User guide

LSI Corporation
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12Gb/s MegaRAID SAS RAID Controllers User Guide
October 2013
Chapter 1: Overview
Summary of 12Gb/s MegaRAID SATA+SAS RAID Controller Characteristics
1.6 Summary of 12Gb/s MegaRAID SATA+SAS RAID Controller Characteristics
This section summarizes the features and benefits offered by the 12Gb/s MegaRAID SATA+SAS RAID controllers. It
contains information on SAS features, SATA features, PCI performance, integration, usability, and flexibility.
The 12Gb/s MegaRAID SATA+SAS RAID controllers have the following features:
 PCIe x8 lane width (with support for x16 connections)
 PCIe performance up to 8Gb/s per lane
 Support for 1-GB and 2-GB DDR3 at 1866 MHz with ONFI cache offload support
 One internal connector for the MegaRAID SAS 9341-4i RAID controller and the MegaRAID SAS 9361-4i
RAID controller
 Two internal connectors for the MegaRAID SAS 9341-8i RAID controller and the MegaRAID SAS 9361-8i
RAID controller
 Support for RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, and 60
 Advanced array configuration and management utilities
 Support for global hot spares and dedicated hot spares
 Support for user-defined strip sizes: 64 KB, 128 KB, 256 KB, 512 KB, or 1024 KB
NOTE MegaRAID does not support strip sizes smaller than 64 KB. However,
you can import virtual drives from legacy MegaRAID generations) that
use strip sizes smaller than 64 KB.
 Advanced array configuration and management utilities offer these capabilities:
— Online capacity expansion to add space to an existing drive or a new drive
— Online RAID level migration
— Drive migration
— Drive roaming
— No reboot necessary after expansion
— Load balancing
— Media scan
 User-specified rebuild rate (specifying the percentage of system resources to use from 0 percent to 100 percent)
 Nonvolatile static random access memory (NVSRAM) of 32 KB for storing RAID system configuration information;
the MegaRAID SAS firmware is stored in flash ROM for easy upgrade.
1.6.1 SAS Features
The 12Gb/s MegaRAID SATA+SAS RAID controllers support the following SAS features:
 They provide four fully independent PHYs or eight fully independent PHYs, depending on the controller.
 They support 12Gb/s, 6Gb/s, and 3Gb/s SAS data transfers per PHY.
 They support SMP to communicate topology-management information.
 They support SSP to enable communication with other SAS devices.
 They support STP to enable communication with SATA devices through an attached expander.
 They provide a serial, point-to-point, enterprise-level storage interface.
 They simplify cabling between devices.
 They provide a scalable interface that supports up to 255 devices through the use of expanders.
NOTE The number of devices varies depending on the MegaRAID product.
Check the LSI website, http://www.lsi.com, for specific details about
your product.