Meeting Data Storage Requirements; High Performance; Pci Express Technology - HP 273914-B21 - Smart Array 6404/256 RAID Controller Technology Brief

Meeting data storage requirements

The HP Smart Array controller family has an advanced intelligent architecture developed with a
feature set that specifically addresses today's network data storage requirements:
• Capacity growth — Administrators can expand server storage capacity while the server is
operating. The HP online Array Configuration Utility (ACU) simplifies storage management for
administrators who use fault-tolerant array configurations and experience capacity growth. Refer to
Appendix A for details about using array creation and expansion to increase capacity.
• High performance — Smart Array controllers supply high levels of throughput and data bandwidth
to support demanding workloads. The advanced intelligent architecture contains specialized
modules that enhance performance significantly. Online array expansion, stripe size migration,
RAID migration, configurable read/write cache sizes, rebuild priority, and configurable write-back
caching for each logical drive empowers administrators to tune Smart Array controllers to meet
performance demands.
• Data availability — Smart Array controllers include a comprehensive set of fault-tolerance features
that guard against disk drive and controller component failures, making online storage
administration possible and reducing planned downtime.
• Manageability — All Smart Array controllers use a common set of management software, reducing
training requirements and technical expertise necessary to install and maintain HP server storage.
The common data format among Smart Array controllers means customers can easily upgrade to
future Smart Array products.
• Storage virtualization — HP StorageWorks SAN Virtualization Services Platform (SVSP) provides
centrally managed storage pooling and virtual volume provisioning for HP and non-HP storage
resources. The HP SVSP enables high scalability, top performance, and high availability of all SAN
resources. It brings substantial improvements to managing enterprise storage, reducing
administration costs, and improving asset utilization. It also offers a consistent set of storage and
mobility services that improves flexibility, protects data, and decreases business risk. Services
offered include volume management, data migration, copy services (clones and snapshots),
synchronous and asynchronous mirroring, and thin provisioning. More information on HP storage
virtualization products and services are available at
http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/storage/software/sanvr/index.html

High performance

Smart Array controllers offer exceptional performance and reliability characteristics, with support for
traditional parallel Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) technology, as well as the latest SAS and
SATA technology and advanced RAID capabilities.

PCI Express technology

The present generation of Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) based Smart Array controllers released in the
first half of 2009, and all ProLiant G6 servers support the PCIe 2.0 specification. PCIe 2.0 has a per-
lane signaling rate of 5 Gb/s ― double the per-lane signaling rate of PCIe 1.0 (Figure 1).
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