RAID Cards

During the LSI Accelerating Innovation Summit we noticed a very intriguing looking device on display that stood alone, in that there was no name, test results or information included.  Better yet, NOBODY would speak of it at all! At the top of what we will call the ‘WarpDrive Family’ case (pic below) was a new family member that, for all …

We continue our coverage of exciting new products being announced and previewed this week at AIS 2011 (LSI Accelerating Innovation Summit). Right on the heels of the 12Gb/s introduction, LSI is trumping themselves with a new version of the WarpDrive, an innovative approach to PCI-E based solid state solutions. The space for this type of device is heating up after …

Today at the LSI Accelerating Innovation Summit we were pleased to witness the unveiling of the first working silicon featuring the new 12Gb/s specification. Utilizing the new SAS expander IC, LSI was able to demonstrate speeds in excess of 1 million IOPS from a one adapter solution. The new controller series, featuring the 12Gb/s LSI ROC, makes its debut in …

It was only a few weeks ago that the announcement of the SandForce purchase of LSI was topping SSD news world wide and today we find ourselves attending the LSI Accelerated Innovations Summit (AIS) in Silicon Valley itself. This years AIS took place in Silicon Valley where some of the worlds largest corporations gathered to discuss such things as the …

Today in our lab we will be testing  two of the new Areca ARC-1882 Second-Generation 6Gb/s SAS/SATA RAID adapters. Yes folks, that’s a plural and we are lucky enough to have two of these beasts in our hot little hands.  Get ready for speeds as you seldom see in any technology and review forum.  Sit down, buckle up and hold …

With $45000 in hardware, over 100 hours spent pushing it to it’s limit, speeds of 2.7GB/s and over 461,800 IOPS, we are fairly certain that this RAID Controller and SSD review will be one of our most exciting reports to date, and not matched anytime soon. Today we are going to go head-to-head with the LSI 9265-8i and the Adaptec …

The OCZ Z-Drive R4 PCI Express SSD contains eight SandForce SF-2281 processors, 128 pieces of NAND flash memory and a Superscale Storage Controller. If ever a MONSTER storage device was created, the R4 definitely answers that call. In fact, a simple review just doesn’t seem appropriate for the OCZ Z-Drive R4 (Z-R4).  Let’s throw it in the ring against FUSION-IO’s …

Today we are evaluating the newest version of CacheCade, a storage caching system developed by LSI for use with their MegaRAID controllers. This system aims to create the perfect fusion between HDD capacity and SSD speed, accelerating new or existing storage subsystems that are already in place. A previous CacheCade v1.0 review of the software illustrated some of the extreme …

Today we are going to take an in-depth look at CacheCade, a new approach to storage systems that allows the perfect fusion of HDD capacity and SSD speed. With many large databases and enterprise users ‘caught in the middle’ with large HDD arrays, yet needing more performance from their existing infrastructure, CacheCade is a great option that allows the best …

Welcome to our follow up of the LSI 9265-8i MegaRAID Card, an eight-port PCI Express SATA+SAS RAID Controller that is configured for 6Gb/s devices. Our first LSI review concentrated on RAID 0 speed and performance and the response prompted our further testing of the LSI in a RAID 5 environment. Take a look as we explore the in-depth the performance …