Dell PowerEdge Quick Manual

Storage
By Bhanu Prakash Dixit
Joe H. Trickey III
A
tial for organizations seeking to simplify their IT
environments while increasing controller and stor-
age reliability and server uptime. The Dell PowerEdge
Expandable RAID Controller (PERC) line of storage
controllers has evolved to address these data stor-
age requirements, providing innovative features to
Related Categories: help support complex server-based storage environ-
ments, increase server uptime, and reduce adminis-
Dell PowerEdge RAID
Controller (PERC) trative burdens.
PERC 6
RAID controllers supports SAS devices and Dell-
RAID
qualified Serial ATA (SATA) devices. It consists of
Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)
three PCI Express (PCIe)–based, 3 Gbps SAS RAID
Storage
controllers: the PERC 6/E adapter (which fits in a
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standard x8 PCIe slot supporting Dell PowerVault
for the complete category index.
direct attach storage), the PERC 6/i adapter
(which fits in a standard x8 PCIe slot supporting
internal storage for Dell PowerEdge servers and
Dell Precision
grated card (which supports internal storage for
Dell PowerEdge servers).
data rate 2 (DDR2) cache memory, with the
PERC 6/E supporting upgrades to 512 MB to allow
88 DELL POWER SOLUTIONS | May 2008
IntroducIng the
dell Perc 6 FamIly
oF SaS raId
controllerS
The Dell
Sanjay Tiwari (PERC) 6 family of enterprise-class Serial Attached
Kedar Vaze
SCSI (SAS) RAID controllers is designed for enhanced
performance, increased reliability and fault tolerance,
and simplified management—providing a powerful,
easy-to-manage way to create a robust infrastructure
and help maximize server uptime.
s enterprise data requirements continue
to increase, deploying powerful, easy-to-
manage RAID solutions can become essen-
The PERC 6 family of Serial Attached SCSI (SAS)
workstations), and the PERC 6/i inte-
™
Each PERC 6 controller offers a 256 MB double
PowerEdge Expandable RAID Controller
™ ™
quick access to additional data and help increase
performance. PERC 6 controllers also include a bat-
tery backup unit to help maintain data consistency
and protect data in the controller cache during a
system power and/or controller failure. PERC 6 con-
trollers support RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, and 60.
The evolution of the PERC 6 from the PERC 5
reflects the Dell focus on simplifying IT, advancing
green technology, and designing total data solutions.
PERC 6 controllers take advantage of the PCIe archi-
tecture and include an enhanced controller chip
design to help substantially increase throughput and
remove the controller as a performance bottleneck
(see Figure 1). The optimization of the RAID design,
which incorporates the I/O processor and I/O control-
ler on a single RAID-on-a-chip (ROC) solution, enables
a significant reduction in power consumption for
PERC 6 controllers compared with equivalent
™
PERC 5 controllers. In addition, using a true PCIe solu-
tion by removing the PCI Extended (PCI-X) bridge
helps significantly increase performance under
sequential workloads. Figure 2 provides a compre-
hensive comparison of PERC 5 and PERC 6 features
and specifications.
PERC 6 controllers are designed to provide
enhanced performance, simplified management,
increased reliability and fault tolerance, optimized
Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, May 2008. Copyright © 2008 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.