RAID adapter accelerates performance and saves power
To support cloud, enterprise and workstation customers, Microchip Technology has introduced the Adaptec SmartRAID 3100E RAID adapter to protect data in cost-sensitive applications. The SmartRAID 3100E provides over 60 per cent performance acceleration over Microchip’s earlier Adaptec Series 8E products at 40 per cent power savings.
The Adaptec SmartRAID 3100E series joins Microchip’s family of PCIe Gen 3 SAS-3/SATA SmartRAID 3100 adapters. The adapter is suitable to accelerate performance from caching support and also suitable for entry-level enterprise RAID data protection without the cost of cache protection or advanced RAID levels of full-featured RAID adapters, says Microchip.
It offers a migration path for those seeking to transition from software RAID solutions or a legacy entry-level hardware RAID solution to Microchip’s Smart Storage stack. The adapter has a built-in DRAM cache of 1Gbyte or 2Gbyte providing performance acceleration and lower power over earlier generations. The adapter is suitable for 4K random read/write workloads.
Target applications are computing and graphical applications, edge compute and storage nodes and industrial and manufacturing servers. Enterprises and cloud service providers now have the option to update the Adaptec Series 6E and Series 8E RAID adapters to the Smart Storage platform and benefit from the unified drivers, firmware and management tools across the Smart Storage family.
Smart Storage deployment tools, such as the Adaptec maxView Storage Manager and the open-source, software-defined storage plug-ins are compatible with the SmartRAID 3100E adapter.
The Adaptec SmartRAID 3100E series board-level adapter is in volume production now. The 3102E-8i and 3101E-4i, supporting hardware RAID levels 0, 1 and 10, provide data reliability and performance acceleration for up to eight and four direct attach devices, respectively.
Microchip Technology provides smart, connected and secure embedded control solutions. Its development tools and comprehensive product portfolio enable customers to create optimal designs which reduce risk while lowering total system cost and time to market for the industrial, automotive, consumer, aerospace and defence, communications and computing markets.
