign in the server.
Start ArcHTTP Browser Edition:
1. In Windows, right-click on “Start” menu and choose “Programs”. Clicking “MRAID” program icon starts the ArcHTTP utility (From the Start menu, choose Programs > MRAID > ArcHTTP).
2. On a Mac, there is one MARID icon showing on your desktop. This icon is for you to start up the ArcHTTP utility.
When you click the ArcHTTP, it shows all RAID storages available on the system and “System Function” on left column of the “ArcHTTP Configurations” screen. The ArcHTTP has also integrated the email notification and SNMP function for user to send SNMP traps and e-mail notifications. ArcHTTP configuration setting will store on a file name “ArcHTTPSrv.conf”. · General Configuration
Binding IP: Restrict ArcHTTP proxy server to bind only single interface (If more than one physical network in the server). HTTP Port#: Value 1~65535. Display HTTP Connection Information To Console: Select “Yes” to show Http send bytes and receive bytes information in the console. Scanning PCI Device: Select “Yes” for ARC-8050T3U RAID storage unit. Scanning RS-232 Device: No. Scanning Inband Device: No.
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· Mail (Alert by Mail) Configuration Many users require that email notifications be sent to the appropriate administrators when an alert is detected. To set up your mail servers, click on the the “Mail Configuration” link. The “SMTP Server Configurations” allows you to define settings for your mail server. This setup screen is shown as below:
1. SMTP Server Configuration SMTP Server IP Address: Enter the SMTP server IP address which is not McRAID storage manager IP. Ex: 192.168.0.2.
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ArcHTTP Configuration
2. Mail Address Configurations Sender Name: Enter the sender name that will be shown in the outgoing mail. Ex: RaidController_1. Mail address: Enter the sender email that will be shown in the outgoing mail, but don’t type IP to replace domain name. Ex: RaidController_1@areca.com.tw. Account: Enter the valid account if your SMTP mail server requires authentication. Password: Enter the valid password if your SMTP mail server requires authentication.
3. Event Notification Configurations This step involves setting up of notification rules. Notification rules instruct ArcHTTP on the notifications that should be sent when certain types of alerts are detected. MailTo Name: Enter the alert receiver name that will be shown in the outgoing mail. Mail Address: Enter the receiver’s e-mail address. This is the address you want the e-mail alerts sent to. Ex: admin@areca.com.tw.
According to your requirement, set the corresponding event level: Disable Event Notification: No event notification will be sent. Urgent Error Notification: Send only urgent events. Serious Error Notification: Send urgent and serious events. Warning Error Notification: Send urgent, serious and warning events. Information Notification: Send all events. Notification For No Event: Notify user if no event occurs within 24 hours.
· SNMP Traps Configuration
To enable the RAID storage to send the SNMP traps to client SNMP manager using the IP address assigned to the operating system, such as Net-SNMP manager, you can simply use the SNMP function on the ArcHTTP proxy server software. To enable the RAID storage SNMP traps sending function, click on the “SNMP Configuration” link. The ArcHTTP proxy only provide one direction to send the trap to the SNMP manager without needing to install the SNMP extension
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ArcHTTP Configuration
agent on the host. If SNMP manager requests to query the SNMP information from RAID storage, please refer the Appendix C “SNMP Operation & Installation”. The “SNMP traps Configuration” menu will show as following:
When you open the SNMP traps configuration page, you will see the following settings: 1. SNMP Trap Configurations
Enter the SNMP trap IP address. 2. SNMP System Configurations
Community name acts as a password to screen accesses to the SNMP agent of a particular network device. Type the community names of the SNMP agent in this field. Before access is granted to a request station, this station must incorporate a valid community name into its request; otherwise, the SNMP agent will deny access to the system. Most network devices use “public” as default of their community names. This value is case-sensitive. 3. SNMP Trap Notification Configurations Before the client side SNMP manager application accepts the RAID storage traps, it is necessary to integrate the MIB into the management application’s database of events and status indicator codes. This process is known as compiling the MIB into the application. This process is highly vendor-specific and should be well-covered in the User’s Guide of your SNMP application. Ensure the compilation process successfully integrates the contents of the areca_sas.mib file into the traps database. Please refer to Ap-
pendix C of “SNMP Operation & Installation”. The MIBs file resides
at: packagesSNMP_MIBs on the software CD.
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ArcHTTP Configuration
Note:
Event Notification Table refer to Appendix D. After you confirm and submit configurations, you can use “Generate Test Event” feature to make sure these settings are correct. · Rescan Device Configuration Let’s assume you’ve put all Areca RAID storages to a system. The ArcHTTP scans the RAID storages on the system and create an individual RAID storage icon located on left column of the “ArcHTTP Configurations” screen. This adapter icon is for user to launch web browser RAID manager. If there is any RAID storage missed on the system start-up, you can use the “Rescan Device” function. The “Rescan Device” function is a procedure which forces the ArcHTTP to rescan the targets to allow a missed RAID storage to be added.
· Collect Support Data Areca has added the “Collect Support Data” option on the ArcHTTP utility to download a support file (file name:ctlrxx-xxxxx.log) with all necessary information (system information, configuration, disk information, eventlog). The “Collect Support Data” function will be automatically started when ERROR or SERIOUS event occurred.”
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WEB BROWSER-BASED CONFIGURATION 4. Web Browser-based Configuration
If you need to use a RAID volume from ARC-8050T3U RAID storage unit, you must first create a RAID volume by using LCD or McRAID storage manager. This chapter shows you how to set up RAID volumes using the McRAID storage manager application on a computer with an ARC-8050T3U RAID storage. The McRAID storage manager is firmware-based utility, which is accessible via the web browser installed on your operating system. The web browser-based McRAID storage manager is a HTML-based application, which utilizes the browser (Safari, IE and Mozilla etc) installed on your monitor station. It can be accessed through the in-band Thunderbolt bus or out-of-band onboard LAN port. The in-band- Thunderbolt bus method can launch the web browser-based McRAID storage manager via ArcHTTP proxy server. The firmware-embedded web browser-based McRAID storage manager allows local or remote to access it from any standard internet browser. The firmware-embedded SMTP manager monitors all system events and user can select either single or multiple user notifications to be sent with “Plain English” e-mails. The firmware-embedded SNMP agent allows remote to monitor events with no SNMP agent required. Use the McRAID storage manager to: · Create RAID set · Expand RAID set · Define volume set · Add physical drive · Modify volume set · Modify RAID level/stripe size · Define pass-through disk drives · Modify system function · Update firmware · Designate drives as hot spares
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WEB BROWSER-BASED CONFIGURATION
4.1 Start-up McRAID Storage Manager
With McRAID Storage Manager, you can:
· Locally manage a system containing a supported RAID storage that has Windows or macOS, ArcHTTP and a supported browser.
· Remote and managed systems must have a TCP/IP connection.
· McRAID Storage Manager from Local Administration (In-Band)
Once ArcHTTP and CLI have been installed, the ArcHTTP – back ground task automatically starts each time when you start your computer. There is one MARID icon showing on Mac “Desktop”

or one “ArcHTTP Taskbar”

icon showing on Windows

system tray. This icon is for you to start up the ArcHTTP (launch

the McRAID storage manager). When you click on the

ArcHTTP64 from MRAID or “ArcHTTP Taskbar” from system

tray, it shows all RAID controllers available on the host system

and create an individual RAID controller icon located on left column of the “ArcHTTP Configurations” screen. This RAID con-

troller icon is for user to launch the selected RAID controller

web browser McRAID storage manager.

