Unmatched performance for enterprise and cloud computing – Adaptec Series 7 RAID adapters from DCC

Adaptec by PMC’s Series 7 RAID adapters, the industry’s first and only PCIe Gen3 low-profile form-factor adapter with 24 native ports, are now available from distributor Drive Control Corporation (DCC). These adapters are the first of their kind to fully leverage third generation PCIe bandwidth, delivering maximum performance, fit and function for a range of dense server environments as well as performance-intensive and cloud computing applications.

“Adaptec’s Series 7 family of adapters deliver a number of industry firsts, including the industry’s highest performance of up to 450 000 input/output operations per second (IOPs) and 6.6GBytes per second, which is equivalent to nearly ten times the performance of previous-generation RAID adapters. They are also the only solution in the industry to offer 24 native SAS ports on the card, utilising PMC PM8015 RAID on Chip (RoC) with an X8 PCIe Gen3 SAS interface,” says Rajen Naicker, Adaptec Product Specialist at DCC.

“What this means for enterprises is that customers can now directly attach up to 24 solid state drives (SSDs) or hard disk drives (HDDs) with a single adapter, which eliminates the need for a multi-component architecture and allows organisations to take full advantage of the capabilities of the PCIe Gen3 interface,” he adds.

Another innovation of the Series 7 family introduces a brand new cable connectivity standard, HD Mini SAS connectors. Using these Mini SAS connectors, density can be increased, delivering the industry’s only low profile high port RAID adapter. This innovation makes the Adaptec Series 7 family the only solution in the industry to offer a native 16 port solution using a low-profile MD2 form factor, which in turn allows for 2.5” drives or SSDs to be utilised in a direct connect environment. This is essential as the industry transitions towards denser server environments.

The Series 7 family incorporates a number of advanced technologies, including Adaptec maxCache 3.0 third-generation caching software. maxCache 3.0 uses SSDs for read and write caching, which offers 25 times the IOPs as well as 25 times reduced latency in read-intensive applications, and 14 times improved IOPs in write-intensive applications. This enables the acceleration of performance on certain applications.

“Aside from dramatically improved performance, the Series 7 family also incorporates ease of use and functionality features. Examples of these features include one-click setup for RAID, simple volume and physical drive configurations, as well as Adaptec maxView, which simplifies the monitoring and configuration of RAID adapters using a convenient web-based interface which will run on any browser, including mobile,” says Naicker.

The Series 7 family also incorporates third-generation Zero-Maintenance Cache Protection (ZMCP) which uses flash memory to protect cache data, effectively eliminating traditional costs and issues associated with battery backup units (BBUs).

“Demand for fast and reliable access to data continues to grow, and with the evolution of dense server environments and cloud computing applications, data centre applications consume increase amounts of input and output bandwidth. In order to keep pace with this demand, it is crucial to harness the power of PCIe Gen3 architecture and maximise performance, which the Adaptec Series 7 family has achieved. The Series 7 RAID controllers are the next evolution in high speed, high performance data access,” Naicker concludes.

The Adaptec by PMC Series 7 family of RAID controllers are available immediately from Drive Control Corporation.