Intel RAID Performance 12Gb/s SAS RAID Controllers

Intel®RAIDPerformance12Gb/sSASRAIDControllersWhitePaper
1 Introduction
 TheIntel®12Gb/sSASRAIDcontrollers,featuringtheLSIdual-coreSAS3108RAID-on-Chip(ROC) 
 processor,oersignicantperformanceenhancementsforsolutionsarchitectedwith12Gb/sor6Gb/s
SAS drives. The superior read/write performance ideally suits the controllers for a broad range of
application workloads:
• Enterprisedatacenterapplications,suchasemail,transactionaldatabases,andanalyticaldatabases
• Cloudcomputing,software-denedstoragesystems,andbigdata(Hadoop)
• Contentapplications,suchasstreamingvideoandcoldstorage/archival
 Themassivegrowthofcloudandbigdataapplicationsrequireenterprisefeaturestomanage,optimize,
 andimprovetheeciencyofgrowingdatacentersandclusters.TheIntel12Gb/sSASRAIDcontroller 
 StorCLIutilityfeaturesextensivecommandlineoptionsthateasilyintegrateintoclusteredenvironments,
 andincludeserverstoragemanagement,bothlocallyorremotely,fromasinglepaneofglasswiththe
RAID Web Console application.
 Thisgenerationofstorage,spurredbytheincreasedadoptionandtrendinglowercostsofash,requires
 morebandwidthandI/Opersecond(IOPs)capabilitythenthepreviousgeneration.Additionally,balancing
power and performance in environments where solid state devices and SAS and SATA spinning hard
 drivescoexistbecomesevenmorecritical.ThispaperdemonstrateshowIntel12Gb/sSASRAID
 controllers,withpremiumfeatureoeringssuchasFastPathI/OandRAIDSSDCache,havemetand 
exceeded this challenge.
 Inadditiontooutstandingperformance,theIntel12Gb/sSASproductfamilysupportsadvancedfeatures
 suchasmultipathing,VMwareESXivirtualization,dualleveladvancedRAIDtypes,andrevertible
 hot-spare.Theproductfamilyisexible,withsupportforhigh-performanceSASharddrives,  
 high-capacitySATAharddrives,andenergy-ecientsolidstatedrives(SSDs).
1.1 ArchitecturalBenetsof12Gb/sSASCapableRAID
 TheIntel12Gb/sSASgenerationofRAIDproductsoerarchitecturalchangestoprovideneworenhanced
 benets.ThenewLSISAS3108chipcombinestheprocessingpowerofadual1.2GHzdedicatedRAID
 processor,lowlatencyDDR3-1866RAIDcache,andbuilt-inhardwareaccelerationenginesdedicatedto
processing and protecting data with the lowest latencies and highest performance. The products come in
multiple form factors for easy installation in most Intel-based servers.
 ThefasterclockspeedandmemorydramaticallyincreasetheRAID5andRAID6writecapabilityof 
 thecontroller,producinga30%increaseinperformanceoverthepreviousgenerationproducts.The 
 integrated12Gb/sSAScapabilityofthecontrollerallowsfortwicetheSASthroughputoftheprevious
 generationwithupto1GB/sperporttransferspeed.
 Tosupporttheincreasedbandwidth,theIntel12Gb/sSASRAIDcontrollersinclude1GBofRAIDcache
 memoryandan8-lanePCIExpress®(PCIe®)3.0businterface.Thesehardwarefeaturescometogetherwith
 ahighlyoptimizedRAIDrmwarestackthatsupportsover125%moreIOPscomparedtotheprevious
 generation.TheaddedIOPscapabilityofIntel12Gb/sRAIDproductsprovidesacosteectivemeansto
support an SSD environment with high performance read and write operations.