The “Enter Network Password” dialog screen appears, type the User Name and Password. The RAID controller default User Name is “admin” and the Password is “0000”. After entering the user name and password, press Enter key to access the McRAID storage manager.
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WEB BROWSER-BASED CONFIGURATION
· McRAID Storage Manager Through LAN Port (Out-of-Band) ARC-8050T3U RAID storage also offers an alternative out-ofband method for McRAID storage manager. User can access the built-in configuration without running the ArcHTTP proxy server on the host system. The web browser-based McRAID storage manager is a HTML-based application, which utilizes the browser installed on your remote system. To ensure proper communications between the Thunderbolt RAID storage and McRAID storage manager, please connect the Thunderbolt RAID storage LAN port to any LAN switch port.
The RAID storage has embedded the TCP/IP & web browserbased McRAID storage manager in the firmware. User can remote manage the Thunderbolt RAID storage without adding any user specific software (platform independent) via standard web browsers directly connected to the 10/100Mbit RJ45 LAN port. To configure Thunderbolt RAID storage on a remote machine, you need to know its IP address. The IP address is default shown on the LCD initial start-up screen. Launch your McRAID storage manager by entering http://[IP Address] in the web browser.
4.2 McRAID Main Window
The following login screen is displayed in the browser. This screen displays the initial start-up configuration.
The RaidSet Hierarchy displays the “Raid Set List”, “Volume Set List”, and “Physical Disk List”. The RAID set information, volume set information, and drive information can also be viewed by clicking on the “RAID Set Hierarchy”on the main menu screen.
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WEB BROWSER-BASED CONFIGURATION
· To display RAID set information, move the mouse cursor to the desired RAID set number, then click on it. The RAID set information will be displayed.
· To display volume set information, move the mouse cursor to the desired volume set number, then click it. The volume set information will be displayed.
· To display drive information, move the mouse cursor to the desired physical drive number, then click it. The drive information will be displayed.
4.3 Main Menu
The main menu shows all available functions, accessible by clicking on the appropriate link.

Individual Category Quick Function
Raid Set Functions Volume Set Functions Physical Drives
System Controls Information

Description Create a default configuration, which is based on the number of physical disks installed; it can modify the volume set Capacity, Raid Level, and Stripe Size. Create a customized RAID set. Create customized volume sets and modify the existed volume sets parameter.
Create pass through disks and modify the existing pass through drives parameters. Also provides the function to identify disk drives (blinking fault LED). Setting the RAID system configuration.
Viewing the controller information. The Raid Set Hierarchy can be viewed through the “Raid Set Hierarchy” item.

4.4 Quick Function
The Quick Create option configures the arrays with just a few steps. Although srives of different sizes may be used in the array, Quick Create will only operate upon drives of the same physical size.
The number of physical drives in the RAID storage determines the Raid Levels that can be implemented with the RAID set. You can
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WEB BROWSER-BASED CONFIGURATION
create a RAID set associated with exactly one volume set. The user can change the Raid Level, Capacity, Initialization Mode, and Stripe Size. A hot spare option is also created, depending on the exist configuration. Tick on the “Confirm The Operation” check box and click on the “Submit” button in the “Quick Create” screen, the RAID set and volume set will start to initialize.
Note:
In “Quick Create”, your volume set is automatically configured based on the number of disks in your system. Use the “Raid Set Functions” and “Volume Set Functions” if you prefer to customize your volume set, or RAID 30/50/60 volume set.
4.5 Raid Set Functions
Use the “Raid Set Function” and “Volume Set Function” if you prefer to customize your volume set. Manual configuration can provide full control of the RAID set settings, but it will take longer to complete than the “Quick Volume/Raid Setup” configuration. Select the “Raid Set Function” to manually configure the RAID set for the first time or delete and reconfigure existing RAID sets. (A RAID set is a group of disks containing one or more volume sets.)
4.5.1 Create Raid Set
To create a RAID set, click on the “Create Raid Set” link. A “Select The Drive For Raid Set” screen is displayed showing the drive(s) connected to the current controller and enclosures. Click on the selected physical drives within the current RAID set. Enter 1 to 15
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WEB BROWSER-BASED CONFIGURATION
alphanumeric characters to define a unique identifier for a RAID set. The default RAID set name will always appear as “Raid Set #”. Tick on the “Confirm The Operation” check box and click on the “Submit” button on the screen; the RAID set will start to initialize. If you have available disk member, you can repeat above procedures to define another RAID sets. The “Max 128 volumes” is the default mode for SAS RAID storage. The “Max 16 volumes” mode is used for support roaming this raidset to Areca SATA RAID controllers. The SATA RAID controller is designed to support up to 16 volumes only. You have to use “Max 16 volumes” on the raidset mode if you plan to roam this raidset between SAS RAID controller and SATA RAID controller.
Note:
To create RAID 30/50/60 volume, you need create multiple RAID sets firstly with the same disk numbers on each RAID set.
4.5.2 Delete Raid Set
To delete a RAID set, click on the “Deleted Raid Set” link. A “Select The Raid Set To Delete” screen is displayed showing all exist RAID sets in the current controller. Click the RAID set number which you want to delete in the select column on the delete screen. Then, tick on the “Confirm The Operation” check box and click on the “Submit” button in the screen to delete it. The volume sets included in the “Delete RAID Set”. It will be deleted by this action. But for the Raid 30/50/60, you need to delete the volumes belonging to those RAID sets.
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4.5.3 Expand Raid Set
Instead of deleting a RAID set and recreating it with additional disk drives, the “Expand Raid Set” function allows the users to add disk drives to the RAID set that have already been created. To expand a RAID set: 1. Select the “Expand Raid Set” option. If there is an available
disk, then the “Select SAS/SATA Drives For Raid Set Expansion” screen appears. 2. Select the target RAID set by clicking on the appropriate radio button. Select the target disk by clicking on the appropriate check box. 3. Click on the “Submit” button to start the expansion on the RAID set. The new additional capacity can be utilized by one or more volume sets. The volume sets associated with this RAID set appear for you to have chance to modify RAID level or stripe size. Follow the instruction presented in the “Modify Volume Set” to modify the volume sets; operation system specific utilities may be required to expand operating system partitions.
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Note:
1. Once the “Expand Raid Set” process has started, user can not stop it. The process must be completed.
2. If a disk drive fails during RAID set expansion and a hot spare is available, an auto rebuild operation will occur after the RAID set expansion completes.
3. RAID 30/50/60 does not support the “Expand Raid set”. 4. RAID set expansion is a quite critical process, we strongly
recommend customer backup data before expand. Unexpected accident may cause serious data corruption.
4.5.4 Offline Raid Set
This function is for customer being able to unmount and remount a multi-disk volume. All Hdds of the selected RAID set will be put into offline state, spun down and fault LED in fast blinking mode. User can remove those Hdds and insert new Hdds on those empty slots without needing power down the controller to perform the online array roaming.
4.5.5 Rename Raid Set
The default RAID set name will always appear as “Raid Set #” when it is first created by the controller. The “Rename Raid Set” function is for customer to rename the default RAID set name. To rename a RAID set from a group of RAID sets: 1. Click on the “Rename Raid Set” link. 2. Click the RAID set check box from the list that you wish to re-
name. Click the “Submit” button. The following screen appears. Use this option to rename the RAID set name.
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4.5.6 Activate Incomplete Raid Set
If one of the disk drives is removed in power off state, the RAID set state will change to “Incomplete State”. If the user wants to continue to operate the controller without power-off the RAID storage, the user can use the “Activate Incomplete Raid Set” option to active the RAID set. After the user completes this function, the Raid State will change to “Degraded Mode” and start to work. To activate the incomplete the RAID set, click on the “Activate Raid Set” link. A “Select The Raid Set To Activate” screen is displayed showing all RAID sets existing on the current controller. Click the RAID set number to activate in the select column. Click on the “Submit” button on the screen to activate the RAID set that had a disk removed (or failed) in the power off state. The RAID storage will continue to work in degraded mode.
4.5.7 Create Hot Spare
When you choose the “Create Hot Spare” option in the “Raid Set Function”, all unused physical devices connected to the current controller appear. Select the target disk by clicking on the appropriate check box. Tick on the “Confirm The Operation” check box and click the “Submit” button in the screen to create the hot spares. 72

