Adaptec doubles server storage performance and bandwidth

CeBIT 2012, HANNOVER, GERMANY: PMC-Sierra Inc. announced that Adaptec by PMC is demonstrating a server that doubles storage performance, reduces power consumption and increases reliability in a smaller data center footprint to help meet the soaring demands on data centers while driving down total cost of ownership.

The CeBIT demonstration features a RAID controller card prototype based on the industry’s only PCI Express (PCIe) 3.0 capable 24-port RAID-on-Chip (RoC) from PMC, installed in a system based on the new Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 product family, and 22 Seagate Pulsar enterprise solid state drives (SSDs).

The server configuration delivers a sustained data transfer rate of 6600 MB/s in reads and 5000 MB/s in writes. This performance is made possible by the significant bandwidth advantages of the new Intel platform’s PCIe 3.0 interface combined with the SRCv’s 24-6Gb/s SAS interfaces and Seagate’s SAS Pulsar SSDs that deliver sequential reads of 370 MB/s and sequential writes of 200 MB/s. Previous-generation systems based on PCIe 2.0 are typically capable of less than 3000 MB/s data transfer rates.

“Intel is pleased to have PMC deliver PCI Express 3.0 products at the launch of the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 product family,” said Jim Pappas, director of Technology Initiatives, Intel. “PMC’s investment in innovative enterprise server storage solutions allows them to offer RAID products that take advantage of the 2x bandwidth of PCI Express 3.0, as PMC recently demonstrated at CeBIT on their Adaptec technology products.”

“Corporate and cloud data centers must give end users access to data with lightning-fast, consistent speed and uncompromised reliability, requirements that are becoming more acute as worldwide business and consumer demand for even faster access to digital content continues to grow,” said Scott Horn, VP of marketing at Seagate. “Seagate is pleased to be teaming with PMC and Intel to demonstrate a prototype featuring Pulsar SSDs that delivers these next-generation server speeds. The Seagate Pulsar.2 SSD provides the speed, data integrity and endurance needed for enterprise applications requiring the highest storage performance.”

“With this demo at CeBIT, we continue to reinforce our commitment to deliver technology innovations that address the distinctive pain points of data centers,” said Jared Peters, VP and GM, PMC Channel Storage Division. “By using the industry’s only PCIe 3.0 capable 24-port RoC from PMC in our hardware RAID controller, we are able to benefit from the enhanced bandwidth of the PCIe 3.0 interface with existing 6Gb/s SAS technology. This solution will double the current PCIe host interface and offer three times the bandwidth compared to an 8-port RoC solution, delivering the maximum bandwidth and reduced latency that our data center customers expect.”