LSI SAS Technology Incorporated in 80-Plus Servers and Workstations Based on Xeon 5500

LSI Corporation announced that its SAS ICs, HBAs and MegaRAID products will enable more than 80 new server and workstation models based on the recently announced high-performance, multi-core Intel Xeon Processor 5500 series. Industry-leading OEMs incorporating LSI SAS storage technology include Dell, Fujitsu Technology Solutions, IBM, Intel, NEC and Sun Microsystems, underscoring the broad demand for LSI SAS technology across the industry’s broadest spectrum of OEM platforms.

"Through many technology generations LSI solutions have accompanied and complemented the storage performance of Intel-based servers," said Jim Pappas, director of Server Technology Initiatives at Intel. "As the new Intel Xeon 5500-based platforms roll out with LSI SAS/SATA enabling technology, customers will benefit from a generation of servers and workstations that deliver intelligent performance with optimizations for enterprise applications, virtualization and the growing adoption of solid-state drive technologies, such as the Intel X25-E."

Since the inception of SAS, LSI has delivered market-leading products across its extensive portfolio of controller ICs, expanders, HBAs, MegaRAID adapters, RAID-on-motherboard solutions and storage systems. By offering best-in-class SAS and MegaRAID technologies, broad interoperability and single one-stop vendor support, the LSI SAS portfolio uniquely addresses the full spectrum of server, workstation and enterprise storage architecture requirements for implementing complete SAS solutions.

As the market begins the transition to 6Gb/s SAS, demand for solutions based on the current SAS generation will continue as IT managers look to leverage the cost and flexiblity benefits of SAS storage. According to IDC estimates, availability of 6Gb/s SAS-based servers will begin in late 2009 and is linked to the production volume shipments of SAS ecosystem components and devices such as LSI SAS RAID-on-Chip (ROC) ICs and MegaRAID SAS adapters.

"From server generation to server generation, the scale, proven interoperability and advanced capabilities of our broad SAS portfolio has established LSI as a SAS market segment leader," said Steve Fingerhut, senior director of marketing, Storage Components Division, LSI. "As the market readies for the transition to 6Gb/s SAS, LSI is well positioned to build upon the success of its market-leading 3Gb/s SAS products to deliver the enhanced performance, reliability, scalability and security offered by the 6Gb/s SAS generation."

LSI is currently sampling 6Gb/s SAS ICs and MegaRAID SAS adapters to select OEMs and server industry leaders worldwide to enable next-generation SAS-based systems.