Nytro MegaRAID Revision 1.7 Overview

> Nytro MegaRAID Revision 1.7 Overview

> Nytro MegaRAID Controller Features and Benefits
> Hardware and Software Requirements
> SAS Technology
> SATA II and SATA III Features
> Configuration Scenarios
> Solid State Drive Features
> FastPath Feature
> Dimmer Switch Feature
> UEFI 2.0 Support
> MegaRAID Storage Manager Software Overview
> References
> Technical Support

> This document describes how to configure, monitor, and maintain the Nytro™ MegaRAID® Application Acceleration Card, using the MegaRAID Storage Manager™, WebBIOS™ configuration utility (CU), Human Interface Infrastructure (HII) configuration utility, and Storage Command utility (StorCLI). The Nytro controller is based on LSISAS2208 RAID On-a-Chip (ROC). This device is compliant with the Fusion-MPT™ architecture and provides a PCI Express® (PCIe®) 3.0 interface.

> This document documents the SAS technology, Serial ATA (SATA) technology, Nytro Cache drive software, SSD Guard™, Dimmer Switch®, UEFI 2.0, configuration scenarios, and drive types. Other features such as Fast Path and SafeStore™ are described in other chapters of this guide.

> The LSI® Nytro MegaRAID (this is a combination of the LSI proven MegaRAID controller tightly integrated with built-in Nytro Flash modules to be used as data cache devices with the help of LSI Nytro controller) Application Acceleration Card for DAS is designed to accelerate applications economically with a solution providing leading RAID performance from direct-attached storage combined with intelligent caching using on-board Flash storage.

> The controller increases the storage performance by retaining the current investment in direct-attached storage (DAS). Flash technology has become almost synonymous with speed, but it comes at a price premium over hard disk drives (HDD). The controller combines Flash technology with LSI’s industry leading 6Gb/s SAS/SATA ROC device implementation. Using intelligent caching algorithms to help identify application hot data (the frequently accessed data is stored and accessed from Flash enabling the lowest possible latency). By combining Flash and HDDs, this solution is designed to enable the lowest cost/GB at the lowest cost/transaction over products supporting only Flash memory.

> The controller provides accelerated performance and improved manageability to MegaRAID with its two embedded solid state storage modules. The controller uses on-board solid state storage (SSD) in front of the connected hard disk drive (HDD) drives to create high-capacity and high-performance acceleration cache pools.

> The controller provides enterprise class data protection and transparent performance acceleration to direct-attached SCSI storage volumes. The card provides reliability, high performance, and fault-tolerant drive subsystem management. Performance acceleration is powered by intelligent caching using the Nytro Flash storage.

> The controller is easy to use with transparent access to applications. Not all of the solid-state disk (SSD) implementations work at enterprise levels. Performance might suddenly drop after only several hours of use. The controller provides more sustainable high performance by using its own on-board PCIe accessible Flash storage. This Flash storage is certified by LSI in internal testing for enterprise applications and offers more consistent latency performance over SAS-accessed Nytro Flash modules. This industry proven LSI software drivers permit many applications to enjoy the performance improvement seamlessly from the controller without any application or file system modifications.

> The controller combines Nytro Flash modules with HDD Storage for Economy. In addition to providing caching intelligence and high performance Flash storage, the controller uses LSI’s latest ROC technology, which is PCIe 2.0 and PCIe 3.0 compliant. The intelligent caching implementation can provide high performance when using SAS or SATA hard drives. Another benefit is that caching lightens the HDD load, hence HDD RAID rebuilds complete faster and removes traditional HDD head wear from accessing small block requests typical in database environments.

> Provides an economical solution for accelerating applications – by storing frequently accessed data on low-latency Nytro Flash modules while existing SAS or SATA connected hard drives to achieve a balance of performance and cost savings.

> The following table provides the convention of usage of important terms throughout this document.

> Term | Convention of Usage
> Nytro Flash Module | The on-board Flash module, which is used as data cache devices with the help of the LSI Nytro controller.
> Solid-state disks (SSDs) | This term refers to external SSDs.
> Controller card/controller/Nytro controller card | This term refers to the Nytro MegaRAID controller. These terms are used interchangeably throughout this document.
> Nytro Cache drive group | A collection of on-board Nytro Flash modules that reside on the Nytro controller.
> Nytro Cache Drive | A virtual drive (VD) created from the on-board Nytro Flash modules. The cache drive can have one of the following supported configurations with write policy: RAID 1-Write Back/Write Through RAID 0-Write Back/Write Through RAID 1-elastic cache (R1-EC) (Write Back only)
> Cache Volume | Nytro Cache drive.
> External Volume Support (EVS) | External volume is an on-board Nytro Flash module that enables you to create any kind of Nytro MegaRAID VD.
> Source VD | A virtual drive associated to a Nytro Cache drive.
> SuperCap | A Super Capacitor used to power the Nytro MegaRAID card while data in DRAM is moved into non-volatile Flash. The terms Supercap and BBU are used interchangeably in this document.
> StoreLib Libraries | The StoreLib application programming interface (API) is a library of storage device-related commands that provide an interface between the user applications and the Serial Attached Small Computer System Interface (SAS) storage controllers.
> Auto or Default Configuration | The Auto or Default configuration is created on system initialization by firmware by using the Nytro Flash modules that are present on the Nytro controller. Throughout this document, the Default configuration method is called as, Auto configuration.

> NOTE All of the MegaRAID Storage Manager menu options can also be accessed by using the Go To menu or Right-click > Controller option.

DB15-000988-08-December 2013
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