Microsemi: Adaptec Smart Storage Compatibility With AMD EPYC Processor

Microsemi Corporation announced interoperability between its 12Gb SAS/SATA HBAs and RAID adapters, including the Adaptec HBA 1100, SmartHBA 2100, and SmartRAID 3100, part of its Smart Storage adapters portfolio, and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) ‘s EPYC processor series.

Data center customers looking for a storage adapter solution for EPYC processor deployments can utilize the company’s suite of Smart Storage solutions with confidence as a compatible end-to-end solution.

“As AMD-based processors are increasingly being considered for next-generation server deployments in cloud data centers , extensive interoperability testing between our companies has shown our feature-rich high performance Smart Storage adapters to be a powerful storage solution when paired with AMD’s EPYC processors,” said Pete Hazen, VP and GM, storage solutions, Microsemi. “We are pleased to work closely with a well-respected industry leader, as this collaboration provides data center customers with the confidence to make Microsemi their first call when looking to adopt AMD’s unique EPYC processors.“

Market research firm IDC recently reported the worldwide server market grew nearly 20% in the third quarter of 2017, reaching $17 billion and trending even higher than the same research firm’s long-term forecast of 4% CAGR from 2015-2020.

The company’s Smart Storage platform, which leverages the firm’s unified Smart Storage Stack, is optimized for a variety of server storage applications for data centers, server OEMs and server original design manufacturers (ODMs) due to its performance and flexibility.

“The server processor market is experiencing tremendous change as workloads and applications continue to evolve, consumingmore memory bandwidth and I/O thaneverbefore,” saidRaghu Nambiar, CVP and CTO, datacenter ecosystems and application engineering, AMD. “This is where the AMD EPYC processor stands apart, delivering leading performance and scale for cloud and enterprise customers. Now these customers can benefit from Microsemi’s feature-rich Adaptec Smart Storage technologies combinedwith the AMD EPYC processor to help the machieve new levels of TCO savings in the data center.“

AMD collaborates with the company as part of the firm’s Accelerate Ecosystem, which facilitates collaboration between the company and firms in the semiconductor IC, IP, systems, software, tools and design spaces to integrate, test and deliver pre-validated designs and system-level solutions for end customers in the firm’s key vertical markets-aerospace and defense, data center, communications and industrial. The ecosystem is designed to reduce time-to-market for end customers and time-to-revenue for Microsemi and ecosystem members via technology alignment, joint marketing and sales acceleration. (see Accelerate Ecosystem Partners)

The Adaptec HBA 1100, as well as the company’s SmartHBA 2100 and SmartRAID-3100, leverage the unified Smart Storage Stack. The combination of its Unified Smart Storage Stack, SmartRAID and SmartHBA, HBA product families and the company’s SXP family of SAS expanders provide a complete server solution for storage management and connectivity. Each family has unique differentiating features.

HBA 1100

HBA 1100 is optimized for SDS, cold storage and raw high-performance connectivity.

It also includes:

Adapters with up to 24 ports using 28nm SAS/SATA – optimized silicon, offering an optimal power profile for the target applications
Support for host-managed and host-aware SMR drives
Broad OS driver support, including inbox driver support
Performance of up to 1.7 million IO/s

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SmartHBA 2100-8i

SmartHBA 2100 is optimized for SDS applications which desire hardware RAID for OS boot drives as well as entry level RAID for SMBs.

It also provides:

Basic RAID without compromising on the requirement for a fully featured and functional HBA, which is required for multi-path IO and SDS applications
Mixed mode enables drives to be independently configured as raw drives or as part of a logical volume
Hardware RAID for RAID-0,1,10 and RAID-5
Basic RAID solution with more than eight ports

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SmartRAID_3100_24i

SmartRAID-3100 is optimized for enterprise storage applications which require highest level of data availability and data center applications which benefit from caching.

It also features:

Adapters with up to 24 ports using 28nm SAS/SATA-optimized silicon, offering an optimal power profile for the target applications
Zero Maintenance Cache Protection (ZMCP) with a cache size of up to 4GB and integrated cache backup circuitry for optimal cost, thermal performance and operating efficiency
Board options without cache backup
maxCache 4.0 included on all adapters with up to ~2TB SSD cache
Roadmap to maxCrypto controller-based encryption

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The HBA 1100 series board-level product family is available in volume production quantities.

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