Introduction

The enterprise market isn't always fun to write about. There are several different users of enterprise products. In one corner you have the serious, true enterprise suits that talk about IOPS per watt, cost analysis with spread sheets and presentations.

Then you have the next tier down with people and companies who need large storage capacities for data files and inner office documentation. Finally you have people like me, the data junkie who just wants access to everything quickly...including Battlefield 3.

Now you might think enterprise product testing has to be a blast, but that isn't always the case either. Some companies do everything they can to keep their serious, expensive products separate from 'those gamer people'. When was the last time you saw an AMD Opteron talked about or reviewed on a general computing review site? AMD is one of those companies that keep their enterprise products well away from us gamer people. AMD isn't the only ones and the RAID controller companies can be just as anal about their products as well.

Areca on the other hand embraces everyone who uses their products. It doesn't matter if you are an IT administrator running a multi-server cluster or just some guy with a handful of SSDs, Areca is there for you regardless of which camp you are from. It is because of this Areca has gained a solid reputation with enthusiasts.

Today we check out the Areca ARC-1882i RAID controller, let's see how it performs.