Areca ARC-8050T5U-6 – 48TB

The Areca ARC-8050T5U-6 48TB is the six-bay SAS/SATA member of Areca's ARC-8050T5U Thunderbolt 5 hardware RAID family. This configuration combines six 8TB enterprise hard drives with Areca's dedicated hardware RAID platform.

Compared with the four-bay 4A, the six-bay model adds a faster dual-core 1.2GHz SAS ROC, 2GB DDR3-1866 ECC-protected cache, 12Gb/s SAS drive connectivity and SFF-8644 expansion while retaining Thunderbolt 5 and USB-C 10Gb host support.

48TB Enterprise Storage

Six 8TB 7200rpm enterprise hard drives provide 48TB of raw capacity and are covered by a five-year drive warranty. Final usable capacity depends on RAID level and formatting. As a planning guide, RAID 5 provides approximately 40TB before formatting, RAID 6 approximately 32TB, and RAID 10 approximately 24TB.

Dual-Core 1.2GHz Hardware RAID

The ARC-8050T5U-6 uses a dual-core Broadcom SAS RAID-on-Chip controller running up to 1.2GHz with 2GB DDR3-1866 on-board SDRAM cache and ECC protection. RAID processing, parity calculations and rebuild work are handled by the storage controller rather than the host CPU.

Thunderbolt 5 And USB-C 10Gb

Two Thunderbolt 5 ports provide up to 80Gb/s bidirectional Thunderbolt bandwidth. On a compatible USB-only computer the USB-C connection operates using USB 3.2 Gen 2 at up to 10Gb/s. Thunderbolt 5 Bandwidth Boost can provide up to 120Gb/s for supported display-intensive workflows.

SFF-8644 SAS Expansion

An external SFF-8644 connection provides two lanes of SAS expansion, allowing the controller to work with additional compatible SAS/SATA storage beyond the six internal bays. RAID 60 is supported by the controller but requires more drives than the six internal bays alone provide.

Flexible RAID Protection

Supported modes include RAID 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50 and 60 together with Single Disk and JBOD. RAID 30 and RAID 50 can be implemented with six drives; RAID 60 requires a sufficiently large expanded drive set.

Display And Daisy-Chain Connectivity

A full-size DisplayPort 2.1 output is provided alongside the Thunderbolt 5 ports. Compatible Thunderbolt peripherals can be daisy-chained from the RAID.

Independent RAID Management

The system can be configured and monitored through the front-panel LCD, through the host connection or independently using the dedicated Gigabit Ethernet management port. Areca's McRAID browser interface and ArcSAP provide additional local and remote administration options. The Ethernet port is for RAID management rather than host storage connectivity.

Data Protection And Security

Controller-based AES 128-bit and 256-bit hardware encryption is supported together with compatible self-encrypting drives. Additional RAID functions include drive-health monitoring, array verification, disk scrubbing, hot-spare support and online RAID migration.

Desktop Power And Acoustics

The six-bay chassis uses a 180W internal power supply and Areca's intelligent cooling control. Areca's current family documentation lists the ARC-8050T5U-6 at approximately 37dB sound pressure.

Configured And Tested By Rent a Raid

Rent a Raid can preconfigure and test the system before dispatch, including an appropriate RAID level for the intended Mac or Windows workflow, so the hardware RAID set can arrive ready for deployment.

Host Compatibility

Thunderbolt 5 host support is specified for macOS 15.3 or later and Windows 11 23H2 or later. Thunderbolt 4 is supported on macOS 14.x or later and Windows 11 or later; compatible Thunderbolt 3 Macs require macOS 15.0 or later. USB host operation is OS independent.