Smart Storage SAS/SATA Adapters offers port densities up to 24 ports.

Press Release Summary:

Smart Storage SAS/SATA Adapters are available in Adaptec HBA 1100, SmartHBA 2100 and SmartRAID 3100 models. Units are suitable for software-defined storage, cold storage and enterprise applications. Products can be used in server storage applications using 12 Gbps SAS or 6 Gbps SATA hard disk drives or solid state drives. Adapters feature smart storage stack and 28nm SmartIOC 2100 and SmartROC 3100 storage controller integrated circuits.


Original Press Release:

Microsemi Introduces New Smart Storage HBAs and RAID Adapters for Data Centers

Adaptec Smart Storage Solutions Deliver High Performance, Low Power and Reliability for SDS, Cold Storage and Enterprise Applications

Microsemi Corporation (Nasdaq: MSCC), a leading provider of semiconductor solutions differentiated by power, security, reliability and performance, today announced the production release of its new Smart Storage SAS/SATA adapters. The addition of these advanced Smart Storage adapters advances Microsemi's Smart Storage offering for SAS/SATA server storage in data centers with full board-level solutions as well as silicon plus software for custom embedded solutions. The entire product portfolio, which includes the Microsemi Adaptec HBA 1100 family, SmartHBA 2100 family and SmartRAID 3100 family, is based on the company's latest 28nm SmartIOC 2100 and SmartROC 3100 storage controller integrated circuits (ICs), and delivers high performance, low power, reliability and feature-rich solutions tailored to a variety of server storage applications, including software-defined storage (SDS), cold storage and enterprise applications.

The HBA 1100 delivers performance and flexibility for SDS applications. The SmartHBA 2100 is a unique adapter solution which delivers all the benefits of an HBA 1100 plus the option of basic hardware RAID on a selection of drives, ideal for SDS applications with the desire for RAID for boot drives or small/medium business (SMB) applications. The SmartRAID 3100 offers maximum functionality, acceleration through caching and the highest data availability for the most demanding enterprise storage applications. Each of the three solutions offers port densities up to 24 ports in half-length, half-height form factors, and come in a variety of port configurations.

"Microsemi's unified Smart Storage stack offers one of the industry's most reliable and highest performing storage controller software platforms, boasting performance of up to 1.7 million random read input/output (I/O) operations per second. The production release of our Smart Storage 12Gbps SAS/SATA adapters reflects our commitment to providing solutions for the specific needs of our server original equipment manufacturer (OEM), server original design manufacturer (ODM), hyperscale and system integration customers," said Pete Hazen, vice president and business unit manager, Scalable Storage, at Microsemi. "With a significant improvement in total cost of ownership, the inherent benefits of a unified firmware and software offering across the full line of products, a significant boost in performance and power savings of 40 percent, we are proud to offer to the market a highly differentiated portfolio of adapters to build upon the success of the Microsemi Adaptec Series 8 RAID solutions."

Microsemi's Smart Storage solutions can be used in any server storage application with 12 Gbps SAS or 6 Gbps SATA hard disk drives (HDDs) or solid state drives (SSDs). SAS/SATA HDDs and SSDs are forecasted by market research firm IDC to represent 80 percent of all enterprise drives shipped on an annual basis through the end of the decade. Microsemi's Smart Storage solutions are performance-optimized around SSD performance and power-optimized for HDD-based cold storage. Features are available for both deployment extremes in addition to a myriad of hybrid SSD/HDD applications.

"Cloud and hyperscale data centers continue to push the boundaries of storage capacity per disk and overall total cost of ownership per Terabyte of storage," said Brendan Collins, vice president, HDD Product Marketing, Western Digital. "Microsemi's HBA 1100 series, combined with the HGST-branded Ultrastar® Hs14 enterprise SMR hard drive, enables data centers to continue to address the explosive growth in storage capacity requirements with optimal power, performance and footprint."

