PCIe2 3.1GB Cache Integrated SAS RAID Adapter (CCIN 57C3) included in FC EDR1

Overview

The PCIe2 3.1GB Cache Integrated SAS RAID adapter is an internal PCI Express generation-2 (PCIe2), serial-attached SCSI (SAS) Random Array of Independent Disks (RAID) adapter integrated into the EDR1 PCIe storage enclosure. The adapter contains the SAS RAID controller and SAS Expander. The internal adapter with the SAS RAID controller and SAS Expander is called as the enclosure RAID module (ERM). This adapter supports the attachment of the 1.8 inch SAS solid-state drive feature ES02 internal to the PCIe storage enclosure, as well as hard disk drives installed in an optional attached 5887 disk drawer. The EDR1 PCIe storage enclosure connects to the server via a PCIe x8 cable at its PCIe x8 cable port. The PCIe cable is connected to the GX ++ PCIe2 adapter in the server.

The FC EDR1 PCIe storage enclosure is always supplied with two PCIe2 internal SAS RAID adapters preinstalled. These must be used in a high availability, multi-initiator RAID configuration with the two adapters in dual-controller mode (Dual Storage IOA configuration).

The optional 5887 disk drawers can be connected to the EDR1 PCIe storage enclosure using SAS EX cables installed at the ERM1 high density SAS connectors (C1-T1 or C1-T2) and ERM2 high density SAS connectors (C2-T1 or C2-T2). Each 5887 disk drawer must be connected to the T1 ports on both ERMs or to the T2 ports on both expanders. The attached 5887 disk drawers must be configured in mode 1 only.

Each of the two high performance, integrated SAS controllers physically provide 3.1 GB write-cache. Working as a pair, they provide additional performance and adapter redundancy with mirrored write-cache data and mirrored RAID parity footprints between the adapters. The cache contents are designed to be protected by integrated flash memory with capacitors in case of power failure without the need for batteries as were used with previous large cache adapters. If the pairing is broken, write-cache is disabled after existing cache content is written out to the drives and performance may be degraded until the controller pairing is reestablished.

Both controllers can support a minimum of 6 SSD and a maximum of 30 SSD. The SAS SSD bays are always physically one set of drives, even though there may be multiple RAID arrays in this one set. With two or more RAID arrays, each RAID array can be optimized to either of the integrated SAS controllers to take advantage of Active/Active performance improvements via the R/W bandwidth of both adapters.

Figure 1. Location codes of the PCIe2 3.1GB Cache Integrated SAS RAID adapter

Servers running the AIX® or Linux operating system support both adapters RAID controllers owned by the same or different partitions. The controllers provide RAID 0, RAID 5, RAID 6, and RAID 10 configurations for servers running the AIX or Linux operating system, and supported by VIOS. AIX, Linux, or VIOS also provide mirroring (logical volume manager (LVM)) capabilities.

For the EDR1 feature, these adapters can be maintained concurrently, along with most other components in the EDR1 PCIe storage enclosure.

See figure that shows the ERM.

Figure 2. CCIN 57C3 PCIe2 3.1GB Cache RAID SAS Enclosure 6Gb x8

Specifications

Item

Description

Adapter CCIN number

57C3

I/O bus architecture

PCIe2 x8

Cables

PCIe cables FC EN05 and FC EN07.

Voltage

3.3 V

Operating system or partition requirements