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The “Create Hot Spare” gives you the ability to define a global or dedicated hot spare. Firmware default (“Global For SSD or HDD”) only uses SSD to rebuild SSD array or HDD to rebuild HDD array. If you want rebuild a SSD array with a HDD, please configure the HDD as hotspare disk for both HDD and SSD (“Global For All”) to activate the rebuilding of the new array. “Dedicated to RaidSet” and “Dedicated to Enclosure” can only be used with a specific RAID set or Enclosure. When a disk drive fails in the RAID set or enclosure with a dedicated hot spare is pre-set, data on the disk drive is rebuild automatically on the dedicated hot spare disk.
4.5.8 Delete Hot Spare
Select the target hot spare disk to delete by clicking on the appropriate check box. Tick on the “Confirm The Operation” check box and click the “Submit” button on the screen to delete the hot spares.
4.5.9 Rescue Raid Set
When the system is powered off in the RAID set update/creation period, the configuration possibly could disappear due to this abnormal condition. The “RESCUE” function can recover the missing RAID set information. The RAID storage uses the time as the RAID set signature. The RAID set may have different time after the RAID set is recovered. The “SIGANT” function can regenerate the signature for the RAID set.
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Caution:
Please contact us to make sure if you need to use rescue function. Improperly usage may cause configuration corruption.
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4.6 Volume Set Functions
A volume set is seen by the host system as a single logical device. It is organized in a RAID level with one or more physical disks. RAID level refers to the level of data performance and protection of a volume set. A volume set capacity can consume all or a portion of the disk capacity available in a RAID set. Multiple volume sets can exist on a group of disks in a RAID set. Additional volume sets created in a specified RAID set will reside on all the physical disks in the RAID set. Thus each volume set on the RAID set will have its data spread evenly across all the disks in the RAID set.
The following is the volume set features for the RAID storage. 1. Volume sets of different RAID levels may coexist on the same
RAID set and up to 128 volume sets per controller. 2. Up to 128 volume sets can be created in a RAID set. 3. The maximum addressable size of a single volume set is not lim-
ited to 2TB, because the controller is capable of 64-bit LBA mode. However the operating system itself may not be capable of addressing more than 2TB.
See Areca website ftp://ftp.areca.com.tw/RaidCards/Documents/Manual_Spec/ Over2TB_050721.ZIP file for details.
4.6.1 Create Volume Set (0/1/10/3/5/6)
To create volume set from RAID set storage, move the cursor bar to the main menu and click on the “Create Volume Set” link. The “Select The Raid Set To Create On It” screen will show all RAID set number. Tick on a RAID set number that you want to create and then click on the “Submit” button.
The new create volume set attribute allows user to select the Volume Name, RAID Level, Capacity, Greater Two TB Volume Support, Initialization Mode, Strip Size, Cache Mode, Tagged Command Queuing, and SCSI Channel/SCSI ID/SCSI Lun.
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· Volume Name The default volume name will always appear as “ARC-8050T3UVOL”. You can rename the volume set providing it does not exceed the 15 characters limit.
· Volume Raid Level Set the Raid Level for the volume set. Highlight the desired RAID Level from the available RAID levels option. There are two circumstances when you choose RAID level 1 function: RAID 1-Simple Mirroring is also known as “two disk mirror”; If your RAID set has two disks, data written on one disk drive is simultaneously written to another disk drive. RAID 1-Multi Mirroring is also known as “triple disk mirror”; If your RAID set has three disks, data written on one disk drive is simultaneously written to another two disk drives.
· Capacity The maximum volume size is the default initial setting. Enter the appropriate volume size to fit your application.
· Greater Two TB Volume Support Controller uses the “Greater Two TB Volume Support” sub-menu to set the volume capacity and sector size. Greater Two TB Volume Support option: “No”, “64bit LBA” and “Use 4K Block”.
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-No When this option is enabled, it keeps the volume size with max. 2TB limitation. For any hard disk drives working in the 4K native mode in the Raid set, the volume set directly sets and exposes 4KB sector size to the operating system.
-64bit LBA This option uses 16 bytes CDB instead of 10 bytes. The maximum volume capacity is up to 512TB. For any hard disk drives working in the 4K native mode in the Raid set, the volume set directly sets and exposes 4KB sector size to the operating system. This option works on different OS which supports 16 bytes CDB.
-Use 4K Block This option uses 16 bytes CDB and changes the sector size from default 512 bytes to 4k bytes. Windows XP only supports maximum volume capacity is up to 16TB.
· Initialization Mode This option is used to define “Background Initialization”, “Foreground Initialization” or “No Init (To Rescue Volume)”. When “Background Initialization”, the initialization proceeds as a background task, the volume set is fully accessible for system reads and writes. The operating system can instantly access to the newly created arrays without requiring a reboot and waiting the initialization complete. When “Foreground Initialization”, the initialization proceeds must be completed before the volume set ready for system accesses. There is no initialization happened when you select “No Init” option. “No Init” is for customer to rescue volume without losing data in the disk.
· Stripe Size This parameter sets the size of the stripe written to each disk in a RAID 0, 1, 10, 5, 6, 50 or 60 logical drive. You can set the stripe size to 4 KB, 8 KB, 16 KB, 32 KB, 64 KB, 128 KB, 256 KB, 512KB or 1M. A larger stripe size produces better read performance, especially if your computer does mostly sequential reads. However, if you are sure that your computer does random reads more often, select a smaller stripe size.
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Note: · RAID level 3 can’t modify the cache stripe size. · Roaming the stripe size 256K/512K/1M Raid Set to firmware
version older than 1.52 will cause data corruption.
· Cache Mode The RAID storage supports “Write Through” and “Write Back” cache.
· Volume Write Protection When “Volume Write Protection” is enabled on the “Modify Volume Set”, host commands fail if they are issued to a volume in that RAID controller and attempt to modify a volume’s data or attributes. Volume Write Protection is used primarily for customer-initiated disaster recovery testing.
· Full Volume Encryption ARC-8050T3U have featured with controller based hardware encryption function. Controller based hardware encryption describes the encryption of data occurring at the disk array controller before being sent to the disk drives. Since RAID controller is a natural central point of all data therefore encryption at this level is inherent and also reduces deployment complexity. ARC-8050T3U RAID controller has dedicated electronic circuitry for the cryptographic engine embedded in the ROC and operating at full channel speeds. The hardware encryption does not impact the performance of ARC-8050T3U RAID controller and can implement on any kinds of HDD that is transparent to the user, the OS, and applications.
Encrypting your volume can give your data an extra layer of protection beyond setting up a controller password. Encryption will conceal your volume’s data and make accessing the files almost impossible for anyone who does not know your encryption key. Data saved in the volume will be hidden by Algorithm developed by Areca Technology. With this scramble process, no one can see and access into the hidden volume data without access key. ARC-8050T3U support 128- and 256-bit encryption keys using AES(a key size of 128, or 256 bits), or password (a variable key size). Each encryption key size causes
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the algorithm to behave slightly differently, so the increasing key sizes not only offer a larger number of bits with which you can scramble the data, but also increase the complexity of the cipher algorithm. ARC-1882 adapters provide five new key options in the Full Volume Encryption:”Disable”, “256Bit key, Password”, “256Bit key, AES”, “128Bit key, Password”, “128Bit key, AES”. You can generate the new key by CLI utility or API code function.
This volume encryption function can only work with ARC-1882 series with any kinds of HDD. You can follow below steps to enable the function. 1. Create volume set with “Full Volume Encryption” capability in
the web management. 2. Use CLI “vsf genkey” command or API code to generate key
file. 3. Use “Download Volume Key File” in the web management or
use CLI “vsf dlkey” command to download volume key file into firmware and unlock the volume. 4. Follow step 3. to unlock volume if volume locked.
· Tagged Command Queuing The “Enabled” option is useful for enhancing overall system performance under multi-tasking operating systems. The Command Tag (Drive Channel) function controls the SAS command tag queuing support for each drive channel. This function should normally remain “Enabled”. “Disabled” this function only when using SAS drives that do not support command tag queuing.
· SCSI Channel/SCSI ID/SCSI Lun SCSI Channel: The RAID storage function is simulated as an external SCSI RAID controller. The host bus is represented as a SCSI channel. Choose the SCSI Channel. SCSI ID: Each SCSI device attached to the SCSI card, as well as the card itself, must be assigned a unique SCSI ID number. A SCSI channel can connect up to 15 devices. The RAID storage is a large SCSI device. Assign an ID from a list of SCSI IDs. SCSI LUN: Each SCSI ID can support up to 8 LUNs. Most 6Gb/s SAS controllers treat each LUN like a SAS disk.
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4.6.2 Create Raid30/50/60 (Volume Set 30/50/60)
To create 30/50/60 volume set from RAID set group, move the cursor bar to the main menu and click on the “Create Raid30/50/60” link. The “Select The Raid Set To Create Volume On It” screen will show all RAID set number. Tick on the RAID set numbers (same disk numbers per RAID set) that you want to create and then click on the “Submit” button.
The new create volume set attribute allows user to select the Volume Name, Raid Level, Capacity, Greater Two TB Volume Support, Initialization Mode, Stripe Size, Cache Mode, Tagged Command Queuing, and SCSI Channel/SCSI ID/SCSI Lun. Please refer to above section for details description of each item.
Note:
RAID level 30 50 and 60 can support up to two RAID set (two pairs), but it can not support expansion and migration.
4.6.3 Delete Volume Set
To delete a volume from RAID set, move the cursor bar to the main menu and click on the “Delete Volume Set” link. The “Select The Raid Set To Delete” screen will show all RAID set numbers. Click a RAID set number and the “Confirm The Operation” check box and then click the “Submit” button to show all volume set items in the selected RAID set.
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Click a volume set number and the “Confirm The Operation” check box and then click the “Submit” button to delete the volume set.
4.6.4 Modify Volume Set
To modify a volume set from a RAID set: 1. Click on the “Modify Volume Set” link. 2. Click the volume set check box from the list that you wish to
modify. Click the “Submit” button. The following screen appears.
Use this option to modify the volume set configuration. To modify volume set attributes, move the cursor bar to the volume set attribute menu and click it. The “Enter The Volume Attribute” screen appears. Move the cursor to an attribute item and then click the attribute to modify the value. After you complete the modification, tick on the “Confirm The Operation” check box and click the “Submit” button to complete the action. The user can only modify the last volume set capacity.
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4.6.4.1 Volume Growth Use “Expand Raid Set” function to add disk to a RAID set. The additional capacity can be used to enlarge the last volume set size or to create another volume set. The “Modify Volume Set” function can support the “Volume Modification” function. To expand the last volume set capacity, move the cursor bar to the “Capacity” item and entry the capacity size. When finished the above action, click on the “Submit” button to complete the action. The last volume set starts to expand its capacity. To expand an existing volume noticed: · Only the last volume can expand capacity. · When expand volume capacity, you can’t modify stripe size or
modify RAID level simultaneously. · You can expand volume capacity, but can’t reduce volume
capacity size. · After volume expansion, the volume capacity can’t be
decreased. For greater 2TB expansion: · If your system installed in the volume, don’t expand the
volume capacity greater 2TB, except your OS and controller can support boot up from a greater 2TB capacity device. · Expand over 2TB used LBA64 mode. Please make sure your OS supports LBA64 before expand it. 4.6.4.2 Volume Set Migration
Migrating occurs when a volume set is migrating from one RAID level to another, when a volume set strip size changes, or when a disk is added to a RAID set. Migration state is displayed in the volume state area of the “RAID Set Hierachy” screen.
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Note:
1. If the volume is RAID level 30, 50, or 60, you can not change the volume to another RAID level. If the volume is RAID level 0, 1, 10(1E), 3, 5, or 6, you can not change the volume to RAID level 30, 50, or 60.
2. Power failure may damage the migration data. Please backup the RAID data before you start the migration function.
4.6.4.3 Volume Write Protection When “Volume Write Protection” is enabled on the “Modify Volume Set”, host commands fail if they are issued to a volume in that RAID controller and attempt to modify a volume’s data or attributes. Volume Write Protection is used primarily for customer-initiated disaster recovery testing.
4.6.5 Check Volume Set
To check a volume set from a RAID set: 1. Click on the “Check Volume Set” link. 2. Click on the volume set from the list that you wish to check. Tick on “Confirm The Operation” and click on the “Submit” button. Use this option to verify the correctness of the redundant data in a volume set. For example, in a system with dedicated parity, volume set check means computing the parity of the data disk drives and comparing the results to the contents of the dedicated parity disk drive. The checking percentage can also be viewed by clicking on “RAID Set Hierarchy” in the main menu.
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4.6.6 Schedule Volume Check
A volume check is a process that verifies the integrity of redundant data. To verify RAID 3, 5, 6, 30, 50 or 60 redundancy, a volume check reads all associated data blocks, computes parity, reads parity, and verifies that the computed parity matches the read parity. Volume checks are very important because they detect and correct parity errors or bad disk blocks in the drive. A consistency check forces every block on a volume to be read, and any bad blocks are marked; those blocks are not used again. This is critical and important because a bad disk block can prevent a disk rebuild from completing. We strongly recommend that you run consistency checks on a regular basis–at least once per week (set on “Scheduler”). Volume checks degrade performance, so you can also run them when the system is idle (set on “Checking After System Idle”).
Note:
Please make sure of the inconsistency source generated by parity error or bad data block before you click the recovery method. Otherwise, you will lose the recovery data.
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4.6.7 Stop Volume Set Check
Use this option to stop the “Check Volume Set” function.
4.6.8 Download Volume Key File
Get the key file which was generated by CLI “vsf genkey” command or API code for your ARC-8050T3U. You can follow below steps to download volume key file.

