Charlene O'Hanlon

October 12, 2010

2 Min Read
LSI Brings 6GB/s SAS Storage Switch to the Channel

Storage usually isn’t the most exciting technology in the world. It’s a utility, and utilities often are, well, utilitarian. LSI, however, has always been viewed highly by the channel for its innovation in storage technology. In my opinion, the company doesn’t disappoint with its latest offering, the LSI SAS6160 switch. The 6Gb/s SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) switch enables multiple servers in direct-attached storage environments to connect to one or more external storage systems, extending the capabilities of SAS.

Such technology will prove very useful in cloud computing and managed/hosted application environments, where storage demands are heavy, as well as data center environments. Rather than have islands of storage, a company can optimize its storage resource utilization. Through a process called SAS zoning, companies can share their storage resources across multiple servers, also making for simplified management, backups and upgrades.

Virtual server environments also can benefit from the new technology, which provides the connectivity necessary for virtual machine migration while keeping the simplicity of a direct-attached storage environment.

Now for the technical information, direct from the news release:

“The LSI SAS6160 is a half-width 1U device designed for easy integration with existing SAS infrastructures. The switch features 16 non-blocking 4-lane-wide ports providing a 24Gb/s SAS connection per port, for an aggregate bandwidth of 384Gb/s. Utilizing JBOD or RBOD storage subsystems, the switch supports connectivity of up to 1,000 SATA and SAS devices, enabling customers to take advantage of larger SAS topologies with reduced discovery times.”

According to LSI, there is no other switch like it available in the channel. Certainly being able to share and pool storage across multiple hosts can help companies more efficiently manage their storage environment and move closer to – if not fully into – virtualized server environments, a solution becoming more popular daily, it seems. Solution providers that are helping their customers get virtual now have one more arrow in their storage quiver.

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