LSI Rolls Out Advanced Software Options for White Box Partners
Four advanced applications are announced for LSI MegaRAID 6 Gb/s SATA?? controller cards.
LSI Corp. announced four advanced software options for LSI MegaRAID 6 Gb/s SATA?? controller cards this week. The new software offerings are designed to provide white box channel partners with enhanced performance and data protection capabilities.
The LSI MegaRAID CacheCade software pack is designed to accelerate the performance of hard disk drive (HDD) arrays by enabling solid-state drives (SSDs) to be configured as a secondary tier of cache.
CacheCade software helps maximize transactional I/O performance for read-intensive applications, delivering up to a 50X performance improvement with only an incremental investment in SSD technology.
According to LSI, the software is best suited for highly random I/O block-oriented applications that “frequently read and re-read data from a small working set, such as web, file, SQL and other transactional server applications,” states a company press release submitted to EH Publishing.
The CacheCade software pack includes MegaRAID FastPath software, and it delivered to customers as a bundled solution consisting of both products.
LSI’s director of worldwide channel sales and marketing Brent Blanchard says his company is looking to equip white box system builders with a “broad portfolio” that will help customers “take full advantage of the performance and power benefits of solid-state drives.”
“With these new software options, including advanced data protection capabilities,” Blanchard says, “we’re helping to provide our partners with the tools they need to gain a competitive edge.”
LSI MegaRAID FastPath software provides performance acceleration for SSD arrays connected to an LSI MegaRAID 6 Gb/s SATA?? controller. The software is designed to boost storage subsystem and overall application performance, particularly for workloads requiring high levels of random read/write operation.
“With MegaRAID FastPath software enabled,” states LSI in the press release, “SSD configurations can sustain over 150,000 read I/Os per second (IOPS) in RAID 0 environments.”
LSI MegaRAID Recovery software is designed to enhance data protection through rapid file and volume-level data recovery capabilities using snapshot functionality. “Users can capture snapshots of source volume data at designated points in time and restore data from those points should accidental or malicious data loss or corruption occur,” states the developer.
In its announcement of the software options, LSI Corp. has offered the following price points:
- MegaRAID CacheCade Software–$270
- MegaRAID FastPath Software–$165
- MegaRAID Recovery Software–$150
- MegaRAID SafeStore Software–$90
Advanced software options are currently supported on the MegaRAID SAS 9260-4i, 9260-8i, and 9280-4i4e controllers. They require installation of a physical key on the controller. Users will be able to download and install advanced software options on the full line of MegaRAID 6 Gb/s SATA?? controllers using electronic licenses in the second half of this year.
Additional information is available at the LSI Channel Gateway.
