Avago Technologies Cache Protection for RAID Controller Cards - Manual (Page 7)

LSI Corporation
- 7 -
12Gb/s MegaRAID SAS RAID Controllers User Guide
April 2014
Chapter 1: Overview
Configuration Scenarios
1.3.4 MegaRAID SAS 9380-8e RAID Controller
The 12Gb/s MegaRAID SAS 9380-8e PCIe 3.0 Serial-Attached SCSI/SATA Disk Array Controller controls eight external
SAS/SATA ports through two SFF-8644 mini-SAS HD-4e external connectors.
1.4 Configuration Scenarios
You can use the MegaRAID SAS RAID controllers in three main scenarios:
 Low-end, internal SATA configuration: In this configuration, use the RAID controller as a high-end SATA II or
SATA III compatible controller that connects up to eight drives either directly or through a port expander. This
configuration is mostly for low-end or entry servers. An out-of-band I
2
C bus provides enclosure management.
Side bands of both types of internal SAS connectors support the SFF-8485 (SGPIO) interface.
 Midrange internal SAS configuration: This configuration is like an internal SATA configuration, but with
high-end SAS drives. This configuration is more suitable for low-range to midrange servers.
 High-end external SAS/SATA configuration: This configuration is for external connectivity using SATA II drives,
SATA III drives, SAS drives, or combinations of SATA and SAS drives. External enclosure management is supported
through in-band, SCSI-enclosed storage. The configuration must support STP and SMP.
The following figure shows a direct-connect configuration. The Inter-IC (I
2
C) interface communicates with peripherals.
The external memory bus provides an 8-bit/16-bit interface for connecting peripheral devices, such as nonvolatile
static random access memory (NVSRAM) and Flash ROM.
Figure 1 Example of an LSI SAS Direct-Connect Application
SAS
PCI Express
RAID Controller
SAS/SATA III Device
I 2 C
SAS/SATA III Device
SAS/SATA III Device
SAS/SATA III Device
PCI Express Interface
I 2 C
Interface
NVSRAM
Flash ROM/ Peripheral Bus