How To: Replace PERC6 In The r710 With An Areca ARC-1680

[Brian A. Seklecki]

All:

Here are a few quick notes & photos on ripping the PERC6 out of an r710
and replacing it with an Areca ARC-1680IX-12 :

Photos:  http://digitalfreaks.org/~lavalamp/cp/thumbnails.php?album=52


1) The PERC6 performance is really poor.  It's really slow to
   write on any RAID level.  In  RAID5, it averages writes ~30-50 
   MBps where as Areca cards average 300-400 MBps

   - It's even faster with ZFS on FreeBSD/amd64 RELENG_8 and some 
     sysctl tweaks

   - The management interface is horrible, the documentation for 
     the proprietary CLI is horrible, and after 10 years, its yet
     to be integrated into the IPMI BMC

   - It's probably not Dell's fault.  LSI/QLogic makes the 
     chip; blame them (But it's Dell that takes it in the hilt, 
     repeatably, with every generation of server, when they 
     renew the contract)

     I used to get faster disk I/O in my SBUS QLogic FAS408 in my
     SparcStation 20.

     Anyway, you get what you pay for with Dell;.. but you can get a 
     lot more w/ Areca...for what you pay for with Dell!?

2) The latest r710 and PERC6 use the industry standard SAS SFF-8087
   internal cable connector between the HBA and the backplane.

   That means you can just swap out the HBA, or if you're one of
   Dell's big embedded clients, order the unit w/o PERC6 or have
   Dell ship you whatever you want (3Ware?), probably.

3) Installation of the Areca ARC-1680IX-12 

   We used a PCIe x8 SAS RAID Card 2/512mb Cache.  We purchased it 
   off of NewEgg.com for appropriately the same price as a PERC6 adds 
   to an r710.  The LCD monitor and battery put it slightly over.

   The unit is PCIE-8x and there's 512 of DDR Cache onboard, 2GB 
   DDR addon, with up to 4GB addon (PERC can't compete here).  

   The card has it's own Intel IOP348 1200MHz CPU, an 
   IPv4-enabled firmware (Web, SSH, Telnet, SNMP, SMTP), and 
   very very decent mgmnt F/OSS support.

   You can see photos of the ARC-1680X-12 in Pictures 10, 13, 14.

   The external connectors on the card are:
    - RS232 over RJ11/RJ14 (The included cable terminates to DB9M)
    - Ethernet management 
    - External SAS SFF-8088

3.1) Installation Notes 

   In pictures 3 and 4, you can see the Dell SFF-8087 cables from 
   the PERC6 terminating into the backplane.  The cables run along
   a raceway on the right side of the case (oriented look at the
   faceplate)
  
   In pictures 1 and 2, if you remove the CPU/RAM cover and front 
   fan bank, you can see the cables in the raceway.

   Trace them back to the PERC6 and disconnect them from the HBA
   (Dell used a proprietary ribbon connector on the PERC6 side; 
   good thinking Dell!  Look at how well proprietary worked for 
   IBM, Sun, etc.). This connector can be seen in picture 6 and 12.
.
   Pull the cables out of the raceway, then disconnect the SFF-8087 
   from the SAS backplane.

   As you can see in picture 6, the PERC6 is secured in place in
   a special PCIE port retainer that reminds me MCA or EISA cards 
   in my PS/2 servers.
 
   The retainer is a T-16 hex nut head, as see in picture 8.  Failing
   that, use an acetylene welder or plasma torch.

   Install your Areca card on the top PCI-E 8x/16x port (picture 15)

   Install the SFF-SFF cable, included with the Areca, as seen 
   in picture into the r710 backplane raceway. See picture 16 
   and 20

   You may need to run multiple SFF cables depending on your
   backplane configuration.

   Note: 90 degree angled cables would be best.  Dell has the 
         custom made apparently, I can't find them on the 
         Interwebs, so I carefully bend the SFF connector.
  
   Restore the fan array and CPU/RAM cover.

   Note: Photo 21 the SAS/SFF cable goes above the cover, so
         tuck the cover under the cable (90deg cable 
         mitigates this)

   Final cable routing seen in Picture 22.

   Restore case and experience an instantaneous "I/O'gasm' as 
   your $16k server screams to life.
  
   Did I mention that the Areca has volume management 
   built into it? >:}

   Walk directly to the local bar and buy everyone a few
   rounds with the money you saved by having a few fast
   severs instead a datacenter full of them trying to keep
   up with the Slony backlog.

   Good luck and let me know if you have any questions (or where to 
   find some slick SFF-8087 cables with a 90deg angle connector)
  
   You can see a dmesg(8) for the r710 w/ areca for NetBSD/amd64
   -current from last month at:

http://www.nycbug.org/?NAV=dmesgd;f_dmesg=;f_bsd=;f_nick=;f_descr=;dmesgid=2016#2016

   Thanks, 

   ~BAS


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