PMC-Sierra: Adaptec 6Gb Unified Serial RAID-6 Controller

PMC-Sierra, Inc. announced the Adaptec by PMC family of Series 6 RAID controllers designed to excel in I/O transaction and bandwidth processing applications.

Based on PMC-Sierra’s multi-core SRC 8x6G RAID-on-Chip (RoC) controller, the Adaptec Series 6 family is the industry’s first 6Gb/s Unified Serial RAID controller channel solution with Zero-Maintenance Cache Protection which reduces operating costs and minimizes environmental impact.

"Since the acquisition of the Adaptec channel storage business in June, we have been focused on leveraging PMC-Sierra’s SRC RoC technology to bring a 6Gb/s SAS controller to the channel," said Jared Peters, vice president and general manager of PMC-Sierra’s Channel Storage Division. "We’re launching our Series 6 solutions just as the market and ecosystem for 6Gb/s channel storage products has begun to emerge. With our industry-proven SRC RoC as the core, our feature-rich Series 6 family of storage controllers goes beyond RAID with Zero-Maintenance Cache Protection and intelligent power management for maximum reliability, lower power consumption and reduced costs."

With support for up to 256 SATA/SAS devices using SAS expanders and an eight lane PCIe Gen 2 host interface bus connection, the Series 6 delivers performance, scalability and flexibility. While the Series 5 family provides robustness and compatibility with today’s market standard of 3Gb/s performance, the enhanced bandwidth of the Series 6 with SAS 2.0 interfaces and the PCIe Gen 2 host connection offers a 60 percent higher sustained sequential throughput than previous generations of Adaptec controllers.

The Series 6 delivers up to 2GB/s sustained data transfer rate to a host of applications that require high sequential bandwidth. At peak performance, this solution offers 4.8GB/s through the SAS 2.0 interfaces and 4GB/s through the PCIe Gen 2 host interface delivering enough bandwidth for high streaming applications, such as editing and broadcasting uncompressed 3D video streams. Using this solution, a 14TB array used as a virtual tape library can be filled in less than two hours compared to previous generation interfaces that take more than three hours.

“Today’s storage infrastructures require technologies that provide the highest levels of performance with robust functionality, efficient power and cooling and environmental characteristics,” said Roger Cox, Research Vice President, Data Center Systems, Gartner. “Storage products with these capabilities help system integrators and others to further differentiate their storage solution offerings.”

With the significant adoption of Zero-Maintenance Cache Protection, the need to replace Lithium Ion batteries is eliminated and as a result reduces the hazardous waste disposal previously required in cache-critical computing applications. This product family also features advanced intelligent power management, which reduces storage power and cooling costs by up to 70 percent.

Series 6 RAID controllers feature:

• Superior bandwidth with 6Gb/s SAS 2.0 interfaces and PCIe Gen 2 host connection
• Zero-Maintenance Cache Protection (option)
• Hardware RAID levels 0,1,1E,5,5EE,6,10,50,60
• Hybrid RAID 1,10 support for arrays of Solid State Drives (SSD) and Hard Disk Drives (HDD) for performance
• Intelligent power management
• Centralized storage management with Adaptec Storage Manager™
• Range of operating systems supported

Availability and Pricing
Series 6 RAID controllers are sampling now to select customers. Available in singles and kits, the suggested retail pricing for the Adaptec RAID 6405, Adaptec RAID 6445 and Adaptec RAID 6805 ranges from $395 to $630.