PMC – Highest port count PCIe Gen3 RAID adapters suit many needs

PMC has announced the introduction of the industry’s first PCIe Gen3 high port-count 6Gb/s SAS/SATA RAID adapters. The Adaptec Series 7 family offers the first RAID adapters to take full advantage of PCIe Gen3 bandwidth, providing unmatched performance for a broad range of enterprise and cloud computing applications. With 16 direct-connected solid state drives (SSDs), Series 7 adapters can deliver up to 450,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS) on a 4K random read block size, equivalent to nearly 10x the performance of previous-generation RAID adapters, says the company.

“This new series of adapters illustrates our continuing commitment to delivering storage innovations that fulfil customer’s needs from the most demanding data centre applications to entry-level storage servers,” said Jared Peters, vice president of server storage solutions, PMC. “By offering the industry’s first native 16 and 24-port RAID solutions our customers can now directly attach up to 24 SSDs or HDDs with a single adapter, eliminating the need for multi-component architectures and taking full advantage of the latest PCIe Gen3 interface.”

The Adaptec Series 7 family offers up to 16-ports in a low-profile MD2 form factor and up to 24-ports in a full-height half-length form factor by utilizing PMC’s revolutionary 24-port RAID on Chip (RoC) and high-density (HD) Mini-SAS connectors. Other advanced technologies incorporated into the Adaptec Series 7 family include:

* Adaptec maxCache 3.0, third-generation caching software, which utilises SSDs for read and write caching to improve IOPs by 25x, reduces latency by 25x in read-intensive applications, and improves IOPs by 14x in write-intensive applications; * Third-generation Zero-Maintenance Cache Protection (ZMCP), which uses flash memory to protect cached data, eliminating the installation, monitoring, maintenance, disposal and replacement costs associated with lithium-ion battery backup units (BBUs); * New industry standard High Density (HD) Mini SAS connectors and cables for ease-of use, fit, and function in dense server environments; * Adaptec maxView, which simplifies monitoring and configuring RAID adapters in a system through a convenient web-based interface that runs on any browser (including mobile); * PMC’s PM8015 RAID-on-Chip (RoC), which combines an x8 PCIe Gen3 SAS interface with 24 ports of 6Gb/s SAS/SATA; * ‘One Click Setup’ capability allowing RAID, simple volume and physical drive configurations.

“With the evolution of hyper scale data centre deployments, demand for fast and reliable access to data continues to grow,” said Matt Eastwood, Group VP and GM of enterprise platforms, IDC. “With double the bandwidth compared to previous generations, devices that utilise the full capabilities of the new PCIe Gen3 interface represent a major step forward in providing that access.”