PMC-Sierra End-to-End 6Gb SAS Chipset for HP

PMC-Sierra, Inc. announced that its SRC 8x6G 6Gb/s SAS RAID-on-Chip (RoC) and SXP 36x6GSec 6Gb/s SAS Expander are shipping across HP’s new line of ProLiant G6 servers. PMC-Sierra’s end-to-end 6Gb/s SAS chipset enables HP’s ProLiant storage solutions to set a new industry achievement for server performance and scalability. ProLiant G6 servers equipped with PMC-Sierra’s SRC RoC and HP’s industry-leading Smart Array RAID Stack enable RAID 5 write throughput at levels more than 150 percent greater than previous-generation ProLiant G5 controllers. Similar testing for RAID 0 read IOPS performance delivers over 350 percent greater results than previous solutions.

HP ProLiant DL360 G6 server
with PMC-Sierra’s SRC RAID-on-Chip
embedded on the motherboard

The ProLiant DL360 G6, DL380 G6, and BL460c servers ship with PMC-Sierra’s SRC RoC embedded on the motherboard (ROMB) with 6Gb/s SAS enabled. Additionally, the ProLiant ML350 G6 and ML370 G6 servers ship with the SRC embedded on the motherboard (ROMB) at 3Gb/s SAS speeds, with upgradeability to 6Gb/s in June 2009. All of the new ProLiant G6 servers have the option to also use one of the recently announced P212, P410, and P411 Smart Array RAID cards based on PMC-Sierra’s SRC, as well as the HP SAS Expander Card featuring PMC-Sierra’s SXP 36x6GSec 6Gb/s SAS Expander.

“Enabling HP to be first to market with 6Gb/s server products is an exciting achievement for PMC-Sierra,” said Mark Stibitz, vice president and general manager, Enterprise Storage Division, PMC-Sierra. “Our SRC RAID-on-Chip solution surpasses the baseline benefits of 6Gb/s SAS, enabling more than double the performance of competing solutions, even in systems that use 3Gb/s SAS. The new capabilities of the HP ProLiant G6 servers with PMC-Sierra’s RoC and Expanders provide IT end-users with dramatically more system performance for their data center dollars.”

“Customers demand innovative servers that deliver maximum computing performance and the best return for their budget,” said John Gromala, director of product marketing, Industry Standard Servers, HP. “With PMC-Sierra’s 6Gb/s SAS RAID-on-chip, the newly launched HP ProLiant G6 servers now provide our customers with unsurpassed RAID performance, higher storage throughput and increased durability to meet their storage needs.”

About PMC-Sierra’s Server Storage Chipset
Data center demands for higher computing power, networking bandwidth and support for virtualization applications are driving system requirements for improved host bus interface, input-output, and RAID performance. PMC-Sierra’s PM8011 SRC 8x6G RoC is SAS-2 and PCI Express 2.0 compliant, providing 6Gb/s storage throughput and 5Gb/s host bus interface bandwidth, enabling new levels of system performance, power management, and virtualization capabilities. The SRC 8x6G’s breakthrough RoCstar architecture efficiently interconnects all device subsystems, eliminating internal bottlenecks and resource contentions to increase I/O throughput and lower latency. The SRC 8x6G, together with PMC-Sierra’s maxSAS Expanders and Multiplexers, provides a complete 6Gb/s server storage chipset solution.

The PM8005 SXP 36x6GSec, 36-port 6Gb/s SAS Expander is part of the fourth generation of PMC-Sierra’s market-leading maxSAS Expander switch product line. It includes advanced diagnostic and system fault isolation capabilities to improve system manageability and lower total cost of ownership. In addition, the device doubles system performance by increasing data I/O throughput and supporting full 6Gb/s line rate on all ports.