Specifications
Product Family
Areca ARC-1886 series PCIe 4.0 tri-mode RAID adapters (4th generation)
RAID-on-Chip
1.6 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A15 ROC processor
Cache
8 GB DDR4-2666 with ECC protection
Host Interface
PCIe 4.0 x8 (8-lane)
Drive Interface
Tri-mode at every port: 12 Gb/s SAS, SATA and Gen4 PCIe NVMe
ARC-1886-8I
8 internal ports, 1 x SFF-8654 (x8), low profile
ARC-1886-8X
8 external ports, 2 x SFF-8644 (x4)
ARC-1886-4X8I / 4X12I
8 or 12 internal plus 4 external ports; 2 x SFF-8654 (x8) + 1 x SFF-8644 (x4)
ARC-1886-8X8I
8 internal plus 8 external, 1 x SFF-8654 (x8) + 2 x SFF-8644 (x4), LP-MD2
ARC-1886-16I
16 internal ports, 2 x SFF-8654 (x8), 205 x 107.2 mm
ARC-1886-4N8I
8 internal ports plus 4 M.2 connectors, 1 x SFF-8654 (x8)
Maximum Drives
512 x 12 Gb/s SAS/SATA drives via expanders, or up to 32 NVMe drives via PCIe switch
RAID Levels
0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60, single disk and JBOD
Advanced RAID
RAID 00 and RAID 100, RAID 1 multi-mirroring, mirrored pass-through disk
Cache Policy
Write-through or write-back with read/write cache allocation by policy
Cache Backup
Optional ARC-1886-CBM cache backup module with SuperCap protection
Availability
Redundant flash image, online array roaming, global and dedicated hot spares
Online Operations
Capacity expansion and RAID level/stripe migration, instantaneous availability
Security
Controller-level hardware encryption with self-encrypting drive management
Enclosure Management
UBM, SES2, SMP and SGPIO; SFF-9402-compliant connector pinout
Power and Thermals
~12 W (8-port) to ~14 W (12/16-port); 0-60 C operating
Management
McRAID Storage Manager web GUI, CLI/API with CIM provider, McBIOS and EFI shell utility, SNMP/SMTP alerts
Operating Systems
Native in-box NVMe driver, or Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, macOS, VMware ESXi, XenServer, unRAID
Overview
The ARC-1886 family is Areca's fourth-generation tri-mode controller line, and its appeal in AI and data-centre builds is the combination of a fast ROC and genuine protocol flexibility. A 1.6 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A15 RAID-on-Chip with 8 GB of DDR4-2666 ECC cache sits behind a PCIe 4.0 x8 host interface, while every drive port can negotiate 12 Gb/s SAS, SATA or Gen4 NVMe, so a single adapter can front mixed flash and disk tiers.
Model coverage spans 8 to 16 ports in internal, external and hybrid layouts, plus the ARC-1886-4N8I which adds four M.2 sockets for local NVMe boot or cache. Full RAID 0 through 60 support, online capacity expansion with simultaneous RAID-level migration, SED management and an optional SuperCap-backed cache module make these suited to storage nodes that cannot take downtime for a rebuild or a controller swap.
Key Benefits
Tri-mode ports let one adapter serve SAS, SATA and NVMe drives across the life of the platform. 8 GB ECC cache with redundant flash image sustains write performance and protects configuration. 512-drive scalability and full RAID 6/60 support cover large data pools, and the low-profile MD2 footprint fits standard 1U and edge chassis.
Applications
AI training-data storage nodes, RAID-backed inference servers, video and media archives, database hosts needing hardware RAID 6 with cache protection, and mixed SAS/NVMe tiering where one controller must front both.
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