SAS Switch - Solve Problems by Efficiently Connecting Multiple Servers to Multiple Storage Devices
21 July 2011 Source: www.lsi.com
The LSI® 6Gb/s SAS6160 Switch is an easier-to-use storage networking problem-solver for direct attached storage (DAS), storage area networks (SANs), and virtualized environments. The Switch helps enable storage resources to be shared across multiple hosts and managed through SAS zoning.
Challenges of DAS, SAN, and Virtual Environments
DAS, a well understood architecture, can have scalability problems. In the DAS environment, when server ports are all in use, to add storage, you first have to add servers. This situation is needlessly expensive and often creates troublesome storage islands. The SAS Switch helps solve these problems.
Traditionally, SANs have used Fibre Channel (FC) for its excellent performance - but FC is expensive. As an alternative, iSCSI is less expensive, but lacks good I/O performance. The SAS Switch helps solve these problems, too, providing higher performance at lower cost.
In virtualized environments, shared storage connectivity can suffer from degraded access times. Here again, the SAS Switch and its low latency 6Gb/s SAS protocol is a logical, lower-cost solution for helping maintain storage system performance.
SAS Solves Problems
With the SAS Switch, you can extend the advantages of SAS, the native storage language, and enjoy easier scalability, performance, power savings, and low cost.
Efficient Scalability: The SAS Switch supports SATA + SAS connectivity to more than 1,000 devices (hard-disk and solid-state) and helps enable larger SAS topologies and tiered storage solutions.
High Bandwidth, Lower Power: The SAS Switch delivers up to 384Gb/s of aggregated bandwidth with 24Gb/s SAS connections on 16 x 4 SAS lanes. That's concentrated performance in a small, lower-power consuming device.
Easy to Use: The SAS Switch includes SAS domain management for port configuration, zoning, firmware management, diagnostics, and viewing of SAS topology. The SAS Domain Manager is an intuitive utility that helps make managing SANs as clear and straightforward as managing DAS.
Flexible Redundancy: With two SAS Switches, redundant connections support high-availability applications.
The Switch is compatible with a variety of LSI 6Gb/s portfolio products that interoperate with SATA + SAS hard-disk and solid-state drives. And the 1/2 U wide Switch fits neatly into a rack - and provides easier connectivity with its active cables that extend up to 25 meters.
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