LSI Introduces 6 Gb/s SAS Switch
The company calls the half-width 1U device the “industry’s first 6 Gb/s SAS switch”
LSI Corp. introduced a 6 Gb/s SAS switch this week. The company is billing its SAS6160 switch as an “industry first.”
The 6 Gb/s SAS switch is designed to extend the capabilities of SAS in direct-attached storage (DAS) environments by enabling multiple servers to connect to one or more independent external storage systems.
According to an LSI press release submitted to EH Publishing, the 6 Gb/s SAS switch offers “a high-performance, low-cost and easy-to-use storage networking option for rack-mount server and storage installations in cloud computing, data center, and managed hosting application environments.”
The SAS6160 is a half-width 1U device designed for easy integration with existing SAS infrastructures. The switch features 16 non-blocking, four-lane-wide ports providing a 24 Gb/s SAS connection per port, for an aggregate bandwidth of 384 Gb/s.
Utilizing JBOD or RBOD storage subsystems, the switch supports connectivity of up to 1,000 SATA and SAS devices, enabling SMBs to employ larger SAS topologies with reduced discovery times.
“The addition of the SAS6160 switch complements the industry’s broadest portfolio of 6 Gb/s SATA?? storage building block solutions available to the channel,” says LSI’s director of channel sales and marketing Brent Blanchard.
The LSI SAS switch optimizes storage resource utilization, reduces islands of storage, and simplifies storage management (including backup and upgrades) by enabling storage resources to be shared across multiple servers and managed effectively through SAS zoning.
The SAS switch also is designed to provide the connectivity necessary to support virtual server environments.
A single SAS switch infrastructure can also address multiple classes of storage, enabling tiered-storage solutions through a mix of 3 Gb/s and 6 Gb/s, SATA, and SAS end devices.
The SAS6160 switch offers SAS domain management through the embedded SAS Domain Manager (SDM) utility. SDM offers port configuration and zoning, firmware management, diagnostics, and viewing of the SAS topology.
An optional 1U mounting tray supports up to two LSI SAS6160 switches, for up to 32 SAS 2.0 ports (or support for high-availability applications by using two switches with redundant data paths).
The SAS6160 switch is available now through distributors and partners. It carries a price of $2,495. The 1U mounting tray sells for $450.
