LSI and Xyratex Announce DataBolt Technology

LSI Corporation announced DataBolt bandwidth optimizer technology, a performance acceleration feature for LSI 12Gb/s SAS solutions designed to allow users to take advantage of 12Gb/s speeds while using existing 6Gb/s drive infrastructure.

The growth of data in cloud and enterprise datacenters is driving the need for a performance storage interface to enhance the ability of critical applications to rapidly access data. 12Gb/s SAS helps to address this challenge by doubling the performance of current 6Gb/s SAS solutions, delivering the performance to unlock the potential of PCI Express 3.0-based systems and solid-state storage solutions.

"The market adoption of 12Gb/s SAS systems begins with the availability of individual ecosystem components like SAS controllers and expanders," said Benjamin Woo, program VP of IDC’s Worldwide Storage Systems Research. "Technology like LSI’s DataBolt feature that enables early access to 12Gb/s SAS performance will help pave the way for a smooth technology transition."

LSI DataBolt technology is designed to:

Deliver up to a 2x increase in throughput performance for 6Gb/s systems
Aggregate bandwidth from 6Gb/s and 3Gb/s end devices to a 12Gb/s data stream
Intelligently buffer data and transfer it to drives at speeds that match the performance of the host with slower SAS or SATA end devices
Support 6Gb/s and 3Gb/s hard disk or solid state drives
Utilize LSI SAS/SATA bridge technology
Deliver compatibility with the 12Gb/s SAS T10 specification

DataBolt technology demonstration
LSI is demonstrating 12Gb/s SAS server storage performance utilizing DataBolt bandwidth optimizer technology at the SCSI Trade Association (STA) Technology Showcase on May 9, 2012, at the Hyatt Hotel in Santa Clara, CA.

The demo consists of a PCIe 3.0-based server with LSI 12Gb/s SAS HBAs connected to multiple 12Gb/s SAS enclosures, including the next-generation Xyratex Ltd‘s OneStor storage enclosure supporting 12Gb/s SAS host connectivity. The drive enclosures house a mix of 6Gb/s and 3Gb/s HDDs and SSDs, and utilize LSI 12Gb/s SAS expanders featuring LSI DataBolt technology to achieve throughput and IOPS performance improvements compared to an end-to-end 6Gb/s SAS storage solution.

"The transition to 12Gb/s SAS technology will be essential to unleashing the full performance potential of PCIe 3.0 platforms using 6Gb/s drives and flash-based storage," said Bill Wuertz, SVP and GM, RAID Storage Division, LSI. "By accelerating server storage performance, DataBolt technology provides users with a time-to-market advantage in achieving 12Gb/s performance benefits and allows them to meet the demands of I/O-intensive applications, cloud datacenters and virtualized server environments."

The LSI 12Gb/s SAS product portfolio includes: