LSI Delivers Industry's Highest Server RAID Performance With Launch of Second-Generation MegaRAID 6Gb/s SATA+SAS Controllers

HANNOVER, Germany, March 1, 2011 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CeBIT 2011 -- LSI Corporation (NYSE: LSI) today announced immediate channel availability of its second-generation MegaRAID® SATA+SAS RAID controller cards based on 6Gb/s SAS technology. Powered by the LSI® dual-core 6Gb/s SAS RAID-on-Chip (ROC) IC, the new line of MegaRAID controllers delivers the industry's highest server RAID performance, extending the performance leadership offered by the existing family of LSI MegaRAID 6Gb/s SATA+SAS controllers.

"LSI has already shipped over 400,000 MegaRAID controller cards based on 6Gb/s SAS technology, while our competitors have only recently announced 6Gb/s SAS controllers," said Brent Blanchard, director of worldwide channel sales and marketing, LSI. "The launch of our second-generation products underscores our continued SAS and RAID technology leadership and will help users maximize the performance benefits of solid-state drives for a greater return on investment and a competitive edge."

The new line of controllers include the MegaRAID SAS 9265-8i, featuring eight internal ports, and the MegaRAID SAS 9285-8e, with eight external ports. The controllers deliver performance levels greater than 200,000 RAID 5 random I/Os per second (IOPS), a 3x improvement compared to the previous-generation products. Users can boost IOPS performance to 465,000 RAID 5 random IOPS utilizing a single controller, enabled with LSI MegaRAID FastPath™ software, connected to 8 SSDs. This advanced software option is designed to unlock the full performance benefits of SSD configurations by providing high-performance I/O acceleration for SSDs connected to a MegaRAID controller.

To achieve equivalent IOPS performance levels using competing high-performance 6Gb/s SAS RAID controllers could require as many as 3 additional RAID cards, 24 additional SSDs and 3 external 12-drive JBOD enclosures. This translates to a 3x increase in rackspace and power consumption and significantly higher hardware acquisition costs.

The new controllers also deliver industry-leading RAID bandwidth, with 2.7 GB/s sequential read and 3.2 GB/s sequential write throughput, which is 60 percent higher than competitor claims. Delivering both the highest RAID IOPS and bandwidth performance in the industry is critical to meeting the high I/O transaction demands of database and cloud applications as well as providing the high-bandwidth horsepower needed to meet the processing requirements of financial, digital media, Web 2.0 and medical imaging applications.

"The new LSI MegaRAID 6Gb/s SAS RAID controllers have enabled the ION SR-71 SpeedServer™ system to break the 1 million IOPS barrier," said Keith Josephson, Chief Technology Officer at ION Computer Systems, Inc. "With these exciting new controllers, the SR-71 SSD optimized server can sustain greater than 1 million IOPS while performing 1KB random reads with an average response time of under 200 microseconds. The combination of very high IOPS with very low latency enabled by the MegaRAID controllers allows ION's SR-71 application engine to deliver performance that simply cannot be achieved with a disk-based solution while consuming less than 500 Watts of power."

The low-profile MD2 form factor controllers feature the LSISAS2208 SAS ROC IC with its two embedded 800MHz PowerPC processor cores and 1GB DDRIII cache memory. The cards provide support for up to 240 SATA and SAS hard drives or SSDs, and support hardware RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 6, 10 and 60. An optional new intelligent LSIiBBU09 battery backup unit utilizing heat-tolerant cell technology enhances data protection capabilities and provides system builders with the flexibility to mount the LSIiBBU09 to a separate PCI Remote Mounting Board (RMB) or remote within the chassis.

Pricing and availability(1)

The new MegaRAID controllers will be demonstrated at CeBIT 2011 (Stand #G25 in the Planet Reseller Hall 15) taking place March 1-5, 2011, at the Convention Center in Hannover, Germany.

The MegaRAID SAS 9265-8i controller is available immediately. The MegaRAID SAS 9285-8e is expected to be available by the end of March. The products are supplied through the LSI worldwide network of distributors, integrators and VARs.