To download volume key file into the firmware, move the
mouse cursor to “Download Volume Key file” link and click it. The “Download Volume Encryption Key File” screen appears. 2. Click “Browse”. Look in the location to which the key file was generated. Select the file name and click “Open”. 3. Tick on “Confirm The Operation” and press the “Submit” button. 4. After the key file download is completed, a bar indicator will show “Key File Has Been Downloaded Successfully”.
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The “Security Function” on the new firmware supports Self-Encrypting Disks (SED) for protection of data against loss or theft of SEDs. Protection is achieved by the use of encryption technology on the drives. The McRAID storage management allows SED keys to be created and managed as well as create/delete RAID sets. The following section provides the “Security Function” instructions to perform the custom configuration tasks. All SED functions are integrated into the intuitive and user friendly McRAID manager interface for easy access. Choose this option from the main menu and then perform the operations listed below.
4.7.1 Create SED RAID Set
To create a SED RAID set, click on the “Create SED Raid Set” link. A “Select The Drive For SED RAID Set” screen is displayed showing the SED drive(s) connected to the current controller and enclosures. Click on the selected physical drives within the current RAID set. Enter 1 to 15 alphanumeric characters to define a unique identifier for a SED RAID set. The default RAID set name will always appear as “Raid Set #”. Tick on the “Confirm The Operation” check box and click on the “Submit” button on the screen; the RAID set will start to initialize. If you have available disk member, you can repeat above procedures to define another RAID sets. The Max 128 Volumes is the default mode for RAID controller.
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4.7.2 Delete SED RAID Set
A SED RAID Set is a RAID Set that has been locked on a controller that holds a security key. When you delete existing SED RAID sets, there has one option available to perform an Instant Secure Erase. The “Secure Erase The Member Disks” function is the process of permanently erasing all data on the SED disks and resetting the security attributes. The data on the SED disk is lost. To delete a SED RAID set, click on the “Deleted Raid Set” link; a “Select The SED RAID Set To Delete” screen is displayed showing all exist SED RAID sets in the current controller. Click on the SED RAID set number which you want to delete in the select column on the delete screen. Then, tick on the “Confirm The Operation” check box and click on the “Submit” button in the screen to delete it. The volume sets included in the “Delete SED RAID Set”. It will be deleted by this action. But for the Raid 30/50/60, you need to delete the volumes belonging to those SED RAID sets.
4.7.3 Delete ISE RAID Set
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Instant Secure Erase (ISE) or Crypto Erase allows a drive to be instantly erased using industry-standard commands and options. An ISE RAID Set is a RAID Set that has been created by a group of ISE only SAS hard disks on a controller. When you delete existing SED RAID sets, there has one option available to perform an Instant Secure Erase. The “Secure Erase The Member Disks” function is the process of permanently erasing all data on the ISE disks and resetting the security attributes. The data on the ISE disk is lost.
To delete an ISE RAID set, click on the “Deleted ISE Raid Set” link. A “Select The ISE RAID Set To Delete” screen is displayed showing all exist ISE RAID sets in the current controller. Click on the RAID set num-ber which you want to delete in the select column on the delete screen. Then, tick on the “Confirm The Operation” check box and click on the “Submit” button in the screen to delete it. The volume sets included in the “Delete ISE RAID Set”. It will be deleted by this action. But for the Raid 30/50/60, you need to delete the volumes belonging to those ISE RAID sets.
4.7.4 Security Key Setup
The Areca RAID controllers support Self-Encrypting Disks (SED) for protection of data against loss or theft of SEDs. Protection is achieved by the SED hard drive that automatically and continuously encrypts the data on the drive without any user interaction. There is one SED key per controller. You can manage the SED key under McRAID manager. Local SED key management in the controller firmware is designed to protect data from security breaches with minimal cost and complexity. The key can be escrowed in to a file using McRAID manager. Creating and managing SED key is an important part of the cryptographic process. The key must be kept secret from anyone who should not decrypt your data. This section describes how to generate and manage keys.
4.7.4.1 SED Key Management-Creation
There is one SED key per controller which stores in the controller flash memory. Areca provides both automatically or password methods to generate a key.
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You can enter SED KEY from password to generate and upload the key for device unlocked and available to the Host. 1. SED Key is generated automatically by internal random num-
ber for a SED RAID set use without needing a password input. 2. SED Key is generated by user supplied password for a SED RAID set use. 3. Enter SED key is only allowed when no key is set in controller. So that next time power up again, it will need to input the key from the ” Enter SED Key By User Password” again.
4.7.4.2 SED Key Management-Modification If you have evidence that the SED key is known to unauthorized users, you can change the SED key again. The `Disable SED Key” function is used to clear SED key on controller and RAID set members.
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In some cases, you may want to export a SED key to store on removable media or to use on a different computer. If you want to create a backup copy of the SED key or use it on another computer, you must first export the SED key. Exporting the SED key puts it in a file (filename.bin) that you can then transfer to another computer or put in a safe place.
4.7.5 Import Security Key
SED RaidSet created on an Areca RAID adapters can be migrated to another RAID adapter. If you are importing a RaidSet originally secured with a SED key, you need to import the foreign SED key files to secure or unlock that RaidSet. The “Import Security Key” file is for Raidset Roaming or Change SED Key function. If you roam a RaidSet from old controller to another new (with Security Functions support), the foreign SED key file must be imported before it can be used.
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1. Select the “Import/Roaming And Set SED Key” option to unlock the locked disk and change to foreign SED key.
2. Select the “RaidSet Roaming Only” option to unlock the locked disk and personalize to new controller’s SED key. If there is an existing SED key on new controller, RaidSet is updated with the new security key. If there is not an existing SED key on new controller, RaidSet is updated to unlock RaidSet.
4.7.6 Erase Failed Disk
To erase the failed encryption-capable physical disk, move the cursor bar to the main menu and click on the “Erase Failed Disk ” link. The “Select The Device To Erase” screen will show all failed encryption-capable physical disks. Tick on the failed disk that you want to erase and then click on the “Submit” button. In case controller successfully performs an Instant Secure Erase, it will erase all data on the encryption-capable physical disk disks and reset the security attributes. The data on the encryption-capable physical disk is lost.
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4.7.7 RevertSP
SED models will support the RevertSP feature which erases all data in all bands on the device and returns the contents of all SPs (Security Providers) on the device to their original factory state. In order to execute the RevertSP method the unique PSID (Physical Secure ID) printed on the drive label must be provided. PSID is not electronically accessible and can only be manually read from the drive label.
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Choose this option to select a physical disk from the main menu and then perform the operations listed below.
4.8.1 Create Pass-Through Disk
To create pass-through disk, move the mouse cursor to the main menu and click on the “Create Pass-Through” link. The relative setting function screen appears. A pass-through disk is not controlled by the RAID storage firmware; it can’t be a part of a volume set. The disk is available to the operating system as an individual disk. It is typically used on a system where the operating system is on a disk not controlled by the RAID firmware. The user can also select the Volume Cache Mode, Write Protection, Tagged Command Queuing, and SCSI channel/SCSI_ID/SCSI_LUN for this pass-through disk.
4.8.2 Modify Pass-Through Disk
Use this option to modify the pass-through disk attribute. The user can modify the Cache Mode, Tagged Command Queuing, and SCSI Channel/ID/LUN on an existing pass-through disk. To modify the pass-through drive attribute from the pass- through drive pool, move the mouse cursor bar and click on the “Modify Pass- Through” link. The “Select The Pass Through Disk For Modification” screen appears mark the check box for the pass-through disk from the pass-through drive pool and click on the “Submit” button to select drive.
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When the “Enter Pass-Through Disk Attribute” screen appears, modify the drive attribute values, as you want. After you complete the selection, mark the check box for “Confirm The Operation” and click on the “Submit” button to complete the selection action.
4.8.3 Delete Pass-Through Disk
To delete a pass-through drive from the pass-through drive pool, move the mouse cursor bar to the main menus and click the “Delete Pass Through” link. After you complete the selection, mark the check box for “Confirm The Operation” and click the “Submit” button to complete the delete action.
4.8.4 Clone Disk
Instead of deleting a RAID set and recreating it with larger disk drives, the “Clone Disk” function allows the users to replace larger disk drives to the RAID set that have already been created. Click the “Clone Disk” option on the “Physical Drives” link to enable the clone function. If there is an available disk, then the “Select The Drives For Cloning” screen appears. There are two “Clone Disk” function options: “Clone And Replace ” and “Clone Only.” 94

