LSI First to Ship New High-Performance 12Gb/s SAS Products

[mobilenvidia]

I take it Intels Haswell Mobo's might be coming out with more than 2x SATA3 ports.
So LSI and Adaptecs 2+ SAS2/SATA3 ports domination will come to an end.
Only one way to fix it, go SAS3/SATA4.

1GB/s from a single SSD (given time) woohoo.

Now how long will it be before we see these available to masses

12Gb/s SAS RAID-on-Chip and I/O controllers deliver performance required for next-generation server and external storage platforms




CEBIT, HANNOVER, GERMANY, March 5, 2013 –LSI Corporation (NASDAQ: LSI) today announced the company is first to ship production-level 12Gb/s SAS RAID-on-Chip (ROC) and I/O controller solutions to OEM customers. 12Gb/s SAS technology is designed to deliver double the data transfer rate of prior SAS solutions and unleashes the full performance potential of next-generation enterprise systems deploying high-performance solid-state storage.

The new products include:

• 12Gb/s SAS ROC: LSISAS3108
• 12Gb/s SAS I/O Controller: LSISAS3008

At CeBIT, LSI is demonstrating the LSISAS3108 ROC plus MegaRAID[SUP]®[/SUP] 6 technology along with the LSISAS3x48 SAS expander. For those looking to take advantage of 12Gb/s speeds with existing 6Gb/s drive infrastructure, LSI is showcasing DataBolt™ technology, a bandwidth optimizer performance acceleration feature. DataBolt technology, combined with the extended bandwidth of PCIe[SUP]®[/SUP] 3.0, is designed to deliver double the throughput performance while using today’s 6Gb/s SAS or SATA drive solutions. With this feature, DataBolt technology offers product enhancements and future proofing that helps protect customers’ hard disk drive (HDD) and solid state drive (SSD) investments.

“The explosive growth of data in cloud and enterprise datacenters drives the need for a higher-performance storage interface that enables more rapid access to data,” said Jeff Janukowicz, research director for Solid State Storage and Enabling Technologies at IDC. “12Gb/s SAS addresses this requirement by doubling the performance of current 6Gb/s SAS-based systems, and helps to unlock the full potential of PCI Express[SUP]®[/SUP] 3.0-based systems and the most recent solid-state storage solutions.”

By doubling the data transfer rate of 6Gb/s SAS solutions, 12Gb/s SAS allows the SAS infrastructure to deliver bandwidth that exceeds that of PCI Express 3.0 with a single host bus adapter (HBA). The improved bandwidth, backed by I/O processing capabilities to maximize link utilization, supports increased scaling of traditional HDDs as well as improved SSD performance. 12Gb/s SAS also provides customers with investment protection with backward compatibility with 3Gb/s and 6Gb/s SAS.

“Today’s announcement underscores LSI’s 12Gb/s SAS leadership as we continue to drive first-to-market solutions for data protection and acceleration,” said Kelly Bryant, vice president of marketing, RAID Storage Division, LSI. “With leading designs and unique capabilities like DataBolt technology, LSI 12Gb/s SAS solutions are designed to deliver the performance required for the most demanding next-generation server and storage platforms.”

Production-volume shipments of the 12Gb/s SAS ROC and 12Gb/s SAS I/O controller are occurring this month, followed by the availability of 12Gb/s SAS expanders, MegaRAID controllers and HBAs in Q2.

Since the inception of SAS, LSI has delivered an industry-leading portfolio of products including SAS ROC, controller and expander ICs, HBAs, MegaRAID and 3ware[SUP]®[/SUP] RAID controllers, 6Gb/s SAS switches, advanced software options and WarpDrive[SUP]®[/SUP] SLP-300 acceleration cards. Based on a 25-year track record of hardware and firmware expertise and extensive validation processes, LSI is the SAS product supplier of choice for OEMs that want to deliver a broad set of storage solutions for the highest performance and best ROI.


More information on the complete LSI SAS portfolio is available at www.lsi.com/sas

 

[badatSAS]

The thing that makes this exciting to me is that it will mean you will be selling another HBA/RAID card when you get one of these ;-)

 

[TheBay]

And I've just bought a LSI2308!

 

[Patrick]

And I've just bought a LSI2308!

It will still be a bit until these start shipping along with compatible drives. But it is certainly coming.

Also mobilenvidia... I was going to post a main site on that release this week! Sent an ask to LSI for pictures. Oh well.

