Avago Technologies SAS 9300-4i Host Bus Adapter - Manual (Page 5)

LSI Corporation
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SAS-3 Integrated RAID Solution User Guide
November 2012 Chapter 1: Introduction to the Integrated RAID Solution
Overview
Chapter 1: Introduction to the Integrated RAID Solution
1.1 Overview
The LSI® Integrated RAID solution provides cost benefits for the server or workstation market that requires the extra
performance, storage capacity, and redundancy of a RAID configuration. The LSI Integrated RAID solution includes the
following RAID features:
 The Integrated Mirroring solution, which provides features of RAID 1
 The Integrated Mirroring + Striping solution, which provides features of RAID 10
 The Integrated Mirroring Enhanced solution, which provides features of RAID 1 Enhanced (RAID 1E)
 The Integrated Striping solution, which provides features of RAID 0
By simplifying the configuration options and by providing firmware support in its SAS-3 host adapters, LSI can offer
the Integrated RAID solution at a lower cost than a hardware RAID implementation.
LSI Fusion-MPT™ firmware supports Integrated Mirroring volumes, Integrated Mirroring + Striping volumes,
Integrated Mirroring Enhanced volumes, and Integrated Striping volumes. You can create up to two Integrated RAID
volumes on each LSI SAS-3 controller.
The LSI Integrated RAID solution supports the following LSI SAS-3 controllers and the host bus adapters based on
these controllers:
 LSISAS3008
 LSISAS3004
LSI Integrated RAID firmware uses the same device drivers as the standard LSI Fusion-MPT-based controllers, thereby
eliminating the need for complex backup software or expensive RAID hardware. To conserve system resources, the
Integrated RAID firmware operates independently from the operating system. The BIOS-based configuration utility,
documented in
Chapter 3 and Chapter 5 , makes it easy to configure mirrored and striped volumes. The Integrated
RAID solution is currently available as an optional component of the Fusion-MPT architecture on LSI SAS-3 controllers.
NOTE In this document, the terms volume, RAID volume, array, and RAID array are used interchangeably.
Volume and array both appear on the screens of the BIOS-based configuration utility. The term disk means
both hard disk drive (HDD) and solid state drive (SSD), and the HDDs or SSDs can support either SAS or SATA
protocol.