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Clone Disk Procedure
1. Select one of the members as the “Clone Source” (status indicated as Raid Set #) by clicking on the appropriate check box.
2. Select a “Clone Target” (status indicated as Free or Hot Spare) by clicking on the appropriate check box.
3. If you have available disk member, you can repeat above pro cedures to define another clone pair.
4. Select Clone Type.
The pair number for both the “Clone Source” and the “Clone Target” will be indicated in the screen. Tick on the “Confirm The Operation” check box and click on the “Submit” button on the screen; the controller will automatically start the cloning process using the existing “stand-by” (Free or Hot Spare drive) to clone the source drive (the Raid Set member drive). The cloning process percentage will be indicated in the “Volume State” area of the “Volume Set Information” screen. Completion of the Clone function process will be indicated by a notification message on the event log.
4.8.4.1 Clone And Replace
You can enlarge your logical drives by copying and replacing all member drives with drives of higher capacity. The existing data in the logical drives is copied onto the new drives, and then the original members are marked as “Offlined”.
4.8.4.2 Clone Only
The stand-by disk will clone the logical drives without substituting it. The status of the stand-by drive will be marked as “Offlined” after the cloning process. The source drive will remain a member of the logical drive.
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4.8.5 Abort Cloning
Use this function to stop the ongoing clone disk action.
4.8.6 Set Disk To Be Failed
It sets a normal working disk as “failed” so that users can test some of the features and functions.
4.8.7 Activate Failed Disk
It forces the current “failed” disk in the system to be back online. “Activate Failed Disk” function has no effect on the removed disks, because a “removed” disk does not give the controller a chance to mark it as “failure”. 96

