Description

ARC-1686-NOD Highlights

✵ Supports 2/4/6 Bays M.2

✵ Hardware secure boot ready

✵ x8 PCIe Gen 4.0 host interface

✵ Support individual NVMe PowerDisable feature

✵ Redundant flash image for adapter availability

✵ Capacity expansion, RAID level/stripe size migration

✵ SED support for hardware NVMe encryption capable drives

✵ Tri-mode interface at each M.2 bays – 12Gb/s SAS/SATA / Gen 4.0 PCIe (NVMe)

✵ RAID levels 0, 1 (Simple/Multi Mirroring), 10, Single Disk (Single/Dual/Triple) or JBOD

✵ Device interface PCIe Gen4 NVMe / 6Gbps SATA per M.2 slot

✵ Support off module power loss protection for Non PLP NVMe drive using on-board supercapacitor

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

Entry Level M.2 NVMe Hardware RAID Adapters

The ARC-1686-NOD series presents the advanced hardware RAID technology in enhanced performance of using 2/4/6 Bays M.2 NVMe. The hardware RAID adapter support off module power loss protection (PLP), on-board hold up supercapacitor, and M.2 slot Power Disable feature for guaranteed data protection. This is designed in a 1.6 GHz dual-core ROC processor and PCIe Gen 4.0 host/device interface and supports RAID levels 0, 1 (Simple/Multi Mirroring), 10, Single Disk (Single/Dual/Triple) or JBOD.

	Entry Level M.2 NVMe Hardware RAID Adapter
	ARC-1686-2NOD	ARC-1686-4NOD	ARC-1686-6NOD
Form Factor	64.41(H) x 167.65(L) mm	107.2(H) x 205(L) mm	107.2(H) x 262(L) mm
I/O Processor	Tri-Mode Dual Core ARM A15 1.6GHz ROC
Drive Connector	2 x M.2 Connector	4 x M.2 Connector	6 x M.2 Connector
Drive Support	6Gb/s SATA, Gen 4.0 PCIe (NVMe)
Management Port	In-Band: PCIe
Operating Voltage	12V
ARC-1686-NOD Power Consumption	Approximately 12/14 Watts (without M.2 drive)
Operating Temperature	0 °C to 55 °C
Operating Humidity	10% to 85%, non-condensing
Hold-up Supercapacitor	On-board

Ultrafast Transfer Speed

Unprecedented Performance

Based on the Broadcom SAS3908/SAS3916 x8 PCIe Gen 4.0 to SAS/SATA/PCIe RAID on Chip (ROC) controller, the ARC-1686 entry-level RAID adapter raises the standard to higher performance levels with several enhancements including a new high performance 1.6 GHz dual core ROC processor, outstanding performance PCIe Gen 4.0 host and 12Gb/s SAS/SATA/PCIe (NVMe) interface bus interconnection.

Powerful Broadcom Tri-mode ROC Engine

At the heart of ARC-1686-xNOD is the incredibly powerful Broadcom SAS3908/SAS3916 dual-core ARM A15 tri-mode ROC, giving effortless performance as desirable. It delivers storage interface PCIe Gen 4 NVMe, 12Gb/s SAS, 6Gb/s SATA, and the security of data protection. Damage in a software RAID is considered as the consumption of massive computation and memory bandwidth on the host. The ARC-1686-xNOD hardware RAID relieves the parity generation burden from the host and maximizes application processing performance.

High Bandwidth PCI-E 4.0 Support

To run the PCIe Gen 4.0 slots in Gen 4 speed, please must install the ROC which supports PCI Express 4.0. If you install the PCIe3.0 ROC, the PCI Express 4.0 slots will run only at Gen3 speed.

Higher bit rate – 16.0GT/s
Higher bandwidth per lane – 2GB/s
Higher efficiency – 98.5% encoding efficiency

PCI-E 4.0 support higher interconnect bandwidth

Professional Storage Connectivity

The ARC-1686-xNOD RAID adapter can operate in all three modes concurrently servicing NVMe, SAS or SATA drives that offers the operation of NVMe, SAS or SATA storage devices in a single RAID adapter. With a single ARC-1686-xNOD RAID adapter, system integrators can take full advantage of 6x PCIe Gen 4.0 M.2 x2/x4 NVMe drives or 6Gb/s M.2 SATA SSD drives

Off Module Power (OMP) Loss Protection

An enterprise storages need to ensure data integrity in the event of power losses and system crashes. The Power Loss Protection (PLP) is a hardware and firmware solution on the ARC-1686-NOD RAID adapter to ensure that the NVMe SSDs integrity is maintained should a power loss event occur.

Launch the web browser-based MRAID storage manager to check the power loss event.

(Breadcrumb-Trail: ‘Information‘ > ‘RAID Set Hierarchy‘ > ‘Device Information‘ > ‘Unsafe Shutdowns‘)

Fault LED Stay on for Troubleshooting

On-board Supercapacitor keeps M.2 fault LED status to easy identify failed drive when ARC-1686 RAID adapter removes from the system PCIe slot.

Power Disable Feature (PWRDIS)

The ARC-1686 Power Disable feature provides a M.2 management capability to electrically power cycle a physical NVMe drive in order to perform a power on reset. This can be useful if a NVMe drive locks up for some reason, and you don’t want to send a technician to the physical RAID storage and manually “power down” and “power on” your system in order to power cycle the NVMe drive.

Now, ARC-1686 can do this function automatically to check the drive is indeed failed or can be re-used. ARC-1686 Power Disable feature is similar as Power Disable Feature (PD) – disk cold boot management feature introduced with SATA 3.3 – February 2, 2016.