Adaptec Sata Raid Aar-2820sa Controller Driver Windows 10
Adaptec Sata Controller

The 2610SA is an OEM part manufactured by Adaptec on behalf of Dell and HP (and probably others) though the Dell units I've come into contact with are always fully Adaptec branded without a Dell sticker to be seen. Its a 6 port version of the Adaptec retail product 2410SA/2810SA/21610SA, uses the same drivers and is managed with the same software.

The Adaptec Serial ATA RAID 2610SA is a 6-port Serial ATA RAID controller Supports Adaptec's advanced feature set, including Optimized Disk Utilization, Online Capacity Expansion and RAID Level Migration Supports SATA 2 features including enclosure management and backplanes 64 MB of fixed ECC SDRAM cache memory.
This package supports the following driver models: Adaptec RAID Management Device; Adaptec SCSI RAID 2200S Controller; Adaptec SCSI RAID 2120S Controller.

Adaptec SATA RAID AAR-2820SA Controller Driver

Adaptec Serial ATA RAID 2410SA The Adaptec Serial ATA RAID 2410SA is a 4-port I/O processor-based native SATA RAID controller ideal for high-end workstations and entry-level servers. Advanced features include Optimized Disk Utilization, Online Capacity Expansion, and RAID Level Migration.

Although the 2610SA is a PCI-X card (64 bit PCI) it will work just fine on modern motherboards that have 32 bit PCI slots. Remember though that if you use it in a 32 bit PCI system:

Be extremely careful that the unused and exposed edge connector pins don't touch anything that rises up out of your motherboard. Be careful of heatsinks, SATA ports, metal cases of capacitors and whatnot.
It almost goes without saying that using a 64 bit card in a 32 bit slot will effectively halve (or less) the potential bandwidth of the card, throttling its throughput significantly. This is already a low end RAID card, so be prepared, in 32 bit slots this card is going to significantly under-perform.

In addition to this, the cards vintage is showing, it has the following limitations in a modern environment:

2TB maximum array size. Though you may have many arrays (or volumes), each one must be 2TB or less in size. Conceivably, one could 'span' several independent arrays together inside of Windows Server using traditional Disk Manager techniques or even, presumably, using Storage Spaces on Windows Server 2012/R2.
Various sources on the internet report that the maximum drive size able to be seen by the controller is under 1TB. Even drives that are exactly 1TB in size have been reported as being detected as 750GB. Larger drives may not be seen, or may have 'random' reported sizes. Not really random of course, but usually a modulus of the oversize portion of the disk compared to the 1TB maximum.
Given the hard limits then, and even assuming that you found a 1TB sized drive which was properly reported and could be used, the absolute maximum storage which this controller could conceivably see and manage is 6TB, made up of 3 2TB arrays in JBOD format.

Windows Server 2012 R2

There are no drivers for this card out-of-the-box on Microsoft Windows Server 2012R2. So whats going on here? This controller comes with drivers on Windows Server 2012 R1 but R2 doesn't have any drivers at all. The most reasonable sounding answer is to get those R1 drivers across to the R2 installation and they would probably work right? Right. However, getting them there is not a straight path.

Windows Server 2012 R1/R2 is available in 64 bit only and is very strict on driver signing. Whilst driver signing can be gotten around once the operating system is loaded, at the initial installation stage it might not be so easy, so we have to go around a few times to get everything working.

Start the install of Windows Server 2012R2 as you normally would. If you are intending to boot from your Adaptec 2610SA RAID card then you will be presented with a blank drives available screen but are given the opportunity to load additional drivers. No matter what I did, I couldn't force the installer to accept the Windows 2012 R1 driver at this point, the installer always complained that the driver was unsigned, even if I booted with driver signing turned off.

Instead do this:

Use the Windows Vista x64 driver for the 2420SA. Although of a different generation to our 2610SA it luckily utilises the same driver and the developers hadn't yet stripped out the older code. Major advantages: Its for Vista and its signed, dates from Oct 2007 rather than the earlier 2005 Win2K3 one - and best of all, it works when injected at the installation time of Server 2012R2.

The Vista driver will get you through the installation and allow you to boot and work with the system afterwards, you might be happy to leave it that way. However, if you want to use the most recent RAID management software, Adaptec Storage Manager, then you will absolutely need to update the driver. Adaptec Storage Manager software versions from about v4.x and below will refuse to install on Windows Server 2012R2, citing compatibility problems, if you force the install then you will find that a core installation file is missing, doubtless available in XP/Win2K3, but no longer in Server 2012+. From about version 5.x of the Adaptec Storage Manager the installation will succeed, but the manager software will complain that it needs a driver update and won't let you see or manage your RAID volumes which is why you will need to update to the Windows Server 2012R1 driver.

Once Windows Server 2012R2 is installed and working with the Vista x64 driver:

Restart the server

At startup, press F8 repeatedly until you get a text menu of various boot options. One of these options will be: Disable Driver Signature Enforcement. Select this option and press enter.

Once the server has booted, log in, then open device manager, select the Adaptec 2610SA Controller, right click and choose Update Driver Software -> Browse my computer for driver software -> Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer -> Have disk -> browse to the location of the Windows Server 2012R1 Adaptec 2610SA driver -> ok -> next

A warning will appear 'Windows can't verify the publisher of the driver software', choose to Install this driver software anyway. Click close. Reboot when asked.

You are now free to install the latest version of Adaptec Storage Manager that supports this card. Officially that would be v4.x, but it won't install as mentioned above, however, a bit of experimentation found that although officially unsupported, v7.31.x will install on Windows Server 2012R2 and support the management functions of the card.

Associated Files

File	Version	Source	Additional Notes
Adaptec Windows Vista x64 signed driver	5.2.0.15317	Adaptec Website	This driver is for the Adaptec 2420 and family but works fine with the 2610SA
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R1 x64 unsigned driver	5.2.0.18702	Microsoft	Sourced from a running Windows Server 2012R1
Adaptec Storage Manager x64	7.31.00(18856)	Adaptec Website	Last official version of Storage Manager for the 2610SA is 4.30-16038. 7.31.00 is the last available before the product changed completely to a different platform

Adaptec sata raid aar-2820sa controller driver download

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Changelog:

2017-10-02

Adaptec SATA RAID AAR-2820SA Controller Driver