Avago Technologies Cache Protection for RAID Controller Cards - Manual (Page 10)

LSI Corporation
- 10 -
12Gb/s MegaRAID SAS RAID Controllers User Guide
April 2014
Chapter 1: Overview
Summary of 12Gb/s MegaRAID SATA+SAS RAID Controller Characteristics
 Advanced array configuration and management utilities offer these capabilities:
— Online capacity expansion to add space to an existing drive or a new drive
— Online RAID level migration
— Drive migration
— Drive roaming
— No reboot necessary after expansion
— Load balancing
— Media scan
 User-specified rebuild rate (specifying the percentage of system resources to use from 0 percent to 100 percent)
 NVSRAM of 32 KB for storing RAID system configuration information; the MegaRAID SAS firmware is stored in
flash ROM for easy upgrade.
1.6.1 SAS Features
The 12Gb/s MegaRAID SATA+SAS RAID controllers support the following SAS features:
 They provide four fully independent PHYs or eight fully independent PHYs, depending on the controller.
 They support 12Gb/s, 6Gb/s, and 3Gb/s SAS data transfers per PHY.
 They support SMP to communicate topology-management information.
 They support SSP to enable communication with other SAS devices.
 They support STP to enable communication with SATA devices through an attached expander.
 They provide a serial, point-to-point, enterprise-level storage interface.
 They simplify cabling between devices.
 They provide a scalable interface that supports up to 255 devices through the use of expanders.
NOTE The number of devices varies depending on the MegaRAID product.
Check the LSI website,
http://www.lsi.com , for specific details about
your product.
 They support wide ports that consist of two, three, or four PHYs within a single quad port.
 They support narrow ports consisting of a single PHY.
 They transfer data by using SCSI information units.
1.6.2 SAS Array Limitations
This section describes the array limitations of the 12Gb/s MegaRAID SATA+SAS RAID controllers. These limitations
include the number of drives supported per controller, the maximum number of drives per controller, and the
maximum number of virtual drives allowed per controller.
The following table lists the array limitations for the 12Gb/s MegaRAID SATA+SAS RAID controllers.
Table 1 12Gb/s MegaRAID SATA+SAS RAID Controllers Array Limitations
Specification
MegaRAID SAS
9341-4i Controller
MegaRAID SAS
9341-8i Controller
MegaRAID SAS
9361-4i Controller
MegaRAID SAS
9361-8i Controller
MegaRAID SAS
9380-4i4e
Controller
MegaRAID SAS
9380-8e Controller
Maximum virtual drives per controller 32 64 64 64
Maximum drive groups per controller 32 128 128 128
Maximum virtual drives per drive group 16 16 16 16
Maximum drives per drive group 32 32 32 32