Second-Generation of LSI MegaRAID 6Gb SATA+SAS Controllers

LSI Corporation announced the channel availability of its second-generation MegaRAID SATA+SAS RAID controller cards based on 6Gb/s SAS technology. Powered by the LSI dual-core 6Gb/s SAS RAID-on-Chip (ROC) IC, the new line of MegaRAID controllers delivers server RAID performance, extending the performance offered by the existing family of LSI MegaRAID 6Gb/s SATA+SAS controllers.

 MegaRAID SAS 9265-8i

"LSI has already shipped over 400,000 MegaRAID controller cards based on 6Gb/s SAS technology, while our competitors have only recently announced 6Gb/s SAS controllers," said Brent Blanchard, director of worldwide channel sales and marketing, LSI. "The launch of our second-generation products underscores our continued SAS and RAID technology leadership and will help users maximize the performance benefits of solid-state drives for a greater return on investment and a competitive edge."

The new line of controllers include the MegaRAID SAS 9265-8i, featuring eight internal ports, and the MegaRAID SAS 9285-8e, with eight external ports. The controllers deliver performance levels greater than 200,000 RAID 5 random I/Os per second (IOPS), a 3x improvement compared to the previous-generation products. Users can boost IOPS performance to 465,000 RAID 5 random IOPS utilizing a single controller, enabled with LSI MegaRAID FastPath software, connected to 8 SSDs. This software option is designed to unlock the full performance benefits of SSD configurations by providing high-performance I/O acceleration for SSDs connected to a MegaRAID controller.

To achieve equivalent IOPS performance levels using competing high-performance 6Gb/s SAS RAID controllers could require as many as 3 additional RAID cards, 24 additional SSDs and 3 external 12-drive JBOD enclosures. This translates to a 3x increase in rackspace and power consumption and significantly higher hardware acquisition costs.

The new controllers also deliver leading RAID bandwidth, with 2.7 GB/s sequential read and 3.2 GB/s sequential write throughput, which is 60 percent higher than competitor claims. High RAID IOPS and bandwidth performance is critical to meeting the high I/O transaction demands of database and cloud applications as well as providing the high-bandwidth horsepower needed to meet the processing requirements of financial, digital media, Web 2.0 and medical imaging applications.

"The new LSI MegaRAID 6Gb/s SAS RAID controllers have enabled the ION SR-71 SpeedServer system to break the 1 million IOPS barrier," said Keith Josephson, Chief Technology Officer at ION Computer Systems, Inc. "With these exciting new controllers, the SR-71 SSD optimized server can sustain greater than 1 million IOPS while performing 1KB random reads with an average response time of under 200 microseconds. The combination of very high IOPS with very low latency enabled by the MegaRAID controllers allows ION’s SR-71 application engine to deliver performance that simply cannot be achieved with a disk-based solution while consuming less than 500 Watts of power."

The low-profile MD2 form factor controllers feature the LSISAS2208 SAS ROC IC with its two embedded 800MHz PowerPC processor cores and 1GB DDRIII cache memory. The cards provide support for up to 240 SATA and SAS hard drives or SSDs, and support hardware RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 6, 10 and 60. An optional new intelligent LSIiBBU09 battery backup unit utilizing heat-tolerant cell technology enhances data protection capabilities and provides system builders with the flexibility to mount the LSIiBBU09 to a separate PCI Remote Mounting Board (RMB) or remote within the chassis.

"The Micron RealSSD P300 enterprise-class solid state drive provides stellar performance and endurance for servers, system storage and blade servers running transactional database applications," said Kevin Dibelius, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Micron. "Storage subsystems utilizing multiple P300 SSDs connected to a new LSI MegaRAID controller with LSI FastPath software will provide customers with dramatic performance improvements in raw throughput and response time, both of which are critical to meeting the demands of financial, Web 2.0 and other high random I/O application workloads."

"With a complete range of solid state storage solutions specifically customized for enterprise applications, OCZ SSDs are designed to optimize entire businesses and improve data processing and storage," said Alex Mei, CMO at OCZ Technology Group. "The new LSI MegaRAID 6Gb/s SAS controllers, with industry-leading random IOPS performance and optimized SSD firmware, are ideally suited for storage configurations utilizing these SSDs. The combination of OCZ SSDs with these new LSI controllers will help customers to minimize disk I/O bottlenecks and realize improved total cost of ownership."

"Integrating enterprise-class SSDs like Pliant Lightning Enterprise Flash Drives (EFDs) within leading-edge IT environments enables increased performance when running data-intensive applications, thereby ensuring that mission-critical data is always accessible," said Greg Goelz, vice president of marketing, Pliant Technology. "LSI MegaRAID controllers together with Pliant Lightning EFDs will deliver sustained performance and reliability that’s crucial to data centers and cloud computing environments."

"The explosion of digital content and new media applications demand storage technologies that deliver blazing fast and reliable access to data," said Henry Fabian, executive director of core product marketing, Seagate. "Deployment of the new LSI MegaRAID 6G SAS controllers with Seagate’s range of enterprise Savvio and Cheetah hard drives will provide customers with high levels of sequential I/O throughput in a price and power envelope that small and medium businesses demand."

"In today’s enterprise server and storage environments, applications such as video-on-demand and medical imaging are driving up the requirements for sequential IO throughput," said Darwin Kauffman, WD‘s vice president of enterprise storage. "With sequential writes at 3.2 GB/s and sequential reads at 2.7 GB/s, the new LSI MegaRAID controllers provide system integrators with the perfect complement to the WD S25 600 GB hard drives, to maximize bandwidth performance potential, without sacrificing power efficiency or reliability."

Pricing

8 internal ports

• MegaRAID SAS 9265-8i: $780
• MegaRAID SAS 9265-8i Kit (9265-8i Kit includes cables): $835

8 external ports

• MegaRAID SAS 9285-8e: $995

The new MegaRAID controllers will be demonstrated at CeBIT 2011 taking place March 1-5, 2011, at the Convention Center in Hannover, Germany.

The MegaRAID SAS 9265-8i controller is available. The MegaRAID SAS 9285-8e is expected to be available by the end of March. The products are supplied through the LSI worldwide network of distributors, integrators and VARs.