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Followings are considered as “Removed-Disk”: 1. Manually removed by user. 2. Losing PHY connection due to bad connector, cable, backplane. 3. Losing PHY connection due to disk fail. Basically, in the eyes of the controller, the disk suddenly disappears due to whatever reason.
4.8.8 Identify Enclosure
To prevent removing the wrong enclosure, the selected Areca expander enclosure all disks fault LED indicator will light for physically locating the selected enclosure when the “Identify Enclosure” is selected. This function will also light the enclosure LED indicator, if it is existed.
4.8.9 Identify Drive
To prevent removing the wrong drive, the selected disk fault LED indicator will light for physically locating the selected disk when the “Identify Selected Device” is selected.
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4.9.1 System Config
To set the RAID system function, move the cursor to the main menu and click the “System Controls” link. The “Raid System Function” menu will show all items, and then select the desired function.
· System Beeper Setting The “System Beeper Setting” function is used to “Disabled” or “Enabled” the RAID storage alarm tone generator.
· Background Task Priority The “Background Task Priority” is a relative indication of how much time the controller devotes to a rebuild operation. The RAID storage allows the user to choose the rebuild prioity (UltraLow, Low, Medium and High) to balance volume set access and rebuild tasks appropriately. For high array performance, specify a “Low” value.
· JBOD/RAID Configuration JBOD is an acronym for “Just a Bunch Of Disk”. A group of hard disks in a RAID box are not set up as any type of RAID configuration. All drives are available to the operating system as an individual disk. JBOD does not provide data redundancy. User needs to delete the RAID set, when you want to change the option from the RAID to the JBOD function.
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· SATA NCQ Support The controller supports both SAS and SATA disk drives. The SATA NCQ allows multiple commands to be outstanding within a drive at the same time. Drives that support NCQ have an internal queue where outstanding commands can be dynamically rescheduled or re-ordered, along with the necessary tracking mechanisms for outstanding and completed portions of the workload. The RAID storage allows the user to select the SATA NCQ support: “Enabled” or “Disabled”.
· HDD Read Ahead Cache Allow Read Ahead (Default: Enabled) — When Enabled, the drive’s read ahead cache algorithm is used, providing maximum performance under most circumstances.
· Volume Data Read Ahead The volume read data ahead parameter specifies the controller firmware algorithms which process the Read Ahead data blocks from the disk. The read ahead parameter is normal by default. To modify the value, you must set it from the command line using the Read Ahead option. The normal option satisfies the performance requirements for a typical volume. The disabled value implies no read ahead. The most efficient value for the controllers depends on your application. Aggressive read ahead is optimal for sequential access but it degrades random access.
· HDD Queue Depth This parameter is adjusted the queue depth capacity of NCQ (SATA HDD) or Tagged Command Queuing (SAS HDD) which transmits multiple commands to a single target without waiting for the initial command to complete.
· Empty HDD Slot LED The firmware has added the “Empty HDD Slot LED” option to setup the fault LED light “ON “or “OFF” when there is no HDD installed. When each slot has a power LED for the HDD installed identify, user can set this option to “OFF”. Choose option “ON”, the RAID storage will light the fault LED; if no HDD installed.
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· Max Command Length Max Command Length is used to set a “best” IO size for the RAID storage.
· Auto Activate Incomplete Raid When some of the disk drives are removed in power off state or boot up stage, the RAID set state will change to “Incomplete State”. But if a user wants to automatically continue to work while the RAID storage is powered on, the user can set the “Auto Activate Incomplete Raid” option to enable. The RAID state will change to “Degraded Mode” while it powers on.
· Disk Write Cache Mode User can set the “Disk Write Cache Mode” to Auto, Enabled, or Disabled. “Enabled” increases speed, “Disabled” increases reliability.
· Write Same For Initialization Drives that support the Write Same feature (SCT) can write to multiple drive sectors at once, improving initialization time. To take advantage of this feature, all the drives in the unit must support “Write Same” command. User can set the “SAS And SATA”, “SAS Only”, “SATA Only or “Disabled” for the controller initialization.
· Hot Plugged Disk For Rebuilding It defines if the RAID array volume should start rebuilding or not when detects a disk is inserted/re-inserted during online. The options are: “Blank Disk Only”, “Always”, and “Disable”. The default is “Blank Disk Only”.
“Blank Disk Only” it will trigger the rebuilding if and only if the inserted disk has not been in the RAID array before, which has no RAID signature on it. So when a previously removed disk is self re-inserted, it won’t trigger the degraded RAID array to rebuild, and so that the administrator has a chance to identify this miss-behaving disk and replace it.
“Always” it is what it was before. Whenever a disk is inserted/re-inserted whether new or previously existed, it always
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triggers a rebuilding for the Degraded RAID set/Volume.
“Disable” it will not trigger rebuilding regardless what sort of disk plugging in. When “Disable” and/or “Blank Disk Only” is selected, the re- inserted/previously removed disk will be identified as a disk in a separate RAID set with duplicated RAIDset# and with all the rest of RAID members missing.
· Disk Capacity Truncation Mode RAID storage uses drive truncation so that drives from differing vendors are more likely to be able to be used as spares for each other. Drive truncation slightly decreases the usable capacity of a drive that is used in redundant units. The controller provides three truncation modes in the system configuration: “Multiples Of 10G”, “Multiples Of 1G”, and “Disabled”.
“Multiples Of 10G” If you have 120 GB drives from different vendors; chances are that the capacity varies slightly. For example, one drive might be 123.5 GB, and the other 120 GB. Multiples Of 10G truncates the number under tens. This makes same capacity for both of these drives so that one could replace the other.
“Multiples Of 1G” If you have 123 GB drives from different vendors; chances are that the capacity varies slightly. For example, one drive might be 123.5 GB, and the other 123.4 GB. Multiples Of 1G truncates the fractional part. This makes capacity for both of these drives so that one could replace the other.
“Disabled” It does not truncate the capacity.
· Smart Option For HDD This option is used to increase the reliability of SSDs/HDDs by automatically copying data from a drive with potential to fail to a designated hot spare or newly inserted drive. The options are: “Failed The Drive”, “Failed The Drive If Hot Sapre Exist”, and “Alert Only”. The default is “Alert Only”.
“Failed The Drive” controllers kill off the SMART fail drive immediately.
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“Failed The Drive If Hot Sapre Exist” controllers kill off the SMART fail disk if hot sapre dive is existed. “Alert” it will trigger alert when there happens a SMART fail drive. · Smart Polling Interval Besides the scheduled volume check, user can define the Smart Pulling Interval to pull the SMART status of each disk. The default is “on demand”. User can schedule every certain period of time interval to pull the SMART status of each disk. When SMART pulling is executed, disk activity will be temporally halted until the SMART parameter reading is finished. That is why you don’t want to set the ” Smart Polling Interval” too frequent. What to use is up to the users to decide based on their applications and experimental results.
4.9.2 Advanced Configuration
To set the RAID storage advanced system function, move the cursor to the main menu and click the “Advanced Configuration” link. The “Advanced Configuration” menu will show all items, and then select the desired function.
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· TLER Setting TLER (time-limited error recovery) functions provide support for WD Caviar RE (RAID) series disks. This is a new option from WD to support RAID features that were traditionally missing from standard desktop drives. TLER is a method of signaling the system RAID controller in the event that an error recovery process is taking longer than time-out specifications allow. This prevents the RAID controller from dropping the drive from the array during this period. Default value is manufacture setting. You can select between 5, 6 and 7 second. This feature is used to setup the HDD internal timeout value.
· Timeout Setting Disk time-out is a registry setting that defines the time that RAID controller will wait for a hard disk to respond to a command. You can modify the retry value by entering a new value in the edit box beside this button and then selecting the button. Normally you should not need to modify this value. Default value is 8 seconds: You can select between 3~8 second.
· Number of Retries This setting determines the number of access that will be attempted before the current command from the RAID controller to the disk drive is aborted. You can modify the retry value by entering a new value in the edit box beside this button and then selecting the button. Normally you should not need to modify this value. There are two selections, either 2 retry or 3 retry.
· Buffer Threshold This new feature there are 3 options; 25%, 50%, 75%. The percentage represents how much data should be kept in resident cache memory (how full cache should get) before controller starts to flush data onto the hard drives. If the buffer is set for 25%, then all 25% will be cached and is used for writing data. The remaining cache memory will be used for reading incoming write and other system overhead. Write buffer threshold for 5% is added for video recording. This option will push data to disk early.
This feature gives controller extra buffer time in case of slow response from the hard drives within a given time. Conse-
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quently, this can prevent a pause in data flow and there will be continued data access and stream. This feature is very useful for the video streaming applications where there is high demand for constant non-stop data flow with no interruption due to lower performance of specific hardware.
· Read Ahead Count The Read Ahead count is used to define how many times (1, 2, 3, ….., 10) of the “Amount of Read Ahead X Read Ahead Requests” data reading at a time. Default value is Auto: Controller will base on the HDD number to set the amount of Read Ahead Count value. You can select between Auto, 1, 2, ….. or 10.
· Read Ahead Requests The Read Ahead Requests is used to define how many times (1, 2, 3) of the “Amount of Read Ahead ” data reading at a time. Default value is 1. You can select between 1, 2, or 3.
· Amount of Read Ahead Read-Ahead data is buffered in the RAID controller cache, however, thereby cutting down on the amount of I/O traffic to the disk. The Amount of Read Ahead defines how many data of reading at a time, making more efficient use of the RAID storage. This makes it possible to locate and re-issue the data without repetitive hard parsing activities.
The Amount of Read Ahead parameter is used to allocate an amount of memory in the cache memory the frequently executed queries and return the result set back to the host without real disk read execution. Default value is Auto: Controller will base on the HDD number to set the amount of Read Ahead value. You can select between 512KB ~ 16MB.
· Number of AV Stream RAID controllers are required to have not only the function of processing ordinary data but also the function of dealing with AV (audio/video) stream data needing real-time processing. Since the bus cycle used in RAID controller was designed to transfer the computer data exactly, it was unsuitable for the transfer of AV stream needing great band widths. They are required to do some setting for the handshaking during the
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processing of stream data. This setting is an object of transferring stream data efficiently on an existing RAID controller. Normally you should not need to modify this value. Default value is 6. You can select between 6~256.
To decide how to set AV stream play out parameter, you need to check the Number of Stream, Amount of Read Ahead, and Total Cache Memory during runtime. You can try to adjust the three numbers to get the best performance as your requirement. Number of Stream shows the number of stream added to the system, Amount of Read Ahead shows the amount of Read Ahead data taken from the cache without real disk execution, and Total Cache Memory shows the total available memory being installed in the RAID controller.
· Optimize AV Recording AV recording option is for video recording (no time limit), but if used in normal operation, performance may be degraded. This new feature there are 4 options; Disabled, Mode1, Mode2 and Mode 3. Default value is “Disabled”. Our controller cache uses LRU method; there have no special memory capacity reserved for read or write. The Mode 1, 2 and 3 are used to define the command sorting method. The default sorting method is helpful for normal applications, but not useful for AV applications, so we have defined three different sorting methods for these special applications. To decide how to optimize AV stream recording parameter, you need to adjust the Optimize AV Recording, and Write Buffer Threshold during runtime.
· Read Performance Margin The “Read Performance Margin” is for controller to reserve n% read margin during AV stream recording. It is designed to eliminate the frame drop and ensure to provide the smooth and stable performance on the application.
· Write Performance Margin The “Write Performance Margin” is for controller to reserve n% write margin AV stream recording.
AJA Mode Usage: 1. Controller needs to reboot when you adjust the following
settings.
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(1). Optimize For AV Recording: change any setting (2). Read Performance Margin : No <-> X% (3). Write Performance Margin : No <-> X%

