ARCMSR(4)

📦
version 15.1 · 3 versions
, in freebsd 14.5, freebsd 15.1

🎀 ARCMSR(4) — like, the whole page, bestie 🎀

okay so this is the manual page for arcmsr(4), aka the Areca RAID Controller driver, and I'm gonna walk you through it like we're on FaceTime at 1am 💖

✨ NAME ✨

arcmsr — the Areca RAID Controller driver 🫶

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

So to compile this driver into the kernel (iconic move, very main character), you drop these lines into your kernel configuration file:

device pci
device scbus
device da
device arcmsr

Or, alternatively — if you'd rather load it as a module at boot time — put this line in loader.conf(5):

arcmsr_load="YES"

periodt. that's it. 💅

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

The arcmsr driver is the support system for the Areca ARC-11xx, ARC-12xx, ARC-13xx, ARC-16xx and ARC-18xx series of SAS and SATA RAID controllers. slay 🔥

These controllers are giving RAID-0, 1, 3, 5, 6, and 10 and JBOD acceleration for up to 16 SATA drives. not me being obsessed 😭

They also do RAID level and stripe level migration, online capacity expansion, hot insertion/removal, automatic failover and rebuild, and SMART. all of it. ate. 👑

You get to the arrays through the SCSI CAM /dev/da? device nodes, and there's also a management interface hanging out at the /dev/arcmsr? device node. Management tools for i386 and amd64 are available from Areca. 🦋

✨ HARDWARE ✨

The arcmsr driver supports these Areca PCI-X/PCIe SATA/SAS/NVMe RAID host adapters, and yes I'm listing every single one because we don't skip 💜

  • ARC-1110
  • ARC-1120
  • ARC-1130
  • ARC-1160
  • ARC-1170
  • ARC-1110ML
  • ARC-1120ML
  • ARC-1130ML
  • ARC-1160ML
  • ARC-1200
  • ARC-1201
  • ARC-1203
  • ARC-1210
  • ARC-1212
  • ARC-1213
  • ARC-1214
  • ARC-1216
  • ARC-1220
  • ARC-1222
  • ARC-1223
  • ARC-1224
  • ARC-1226
  • ARC-1230
  • ARC-1231
  • ARC-1260
  • ARC-1261
  • ARC-1270
  • ARC-1280
  • ARC-1210ML
  • ARC-1220ML
  • ARC-1231ML
  • ARC-1261ML
  • ARC-1280ML
  • ARC-1380
  • ARC-1381
  • ARC-1680
  • ARC-1681
  • ARC-1880
  • ARC-1882
  • ARC-1883
  • ARC-1884
  • ARC-1886

that's the whole roster, no cap 🌈

✨ FILES ✨

  • /dev/da? — the array block device 🍓
  • /dev/arcmsr? — the management interface 🧚

✨ SEE ALSO ✨

da(4), scbus(4) — go read those too, iykyk 👀

✨ HISTORY ✨

The arcmsr driver first appeared in FreeBSD 5.4. vintage. ⭐

✨ AUTHORS ✨

The driver was written by Erich Chen <erich@areca.com.tw>. thank you erich, king behavior 👑💖

✨ BUGS ✨

The driver has been tested on i386 and amd64. It likely requires additional work to function on big-endian architectures.

lowkey important: big-endian is not confirmed working, so don't come for me if it acts up there 💀

and that's the whole page, bestie!! this came to you from the Debian manual, dated April 5, 2026 — mwah, go touch some RAID arrays 🎀💅✨

📦 where this page comes from