 

[cactus]

Are initiator side connections staying the same? SFF-8482 on the drive side.

 

[Dragon]

Good stuff, with the rate of progress in the past few years, it is like everything is already a year old the moment you buy them fresh out of the market, and you just wonder what your grand-grand-grand kids will be playing with.

Btw the first batch of Haswell has a USB3 bug and they aren't doing a recall.

 

[TheBay]

Btw the first batch of Haswell has a USB3 bug and they aren't doing a recall.

That's interesting, I only jumped to Ivy for my workstations a month back, I always seem to wait for issues to get ironed out and usually go for intel's Tick cycle and even then don't jump straight on it because motherboard usually come in a rev 1.1 or rev 2.0. So I may only just have current technology for a few months but I prefer stability. Same goes for server stuff.

Sandy had issues originally but that got sorted, seems a common thing.

 

[Dragon]

That's interesting, I only jumped to Ivy for my workstations a month back, I always seem to wait for issues to get ironed out and usually go for intel's Tick cycle and even then don't jump straight on it because motherboard usually come in a rev 1.1 or rev 2.0. So I may only just have current technology for a few months but I prefer stability. Same goes for server stuff.

Sandy had issues originally but that got sorted, seems a common thing.

That is a smart move, nowadays Intel can afford to be careless as AMD is still 2 generations behind.

Choosing a new setup is tough these days, every choice comes with "it's good but..." and "x is coming in a few months...", good thing Patrick told us about the "very cheap & good enough" C6100, that is something I would have never found out on my own, the "Dell" keyword is on my blacklist and I haven't typed the word "Dell" in any search boxes for at least 5 years.

 

[mobilenvidia]

Also mobilenvidia... I was going to post a main site on that release this week! Sent an ask to LSI for pictures. Oh well.

Whoops sorry, quickly posted it this morning as I found it
You can do the 4000 series release

I may need to start saving, and take one for a spin as they come out.

Late this year, early next we should also see PCIe Gen 4, then we're smoking, and no looking back at spindles

 

[Patrick]

Late this year, early next we should also see PCIe Gen 4, then we're smoking, and no looking back at spindles

The other thing we will see this year is more NAND sitting in DIMM slots and bypassing all of this PCIe bus stuff.

 

[TheBay]

The other thing we will see this year is more NAND sitting in DIMM slots and bypassing all of this PCIe bus stuff.

Now that's interesting!

 

[mobilenvidia]

The other thing we will see this year is more NAND sitting in DIMM slots and bypassing all of this PCIe bus stuff.

Taking a leaf from Areca's book then.

Not so sure though, looks like the SAS3108's are getting 2GB 1866Mhz DDR3 cache

 

[mobilenvidia]

Some piccies I posted ages ago to re-wet the appetite:

LSI9360-8i

LSI9380-8e

LSI9340-8i

 

[cactus]

Man, LSI really changes up their board designs...

 

[Jeggs101]

Taking a leaf from Areca's book then.

Viking has been doing for years. Others have too

 

[mobilenvidia]

Man, LSI really changes up their board designs...

i found the pictures nearly a year ago.
LSI may have changed their layout since then.
Well since then the LSI9266/70/71 and LSI9286 have come out, which look awfully like the pictures above.

PCIe Gen 3 = about 6.4MB/s before it runs out of puff.
Will only take 4x SAS3/SATA4 SSD's to saturate the bus.
There will be a whole new updated range for PCIe Gen4

 

[mobilenvidia]

Viking has been doing for years. Others have too

I had a DPT conrtroller in the late 80's which too 4x DIMMs, so know all about that.
Was referring to more recent LSI SAS bases controllers, where Areca are the leaders, Dell to a lesser extent too I suppose.

 

[Jeggs101]

makes sense was referring to nand on DIMMs here

 

[mobilenvidia]

makes sense was referring to nand on DIMMs here

I have one on the M5016

I wonder if LSI will make Cachevault standard on their controllers, or keep it as a costly extra, along with Cachecade often sending the controller way over $1000

 

[mobilenvidia]

LSI 9361-8i

I forgot about all 93xx controllers getting HD ports and here they can been seen.
Looks like the card is very similar in other regards to the LSI9266/71
CacheVault will be an extra add on daugher board as it is now.

Big thanks for 3DNews for going to Cebit to get the picture.