MegaRAID Controller and HBA Families extended with PCI Express 3.0

Three new LSI HBA models provide state-of-the-art connectivity for servers and appliances in a variety of enterprise-level environments including corporate datacenters, the cloud and high-performance computing.

“In the face of massive data growth, system builders and resellers are racing to meet increasing demand for larger, more scalable systems that deliver reliability and high performance,” said Brent Blanchard, director of worldwide channel sales and marketing, LSI. “The addition of PCIe 3.0 on the new MegaRAID controllers and HBAs brings dramatically higher levels of performance and allows greater system design flexibility, with proven LSI product quality and reliability.”

The MegaRAID controllers announced today increase performance and protection for business and mission-critical data stored on high-performance SAS hard drives, high-capacity SATA hard drives or application-accelerating solid state drives. Each controller is powered by the LSI SAS 2208/2308 RAID-on-Chip using 6Gb/s SAS technology and includes dual 800MHz PowerPC Processor cores with 1GB cache memory.

“LSI MegaRAID controllers and HBAs have been trusted core building blocks for EchoStreams server and storage systems, delivering performance and reliability while also being easy to qualify and integrate,” said Gene Lee, president and CEO, EchoStreams Innovative Solutions. “The latest LSI PCIe 3.0-based 6Gb/s SAS controllers and HBAs allow us to take advantage of the unprecedented memory and I/O bandwidths of the latest Intel Romley platform and offer our customers the ultimate throughput and I/O per dollar ratio that no one has been able to achieve before.”

The PCIe 3.0 interface delivers a bit rate of 8 gigatransfers per second, roughly twice the bandwidth of the prior generation, and incorporates a number of key new features to improve data transmission and protection as well, including transmitter and receiver equalization, PLL improvements and clock data recovery.

The 9271-8iCC and 9286CV-8eCC MegaRAID cards come in easy-to-order prepackaged configurations that include the LSI CacheCade Pro 2.0 application acceleration software that optimizes SSD caching performance. Additional models include the onboard LSI flash-based CacheVault data protection option for even greater system protection.

Pricing and availability

LSI MegaRAID SAS+SATA Controllers:

MegaRAID SAS 9270-8i single/kit $780/$835
MegaRAID SAS 9271-4i single/kit $540/$575
MegaRAID SAS 9271-8i single/kit $780/$835
MegaRAID SAS 9271-8iCC single $1,050
MegaRAID SAS 9286-8e single $995
MegaRAID SAS 9286CV-8e single $1,255
MegaRAID SAS 9286CV-8eCC single $1,525

LSI SAS+SATA HBAs:

SAS 9207-4i4e single/kit $335/$415
SAS 9207-8i single/kit $305/$385
SAS 9207-8e single $510

The new LSI HBAs listed above are available immediately. The MegaRAID products are sampling now with general availability expected during Q3 2012. The products are supplied through the LSI worldwide network of distributors, integrators and VARs.

The new controllers and HBAs extend the industry's most comprehensive portfolio of enterprise RAID and application acceleration storage solutions available in the channel, including MegaRAID and 3ware RAID controllers, host bus adapters, Nytro WarpDrive family, and advanced software caching and data protection options.