Datasheet

ServeRAID M5120 SAS/SATA Controller for IBM System x 6
MegaRAID CacheCade SSD caching for traditional hard drives

MegaRAID CacheCade read/write software is designed to accelerate the performance of hard disk
drive (HDD) arrays with only an incremental investment in solid state drive (SSD) technology. The
software enables SSDs to be configured as a dedicated pool of controller cache to help maximize I/O
performance for transaction-intensive applications like databases and web serving. CacheCade
software tracks data storage access patterns and identifies the most frequently accessed data. This
hot data is then automatically stored on the solid state storage devices assigned as a dedicated
cache pool on a ServeRAID controller with the M5100 Series SSD Caching feature (90Y4318)
enabled.
Technical specifications
The ServeRAID M5120 SAS/SATA Controller has the following specifications:
PCI Low Profile, Half-length - MD2 form factor

Eight external 6 Gbps SAS/SATA ports

Two external Mini-SAS connectors (SFF-8088)

6 Gbps throughput per port

800 MHz dual-core IBM PowerPC® processor with LSI SAS2208 6 Gbps RAID on Chip (ROC)

controller
PCI Express 3.0 x8 host interface

Support for RAID levels 0, 1, 10 standard, support for RAID 5, 50 and 6, 60 with additional upgrades

Onboard data cache (DDR3 running at 1333 MHz) required for M5120 operations (does not come

standard, must be purchased in addition to M5120) with the choice of:
512 MB with optional battery backup

512 MB, 1 GB, or 2 GB with flash backup (MegaRAID flash cache protection technology)

Supports SAS, SATA HDDs, and SSDs

Intermix of SAS and SATA HDDs and SSDs is supported, but the mixing of different drives type in the

same array (drive group) is not recommended
Connects to up to 240 external drives

Supports connections to EXP2512 and EXP2524 external expansion enclosures

Optional support for self-encrypting drives (SEDs) with MegaRAID SafeStore

Optional support for SSD performance acceleration with MegaRAID FastPath and SSD caching with

MegaRAID CacheCade
Supports up to 64 virtual drives, up to 128 drive groups, up to 16 virtual drives per one drive group,

and up to 32 physical drives per one drive group
Supports LUN sizes up to 64 TB

Configurable stripe size up to 1 MB

Compliant with Disk Data Format (DDF) configuration on disk (COD)

S.M.A.R.T. support

MegaRAID Storage Manager management software
