 |
 |
 UNIFY YOUR SERIAL STORAGE OFFERINGS |
by Chris Angelini, Reseller Advocate Magazine
www.reselleradvocate.com
SELLING SAS CONTROLLERS IS THE WAY TO GO. The technology supports entry-level SATA and high-end SAS hard drives at the same time, plugged in to the same card. In the past, a card that supported SAS drives with hardware acceleration and a robust RAID stack built-in would have cost your customer a hefty premium. Adaptec's new Unified Serial Architecture leverages both enterprise-class ingredients. However, it's aimed at SMB customers who might have previously taken the SATA-only route.
ADAPTEC GOES UNIFIED
Imagine a product family so flexible that it addresses the contingent of businesses only interested in SATA, the organizations relying on SAS exclusively, and those in between, mixing and matching for the best possible value. With the unified serial controllers your customers enjoy benefits from both sides. The value-minded SMBs see features that were once too expensive, while the performance-oriented folks pay SATA-like prices. According to Suresh Panikar, director of marketing for Adaptec's Data Protection Solutions Group, that's exactly what the company's Unified Serial Architecture is designed to do.
| |
 |
|
Exploring the Serial Landscape:
Adaptec's Unified Serial cards let you build storage solutions loaded with SAS and SATA hard drives, tailored to meet the unique needs of each customer. |
"Our Unified Serial Architecture provides a single lineup that can be used in a SATA environment, a SAS environment, or in a mixed setting. We focused on including the niceties that we were hearing customers wanted, like the low-profile form factors to fit in compact 1U servers. We also wanted to add value, so the Unified Serial RAID cards support extras like hot-plug capability, drive optimization, and path failover."
The idea of path failover will probably be a new one for many SMBs, since redundancy beyond the RAID level is usually reserved for high-end storage cards. Currently, most of the servers you build sport individual cables linking the controller to the hard drives. Should that path fail at either end, it'd be the same as if a disk had gone out. SAS drives, being the more enterprise-oriented option, sport two interface ports to support multiple paths. Although the feature is most relevant to cards with external connectivity, since those are the ones with cables that can be bumped and dislodged, all of Adaptec's Unified Serial Architecture PCIe cards support failover. For the full list of value-added extras featured on each model, take a quick look at the family's datasheet.
|
THE PERFORMANCE YOUR CUSTOMERS EXPECT
In addition to specification sheets loaded with high-end functionality, Adaptec's new 3000-series RAID controllers deliver enough compute horsepower to completely offload RAID processing. The most basic four-port card comes with a 128MB DDR2 data cache to help complement acceleration, while the highest-end 16-port model boasts 256MB.
| |
 |
|
Meet the Family:
The entire Unified Serial PCIe family consists of five cards, all with a unique value proposition. All of them come with the same RAID features, though, and leverage the utmost in data protection and I/O performance. |
The cumulative result of Adaptec's onboard hardware and RAID stack is a product family able to propel RAID 0, 1, 1E, 5, 5EE, 6, 10, 50, and 60. If you're a little overwhelmed by the long list of available modes, check out Adaptec's ABCs of RAID guide, which helps break your available options down into a chart of benefits.
Given the prevalence of RAID 0, 1, 10, and 5—all widely available, even from integrated storage controllers like Intel's ICH9R—make sure your customers understand the value in accelerating more advanced levels. RAID 1E, for example, lets you mirror data across an odd number of drives. Three disks naturally offer more protection than two. RAID 6 builds on the more common RAID 5 mode by balancing capacity and performance, while adding fault tolerance. A RAID 6 array with at least four drives can sustain two complete disk failures without compromising data. Keep adding drives and you can enable RAID 50 consisting of two striped RAID 5 arrays and RAID 60, two striped RAID 6 configurations.
The more RAID functionality you add to an onboard HBA, the more host processing power is siphoned off. Because all of Adaptec's Unified Serial PCIe cards employ hardware acceleration, even a mainstream four-port card is going to outshine anything built onto your customer's motherboard.
|
ADAPTEC'S UNIFIED SERIAL CONTROLLERS
The principal reason your customers will want a card from Adaptec's Unified Serial PCIe lineup is its support for SAS and SATA drives. But it helps that there's continuity in the family's list of features. Everything available at the high end is also rolled into the entry-level cards. Adaptec differentiates its new PCIe series offerings through port count, bus width, and cache memory, which all turn out to be related.
|
An External Answer:
Just because your 1U servers are too small for heavy-duty storage duty doesn't mean you're limited to four hard drives. Add Adaptec's RAID 3085 and connect JBOD enclosures to the card's external ports. |
 |
At $390, the RAID 3405 is Adaptec's least expensive PCIe Unified Serial offering. The controller drops into a PCI Express x4 slot, fits in a small form factor chassis, and branches out into four ports from a single SFF-8087 internal connector. Yet it's packed with all of the features you simply won't find on any other entry-level add-in card. As an upgrade from onboard storage, the Adaptec RAID 3405 is well worth its asking price to an SMB looking for speed, performance, and a low price tag.
The RAID 3805 is one step up on Adaptec's hierarchy, offering four more internal ports from a second SFF-8087. The card drops into the same PCI Express x4 slot, features the same 128MB DDR2 data cache, and works just as well in small form factors. Why spend $575 for the extra ports? Most storage servers feature at least eight hard drive bays. A midrange card like the RAID 3805 gives your customer plenty of horsepower at a reasonable price, while featuring the port count you can't get from an onboard HBA.
If you're building 1U boxes without the space for large storage arrays, a rackmount JBOD helps add space. Adaptec's RAID 3085 is another eight-port card, only this one drops into a PCI Express x8 slot, wields 256MB of memory, and uses two SFF-8088 connectors to enable an array of external ports. The RAID 3085 supports staggered drive spin-up, bootable arrays, and the same RAID levels as the other cards, so you can treat external drives connected to the card as if they were part of the same machine.
 |
|
Tops in Connectivity:
The high-end RAID 31605 makes 16 ports available to your most dense storage servers. Thanks to an eight-lane PCI Express link, 256MB of memory, and hardware acceleration, it maintains exceptional performance, even fully loaded. |
The RAID 31205 and RAID 31605 are the 12- and 16-port big brothers in Adaptec's Unified Serial lineup. Both include 256MB caches and drop into eight-lane PCI Express slots. Priced at $795 and $995 respectively, the denser cards give you better value per port, which is especially important if you aren't plugging in to an expander and need the additional connectivity.
|
LOTS OF REASONS TO GO UNIFIED
Beyond the RAID features, performance highlights, and management tools included with each Unified Serial PCIe 3000-series card you're also selling Adaptec's reputation as a storage vendor. Understandably, it spent a lot of time ensuring the Unified Serial cards would uphold its notoriety for quality.
"When we launched this lineup, we wanted to make sure we were compatible with the entire storage ecosystem, so we tested with more than 300 motherboards, disk drives, and chassis to guarantee interoperability," says Adaptec's Panikar.
Part of shoring up compatibility also meant laying a software foundation so you wouldn't find yourself in the middle of an installation realizing your storage controller lacked 64-bit driver support. Of course, the Unified Serial PCIe cards support an array of operating systems, from Linux to Solaris to FreeBSD and Windows (Vista included).
At the end of the day, Adaptec’s Unified Serial Architecture gives you the consistency of a storage platform that's uniform throughout in functionality, easy to manage using one administrative console, and stable enough to be trusted with customer data. SMBs buying the new Unified Serial PCIe cards know they're in the hands of a trusted storage vendor. From small business to large enterprise, Adaptec's Unified Serial initiative has something for everyone.
|
|
|
