Author: Linus Wong, Director, Strategic Marketing
Adaptec
Adaptec offers solutions that integrate a broad range of Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) products, from RAID controllers and host bus adapters to internal storage enclosures and external arrays. These solutions are built on a platform that enables products to be easily mixed and matched to meet specific storage needs and are also integrated into existing storage environments without retrofitting.
SAS RAID Controllers
The Adaptec family of SAS controllers integrates RAID protection from the best selling software-based Adaptec HostRAID™ to our latest RAID-on-Chip hardware RAID technology. Optional extended data protection upgrades that include patent-pending RAID 6, snapshot backup and copyback hot spare are also available. In addition, Adaptec’s Storage Manager provides a single software management interface that works across all the Adaptec RAID products in your organization.
Adaptec Serial Attached SCSI 48300
The Adaptec Serial Attached SCSI 48300 card is an eight-port controller featuring integrated Adaptec HostRAID. It supports Serial ATA (SATA) and SAS drives, can be configured for four internal and four external ports and supports up to eight direct-attached devices. An external x4 connector allows for expansion to just a bunch of disks (JBODs) for higher-capacity applications using expander technology.
The card offers RAID 0, 1, and JBOD, as well as 48-bit logical block addressing (LBA) support for use of disk drives larger than 137 GB. The striping (RAID 0) feature bolsters performance of audio/video streaming and gaming applications. Mirroring (RAID 1) provides boot and data device protection from catastrophic failures. The PCI-X/133 MHz host interface provides bandwidth up to 1056 MB/s, which is twice as much as a common 64-bit PCI interface. Eight SAS ports can each deliver 300 MB/s of throughput. With SAS drives, PCI is ideal for mission-critical applications on servers and workstations.
Adaptec Serial Attached SCSI RAID 4800SAS and 4805SAS
The Adaptec Serial Attached SCSI RAID 4800SAS and 4805SAS are the newest generation of Adaptec SCSI RAID controllers. Choose a 133 MHz PCI-X (4800SAS) or an eight-lane PCI-Express (4805SAS) host interface and connectivity for eight SAS or SATA ports via two x4 internal connectors. An external SAS connector provides expansion to a SAS JBOD.
Adaptec RAID Code (ARC) includes the industry’s most advanced feature set, supporting RAID 0, 1, 5, 10, 50, and RAID level migration and online capacity expansion for scalability without downtime. It supports arrays up to 512 TB for full use of higher capacity SATA drives. Optimized disk utilization allows the creation of multiple logical unit numbers (LUN) per disk and uses all the space on dissimilar drive sizes. An optional upgrade includes dual-drive failure protection (patent-pending RAID 6), hot space (RAID 5EE), striped mirror (RAID 1E), snapshot backup and copyback hot spare features. These cards include 128 MB of error correction code (ECC)-protected double data rate dynamic random access memory (DDR DRAM) and offer an optional battery unit. With an Intel processor and an eight-port Adaptec SAS I/O controller, the 4800SAS (Intel 80331) or 4805SAS (Intel 80333) delivers high performance for servers and workstations.
Figure 1: The Adaptec Serial Attached SCSI RAID 4800SAS controller provides high-performance, advanced SAS data protection for servers and workstations
Adaptec SAS Internal Enclosures
With the SAS architecture, a controller can be directly attached to an internal enclosure which contains multiple disk drives. The first Adaptec SAS internal enclosure—the 335SAS, has been rigorously tested and is unsurpassed in compatibility.
Adaptec Storage Enclosure 335SAS
The Adaptec Storage Enclosure 335SAS is a hot-swappable disk drive enclosure for up to four SAS or SATA hard disk drives or a mix of the two. It occupies three half-height 5.25 slots in a server or workstation chassis, and supports low-profile 3.5″ hard disk drives. Another slot holds an optional 3.5″ half-height CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive. The Adaptec 335SAS supports data transfer rates up to 3.0 Gb/s and legacy 1.5 Gb/s SATA drives. It is compatible with all Adaptec SAS and SATA II RAID controllers and host bus adapters, and provides intelligent enclosure management (SES2) including alerts on drive, temperature and fan failures. It is ideal for server and workgroup applications where intelligent hard disk drive management, monitoring and failure notification are required.
Adaptec SAS Storage Arrays
Adaptec SAS storage arrays provide performance, reliability and cost-effectiveness for expanding direct-attached storage or creating or expanding a storage area network. SAS and SATA drives can be mixed or matched in a single enclosure. Migrate from SATA to SAS drives in the same enclosure as needs change, or daisy chain the units to a maximum capacity of 54 TB SATA or 32.4 TB SAS, as needed. Adaptec Advanced Enclosure Diagnostics (AAED), integrated with the Adaptec Storage Manager, continually monitors every component and reports its status on a visual display. These arrays also protect your investment with seamless upgrade paths from internal to external storage, single controller to dual controller and JBOD to high-availability RAID.
Adaptec SANbloc 5000f RAID
The Adaptec 5000f RAID provides industry-leading performance, reliability and cost-effectiveness by combining high-speed, mission-critical Fibre Channel connectivity with SAS for direct-attached storage and storage area networks. The 2.0 Gb/s host connection transfers terabytes of data at speeds up to 200 MB/s. Unique optimized disk utilization permits the creation of multiple LUNs per disk to use all of the space on dissimilar drive sizes.
Adaptec RAID technology includes accelerated drive rebuilding. The Adaptec Hardware RAID controller and Adaptec-designed drives provide true hot-swapping capability, enabling removal and replacement of a failed drive without losing data or interrupting service. This allows you to dynamically expand capacity and migrate RAID levels higher without downtime.
Figure 2: The Adaptec SANbloc 5000f RAID provides a simple, flexible, cost effective DAS and SAN solution
Adaptec SANbloc S50 JBOD
The Adaptec S50 JBOD is the simplest way to integrate the performance, reliability, and cost-effectiveness of SAS into storage strategies. Whether creating or scaling a storage solution, the Adaptec S50 enables scaling to multiple terabytes of data capacity. Low-cost SATA and high-performance SAS drives can be mixed or matched to achieve the right balance of performance and cost. It achieves throughput up to 4800 Mb/s per redundant system (dual controller version available Spring 2006), while standard hot-swappable drives, redundant hot-swappable power and cooling and a dedicated 3.0 Gb/s channel for each drive increase reliability. As needs change it is easy to upgrade from a JBOD to an external RAID system by swapping the SAS I/O module (SIM) for an Adaptec 5000f Fibre Channel-to-SAS RAID controller module.
