HighPoint RocketRAID 2840A 16-Channel HBA Now Available

Bohs Hansen / 7 years ago

HighPoint RocketRAID 2840A HBA (front angle)

HighPoint has announced the availability of the industry’s most affordable 16-Channel SAS RAID controller to date, the RocketRAID 2840A. The new HBA comes with an MSRP of just $249.00 while being low-profile and offering 16 drive channels.

The RocketRAID 2840A builds on the success of the market-proven RocketRAID 2700 series, but it breaks through the price barriers imposed on applications that demand PCIe 3.0 transfer performance.

Optimize and Maximize your Storage

The RocketRAID 2840A HBA allows you to build comprehensive yet compact storage setups. The 16 SAS/SATA channels and full RAID capability have been condensed into a compact, low-profile form factor. It offers the user RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50 and JBOD as well as non-RAID mode.

The add-in card features four SFF-8643 mini-SAS HD ports of which each port supports up to 6Gbps. The add-in itself is an 8-lane 8GT/s PCIe 3.0 card which makes it compatible with most mATX and larger motherboards. Also some mITX, but these small motherboards often carry 4-lane PCIe slots in x16 physical slots.

Low Cost does not Mean Low on Features

HighPoint took two decades of knowledge and condensed it into a compact controller full of professional-grade features, but they are doing it without breaking the users budget. The controller supports configurations of SAS or SATA hard drives of any disk format, including 512, 512e and 4Kn.

HighPoint RocketRAID 2840A HBA (rear angle)

The HBA comes with integrated storage and RAID recovery features to enhance data retrieval from failed disks and streamlines rebuild sessions. Speaking of streamlined, the web-based management is so too. It offers a wealth of monitoring and maintenance features which enable administrators to check up on the system. Individual drives and arrays can be investigated and admins can easily schedule verification session to ensure the health.

Advanced options such as Online Capacity Expansion (OCE), and Online RAID Level Migration (ORLM) are also present. They allow administrators to add disks to or convert one RAID level to another in order to tune storage for maximum performance or data security.

The data setup is also future proofed through Online RAID Roaming. It allows owners to move existing RAID arrays to other RocketRAID controllers, RocketStor RAID Enclosures, and any future HighPoint RAID products.

Advanced RAID Feature List

Flash ROM for Upgradeable BIOS
Storage Health Inspector
Redundant RAID Configurations
BIOS PnP (plug and play) and BBS (BIOS boot specification) support
Bootable RAID Array
EFI for Mac Platform
Multiple RAID Partitions supported
Storage Configurations: Direct Attached
Support up to 4 RAID controllers per system
Online Array Roaming
Online RAID Level Migration (ORLM)
RAID Quick Initialization for fast array setup
Online Capacity Expansion (OCE)
Drive hot-plug support
Global Hot Spare Disk support
Automatic and configurable RAID Rebuilding Priority
Auto resume incomplete rebuilding after power on or reboot system
Disk Format compatible: 512, 512e, 4Kn
Larger than 2 TB Drive and RAID Array support
Spin down Massive Arrays of Idle Disks support
Native Command Queuing
Disk media scan and repair
Device Error Recovery support
Automatic remap and fix drive bad block for Redundant RAID Levels (RAID 1, 5, 6, 10, 50)
Staggered Drive Spin Up
Write Back and Write Through

HighPoint RocketRAID 2840A HBA (top)

Comprehensive OS Support

The RocketRAID 2840A is compatible with all major operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Linux
Distributions and FreeBSD. This includes open source driver packages and a full-featured command line interface (CLI) in the Linux version. In addition, an API library is available for integration.