The new controllers extend the industry's most comprehensive portfolio of 6Gb/s SAS and SATA storage building block solutions available in the channel, including MegaRAID and 3ware® RAID controllers, host bus adapters, the WarpDrive™ SLP-300 card, SAS switches, JBOD enclosures, the CTS2600 family of configurable storage components and advanced software options.

Additional information is available in an online press kit (www.lsi.com/presskit) and at www.lsi.com/channel. Follow LSI on Twitter.

Partner quotes

Micron Technology

"The Micron RealSSD™ P300 enterprise-class solid state drive provides stellar performance and endurance for servers, system storage and blade servers running transactional database applications," said Kevin Dibelius, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Micron. "Storage subsystems utilizing multiple P300 SSDs connected to a new LSI MegaRAID controller with LSI FastPath software will provide customers with dramatic performance improvements in raw throughput and response time, both of which are critical to meeting the demands of financial, Web 2.0 and other high random I/O application workloads." (www.micron.com)

OCZ Technology Group

"With a complete range of solid state storage solutions specifically customized for enterprise applications, OCZ SSDs are designed to optimize entire businesses and improve data processing and storage," said Alex Mei, CMO at OCZ Technology Group. "The new LSI MegaRAID 6Gb/s SAS controllers, with industry-leading random IOPS performance and optimized SSD firmware, are ideally suited for storage configurations utilizing these SSDs. The combination of OCZ SSDs with these new LSI controllers will help customers to minimize disk I/O bottlenecks and realize improved total cost of ownership." (www.ocztechnology.com)

Pliant Technology

"Integrating enterprise-class SSDs like Pliant Lightning® Enterprise Flash Drives (EFDs) within leading-edge IT environments enables increased performance when running data-intensive applications, thereby ensuring that mission-critical data is always accessible," said Greg Goelz, vice president of marketing, Pliant Technology. "LSI MegaRAID controllers together with Pliant Lightning EFDs will deliver sustained performance and reliability that's crucial to data centers and cloud computing environments." (www.plianttechnology.com)

Seagate

"The explosion of digital content and new media applications demand storage technologies that deliver blazing fast and reliable access to data," said Henry Fabian, executive director of core product marketing, Seagate. "Deployment of the new LSI MegaRAID 6G SAS controllers with Seagate's range of enterprise Savvio and Cheetah hard drives will provide customers with high levels of sequential I/O throughput in a price and power envelope that small and medium businesses demand." (www.seagate.com)

Western Digital

"In today's enterprise server and storage environments, applications such as video-on-demand and medical imaging are driving up the requirements for sequential IO throughput," said Darwin Kauffman, WD's vice president of enterprise storage. "With sequential writes at 3.2 GB/s and sequential reads at 2.7 GB/s, the new LSI MegaRAID controllers provide system integrators with the perfect complement to the WD S25 600 GB hard drives, to maximize bandwidth performance potential, without sacrificing power efficiency or reliability." (www.wdc.com)

About LSI

LSI Corporation (NYSE: LSI) is a leading provider of innovative silicon, systems and software technologies that enable products which seamlessly bring people, information and digital content together. The company offers a broad portfolio of capabilities and services including custom and standard product ICs, adapters, systems and software that are trusted by the world's best known brands to power leading solutions in the Storage and Networking markets. More information is available at www.lsi.com.

(1) Estimated MSRP. Actual prices may vary.

(2) 9265-8i Kit includes cables.

Editor's Notes:

1. All LSI news releases (financial, acquisitions, manufacturing, products, technology, etc.) are issued exclusively by PR Newswire and are immediately thereafter posted on the company's external web site, http://www.lsi.com.
2. LSI, the LSI & Design logo, MegaRAID, FastPath, 3ware and WarpDrive are trademarks or registered trademarks of LSI Corporation.
3. All other brand or product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

SOURCE LSI Corporation