PMC-Sierra Announcing Adaptec 24-Port RAID Adapter

PMC-Sierra, Inc. announced high-density storage connectivity support for the Open Compute Project.

With three times as many ports as other solutions, the Adaptec 78165 24-port RAID adapter enables the densest open rack storage capacity, connecting more Open Vault JBOD storage arrays per Winterfell server head node. A common scale-out configuration can support connectivity for 360 drives per rack, a 33% increase in capacity, with fewer Winterfell servers. This level of capacity with performance per watt is for deploying storage at scale for workloads such as Hadoop big data Analytics or OpenStack IaaS.

“By increasing the storage connectivity that an adapter can provide, PMC has redefined how a rack can be architected,” said Mike Yang, GM, Quanta QCT. “With this level of connectivity density, we can increase storage density in the rack and deliver an efficient solution for today’s large-scale cloud data centers.“

“We have been working with PMC to benchmark the Adaptec 78165 RAID adapter in a Winterfell chassis,” said Steven Lu, senior director, product management, Wiwynn. “There is no better combination of performance and connectivity for high-density server environments.“

The reference architecture is based on the OCP’s open rack form factor that re-engineers the data center rack for power efficiency, serviceability and investment protection. The low-profile/MD2 form factor was designed for the high-density server environments that OCP Winterfell servers and Open Vault JBODs enable. It gives space-limited data centers the ability to deploy internal and external SAS and SATA connectivity and the latest PCIe 3.0 specification. The adapter can be used in RAID, simple volume or physical drive applications and performs at up to 6.6GB/s on sequential reads and up to 5.2GB/s on sequential writes (with RAID-0), more than doubling the performance of competing solutions.

“PMC’s high-density storage technology provides the connectivity to enable the Open Compute ecosystem, and it fits perfectly with the OCP’s mission for scalable, efficient and cost-effective storage,” said Jared Peters, VP of server storage solutions, PMC. “We’re committed to contributing to OCP work group specifications and other projects across the industry to enhance current and future data center solutions.“

Like other products in the Adaptec by PMC Series 7 family, the 78165 utilizes PMC’s 24-port RAID on chip, mini SAS HD connectors and zero-maintenance cache protection, which uses flash memory to protect cached data and eliminates battery backup units.

The Adaptec 78165 is available in volume production.