The SSD Review The Worlds Dedicated SSD Education and Review Resource | 
LSI Extends MegaRAID Controller and HBA Families with PCI Express 3.0, Enabling Storage Providers to Manage Massive Data Growth
Family of 10 new RAID controller cards and HBAs deliver high performance, data protection and scalability to meet the needs of datacenter, cloud and high-performance computing environments
MILPITAS, Calif., June 26, 2012 “ LSI Corporation (NYSE: LSI) today introduced its latest MegaRAID® 6Gb/s SAS+SATA controllers and host bus adapters (HBAs) featuring the PCI Express® 3.0 interface.
Seven new LSI MegaRAID controllers are offered with four or eight ports and provide a powerful combination of intelligent performance, enterprise RAID data protection and proven interoperability. Three new LSI HBA models provide state-of-the-art connectivity for servers and appliances in a variety of enterprise-level environments including corporate datacenters, the cloud and high-performance computing.
In the face of massive data growth, system builders and resellers are racing to meet increasing demand for larger, more scalable systems that deliver reliability and high performance, said Brent Blanchard, director of worldwide channel sales and marketing, LSI. The addition of PCIe 3.0 on the new MegaRAID controllers and HBAs brings dramatically higher levels of performance and allows greater system design flexibility, with proven LSI product quality and reliability.
The MegaRAID controllers announced today increase performance and protection for business and mission-critical data stored on high-performance SAS hard drives, high-capacity SATA hard drives or application-accelerating solid state drives (SSDs). Each controller is powered by the LSI SAS 2208/2308 RAID-on-Chip using 6Gb/s SAS technology and includes dual 800MHz PowerPC® Processor cores with 1GB cache memory.
LSI MegaRAID controllers and HBAs have been trusted core building blocks for EchoStreams server and storage systems, delivering performance and reliability while also being easy to qualify and integrate, said Gene Lee, president and CEO, EchoStreams Innovative Solutions. The latest LSI PCIe 3.0-based 6Gb/s SAS controllers and HBAs allow us to take advantage of the unprecedented memory and I/O bandwidths of the latest Intel Romley platform and offer our customers the ultimate throughput and I/O per dollar ratio that no one has been able to achieve before.
The PCIe 3.0 interface delivers a bit rate of 8 gigatransfers per second (GT/s), roughly twice the bandwidth of the prior generation, and incorporates a number of key new features to improve data transmission and protection as well, including transmitter and receiver equalization, PLL improvements and clock data recovery.
The 9271-8iCC and 9286CV-8eCC MegaRAID cards come in easy-to-order prepackaged configurations that include the LSI CacheCade® Pro 2.0 application acceleration software that optimizes SSD caching performance. Additional models include the onboard LSI flash-based CacheVault data protection option for even greater system protection.
Pricing and Availability
LSI MegaRAID SAS+SATA Controllers
- MegaRAID SAS 9270-8i single/kit $780/$835
- MegaRAID SAS 9271-4i single/kit $540/$575
- MegaRAID SAS 9271-8i single/kit $780/$835
- MegaRAID SAS 9271-8iCC single $1,050
- MegaRAID SAS 9286-8e single $995
- MegaRAID SAS 9286CV-8e single $1,255
- MegaRAID SAS 9286CV-8eCC single $1,525
LSI SAS+SATA HBAs:
- SAS 9207-4i4e single/kit $335/$415
- SAS 9207-8i single/kit $305/$385
- SAS 9207-8e sing $510
The new LSI HBAs listed above are available immediately. The MegaRAID products are sampling now with general availability expected during Q3 2012. The products are supplied through the LSI worldwide network of distributors, integrators and VARs.
The new controllers and HBAs extend the industry’s most comprehensive portfolio of enterprise RAID and application acceleration storage solutions available in the channel, including MegaRAID and 3ware® RAID controllers, host bus adapters, Nytro WarpDrive family, and advanced software caching and data protection options.
Additional information is available at www.lsi.com/channel. Follow LSI on Twitter.
About LSI
LSI Corporation (NYSE: LSI) designs semiconductors and software that accelerate storage and networking in datacenters, mobile networks and client computing. Our technology is the intelligence critical to enhanced application performance, and is applied in solutions created in collaboration with our partners. More information is available at www.lsi.com.
LSI, the LSI & Design logo, the Storage.Networking.Accelerated. tagline, CacheCade, CacheVault, Nytro, WarpDrive, 3ware and MegaRAID are trademarks or registered trademarks of LSI Corporation.
All other brand or product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
> PCIe Gen 2 devices are being replaced by PCIe Gen 3
We need to reiterate 2 key features of PCIe Gen 3:
8 GHz clock rate AND 130b/128b “jumbo frames”.
By design, these 2 features result in 8G / 8b = ~1.0 GB/second throughput
at the chipset level, for a single x1 PCIe “lane”.
However, current 6G SSDs remain limited by
6 GHz clock rates AND 10b/8b “legacy frames”,
and the best are now bumping against this
“glass ceiling” e.g. 550 MB/second READS.
So, we can raise the ceiling by increasing the
clock rate to 8G (at least) or 12G and
keeping legacy frames, like this:
8G / 10b = 800 MB/second
12G / 10b = 1,200 MB/second
But, the PCIe Gen3 spec offers a wonderful opportunity
to “sync” it with all future SATA standards, i.e. by also adding
the 130b/128b “jumbo frame” to the SATA standard e.g.:
8G / 8b = ~1.0 GB/second per channel
12G / 8b = ~1.5 GB/second per channel
16G / 8b = ~2.0 GB/second per channel
… and so on.
Dropping 2 extra bits from every byte transmitted
should also eliminate a lot of overhead in
controllers at both ends of the data cables!
FYI: More details are at the Forums here:
“SATA-IV” Proposal: A Flexible Topology for PCIe 3.0
MRFS
I haven’t found any decent information anywhere between the 2308 and the 2208 chips; this article is similarly vague. Any ideas where to find the differences?