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LSI 9260-8i
SAS 6Gbps RAID CONTROLLER REVIEW
Introduction: The LSI 9260-8i
SAS 6 Gbps is the latest
version of the SAS spec, providing up to 6 Gbps in
serial data transfer bandwidth. This doubles
the previous spec of 3.0 Gbps. The increased
capacity promises better I/O performance for
enterprise-grade SAS setups, but likely only for
burst transfers, not for sustained transfers.
Of course, SAS is backward-compatible with SATA, so
those 6 Gbps SSDs will work on this controller.
In this article, we will
be testing LSI's new 9260-8i SAS controller on a
dual-Xeon machine with several SAS 6 Gbps HDDs in
different configurations. Here is the LSI
9260-8i:
LSI 9260-8i
Specifications:
Features
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Eight
internal SATA+SAS ports
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Two
mini-SAS SFF-8087 x4
connectors
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6Gb/s
throughput per port
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LSISAS2108 RAID-on-Chip
(ROC)
o 800MHz PowerPC®
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Low-profile MD2 form factor
(6.6” X 2.536”)
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x8 PCI
Express 2.0 host interface
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512MB
DDRII cache (800MHz)
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Optional battery backup unit
(direct attach)
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Connect up to 32 SATA and/or
SAS devices
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RAID
levels 0, 1, 5 and 6
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RAID
spans 10, 50 and 60
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Auto-resume on rebuild
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Auto-resume on
reconstruction
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Online
Capacity Expansion (OCE)
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Online
RAID Level Migration (RLM)
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SafeStore™ Encryption
Services
o Instant secure erase
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SSD
support with SSD Guard™
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Global
and dedicated hot spare with
revertible hot spare support
o Automatic rebuild
o Enclosure affinity
o Emergency SATA hot spare
for SAS arrays
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Single
controller multipathing
(failover)
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I/O
load balancing
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Comprehensive RAID
management suite
Benefits
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Superior performance
o Maximum reads:
2,875MB/s
o Maximum writes:
1,850MB/s
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PCI Express 2.0 provides
faster signaling for
high-bandwidth
applications
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Support for 3Gb/s and
6Gb/s SATA and SAS hard
drives for maximum
inside-the-box
flexibility
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SafeStore Encryption
Services for more secure
data protection
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Low-profile MD2 form
factor for space-limited
1U and 2U environments
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LSI made some great improvements with MegaRAID
Storage Manager
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