The Microsemi Adaptec HBA 1100, SmartHBA 2100 and SmartRAID 3100 all leverage the unified Smart Storage Stack. Each family has unique differentiating features.

The HBA 1100 is optimized for SDS, cold storage and raw high-performance connectivity. It also includes:

  • Adapters with up to 24 ports using 28nm SAS/SATA-optimized silicon, offering an optimal power profile for the target applications
  • Support for host-managed and host-aware shingled magnetic recording (SMR) drives
  • Broad operating system (OS) driver support, including inbox driver support
  • Performance of up to 1.7 million input/output operations per second (IOPS)

The SmartHBA 2100 is optimized for SDS applications which desire hardware RAID for OS boot drives as well as entry level RAID for SMBs. It also provides:

  • Basic RAID without compromising on the requirement for a fully featured and functional HBA, which is required for multi-path IO and SDS applications
  • Mixed mode enables drives to be independently configured as raw drives or as part of a logical volume
  • True hardware RAID for RAID 0,1,10 and RAID 5
  • Industry's only basic RAID solution with more than eight ports

The SmartRAID 3100 is optimized for enterprise storage applications which require the highest level of data availability and data center applications which benefit from caching. It also features:

  • Adapters with up to 24 ports using 28nm SAS/SATA-optimized silicon, offering an optimal power profile for the target applications
  • Zero Maintenance Cache Protection (ZMCP) with a cache size of up to 4GB and integrated cache backup circuitry for optimal cost, thermal performance and operating efficiency
  • Board options without cache backup
  • maxCache 4.0 included on all adapters with up to ~2TB SSD cache
  • Roadmap to maxCrypto controller-based encryption

The combination of the company's Unified Smart Storage Stack, SmartRAID and SmartHBA, HBA product families and Microsemi's SXP family of SAS expanders provide a complete server solution for storage management and connectivity.

Product Availability

Microsemi's Unified Smart Storage Stack, as well as the fourth generation SmartRAID 3100, SmartHBA 2100 and HBA 1100 series board level product families, are available in volume production quantities now. For more information, visit www.microsemi.com/smartstorage or contact sales.support@microsemi.com.

About Microsemi's Product Portfolio for Hyperscale Data Center

Microsemi is a premier supplier of innovative semiconductor, board, system, software and services for enterprise and hyperscale data centers, enabling high performance, secure, low power and reliable infrastructure for scalable deployments. Microsemi technologies drive innovation in applications including storage systems, server storage, NVM solutions, Ethernet switching, rack scale architecture, data center interconnect, network timing and power subsystems. Building on a track record of technology leadership, Microsemi's data center infrastructure portfolio is transforming networks that connect, store and move big data, while lowering the total cost of ownership of deploying next generation services.

The portfolio includes high performance NVMe storage controllers, NVRAM drives, SAS/SATA host bus adapters and RAID controllers enabling high capacity storage architectures, high density PCIe switching and firmware for rack scale architectures, PCIe re-drivers, and Ethernet PHYs for intra-rack connectivity. Microsemi's product portfolio also includes clock and power management, IEEE1588 integrated circuits (ICs) and NTP servers for synchronization across the data center, as well as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and system-on-chip (SoC) FPGAs to perform secure system management of servers and storage. For more information, visit http://www.microsemi.com/applications/data-center.

About Microsemi

Microsemi Corporation (NASDAQ: MSCC) offers a comprehensive portfolio of semiconductor and system solutions for aerospace & defense, communications, data center and industrial markets. Products include high-performance and radiation-hardened analog mixed-signal integrated circuits, FPGAs, SoCs and ASICs; power management products; timing and synchronization devices and precise time solutions, setting the world's standard for time; voice processing devices; RF solutions; discrete components; enterprise storage and communication solutions, security technologies and scalable anti-tamper products; Ethernet solutions; Power-over-Ethernet ICs and midspans; as well as custom design capabilities and services. Microsemi is headquartered in Aliso Viejo, California, and has approximately 4,800 employees globally. Learn more at www.microsemi.com.

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