2. The following setting is changed for AJA mode, and reboot is required for the setting to take effect.

Optimize AV Mode 3 Mode Disabled/1/2 Mode Disabled/1/2 Mode Disabled/1/2

Setting and Usage

Read Margin Write margin

Any

Description
R/W AJA mode with throttling, no sorting
R/W AJA mode with throttling and sorting
Read AJA mode with throttling and sorting
Write AJA mode with throttling and sorting

. Under Optimize For AV Recording mode: 3 Read Performance Margin and Write Performance Margin are enabled with “No” setting is 0%, reboot is not required to change Read Performance Margin and Write Performance Margin

. If Read Performance Margin or Write Performance Margin are changed to X%, reboot is not required to change X% to Y%.

. For NON-VIDEO application, the following setting is recommended Buffer Threshold Setting: 25% Optimize AV Recording: disabled
Example: (1). Only write throttling is required
(a). Buffer Threshold Setting: 5% (b). Optimize For AV Recording Mode left unchanged (Dis-
abled) (c). Read Performance Margin left unchanged (No) (d). Write Performance Margin set to X% (e). Reboot

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(f). Adjust Write Performance Margin to fine tune the result (no reboot required)
(2). Read/Write Throttling is required and sorting is to be disabled (1). Buffer Threshold Setting: 5% (2). Optimize For AV Recording Mode set to 3 (3). Reboot (4). Adjust Read/Write Performance Margin to fine tune the result (no reboot required)
· Read And Discard Parity Data This function is used to determine if parity data is to be read and discarded. It is designed to eliminate the frame drop and ensure to provide the smooth and stable performance on the application.
· BIOS Selection It combines the “Legacy BIOS” and “UEFI BIOS” and “EFI BIOS” into a single BIOS, and provide BIOS option in the GUI. In the old days, Areca provided separate BIOS files for each, and need to manually flash it in. Now flashing BIOS for different BIOS type is no longer needed, just make the BIOS selection in System Controls: Advance Configuration: BIOS Option. The controller provides three BIOS options. 107
WEB BROWSER-BASED CONFIGURATION
“Legacy” for motherboards that are using regular BIOS boot. “UEFI” for motherboards (especially Intel’s motherboards)
using UEFI boot “EFI” for Intel based MacPro boot “Disable” disable controller BIOS at POST (set to 0xFF)
==> If BIOS is to be disabled –> All data are 0xFF
· Host Command Queue Mode This option is used to solve the the problem with reads stalling that causes by out of order command completion. Choose the “Host Command Queue Mode” option=”Ordered” on the “Advanced Configuration” if you want similar read/write throughputs. There the read and write get the same priority as they are scheduled and the reads are not pushed back.
· Save SED Key In Controller If enable –> disable, clear SED Key saved in setup If disable –> enable, if key exists, save to setup
If enable—>disable, the key will not remain in the flash. So that next time power up again, it will need to input the key from the CLI or McRAID manager. You can also import the key file (Import Security Key) or key-in the password (Enter SED Key By Password) from the GUI interface.
· Fail Disk For Reading Error This option is available to improve the fail disk function if the disk has too many reading errors. This function is the option that RAID controller will kill off the HDD for reading error account setting value.
– 3 errors in 70 seconds: this option also includes 4 errors in 100 seconds, 5 errors in 120 seconds
– 6 errors in 2 minutes: this option also includes 8 errors in 180 seconds, 10 errors in 240 seconds
– 9 errors in 3 minutes: this option also includes 12 errors in 270 seconds, 15 errors in 360 seconds
– Reading Error Does Not Fail Disk
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· Thunderbolt Receive Sleep Request To the user, the system appears to be either on or off. There are no other detectable states. However, the system supports multiple power states that correspond to the power states defined in the Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI) specification. ARC- 8050T3U RAID storage contains power On/Off controls on the controller. The Thunderbolt Receive Sleep Request function is used to define the ARC-8050T3U power state based on the host computer power state. The Thunderbolt Receive Sleep Request options are as follows:
– Turn Power Off (original mode) The power On/Off controls can turn ARC- 8050T3U power in unison with the host computer power state.
– Keep Power On for 10/20/40/60/90/120 minutes or always on The ARC-8050T3U keeps on the time frame of setting when host computer enters sleep state (ACPI S1-S4 state). The ARC-8050T3U automatically turns off itself when it receives ACPI S5 state or is disconnected from host computer. Otherwise you still need to power it off by press Reset Button on the RAID storage.
<1> when sleep request, raid power is kept on, background process is also kept on –> if cable unplugged or forced power off ==> stop background process, flush disk cache and power off –> if host turns on, raid leaves this state and proceed to normal state <2> if normal shutdown, force power off, cable unplug –> normal power off: stop background process, flush disk cache and power off 109
WEB BROWSER-BASED CONFIGURATION
4.9.3 HDD Power Management
Areca has automated the ability to manage HDD power based on usage patterns. The “HDD Power Management” allows you to choose a “Stagger Power On Control”, “Low Power Idle”, “Low RPM” and completely “Spins Down Idle HDD”. It is designed to reduce power consumption and heat generation on idle drives. To set the HDD power management function, move the cursor to the main menu and click the “HDD Power Management” link. The “HDD Power Management” menu will show all items, and then select the desired function.
· Stagger Power On Control In a PC system with only one or two drives, the power can supply enough power to spin up both drives simultaneously. But in systems with more than two drives, the startu

References

Support & Downloads | 廣安科技 Areca

廣安科技 Areca Technology | RAID Storage / Adapter / JBOD

Support & Downloads | 廣安科技 Areca

Read User Manual Online (PDF format)

Read User Manual Online (PDF format) >>

Download This Manual (PDF format)

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Thunderbolt ARC-8050T3U 3 RAID Storage User Manual

Thunderbolt ARC-8050T3U 3 RAID Storage

Product Information

Product Usage Instructions

Copyright and Trademarks

INTRODUCTION

INSTALLATION

References

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