As some of you may have noticed the server reboots every few days now. Reason for this is the Areca 1680 controller which is very much ready to be replaced. I checked the purchase receipt for it and I've had this controller since April of 2010 and is has been running 24/7 ever since. That makes it a pretty awesome piece of hardware in my book

To replace the 1680 I have ordered a second hand ARECA ARC-1880DI-IX-12 SAS 6G 12 Port RAID Controller for $230. Two years ago this card still sold for $790 new. According to Areca support the ARC-1880 should serve as a drop-in replacement for the ARC-1680 card. I'll make backups before upgrading, but if all goes well it shouldn't be much more work than replacing the card, booting VMware ESXi and (maybe) importing the raid volumes and then the VMs on those volumes. If all goes well...