1 Overview

 

The MegaRAID® Express 500 PCI RAID controller is a high performance

 

intelligent PCI-to-SCSI host adapter with RAID control capabilities. The

 

MegaRAID Express 500 provides reliability, high performance, and fault-

 

tolerant disk subsystem management. The MegaRAID Express 500 is part of the

 

American Megatrends Intel i960RM/RS-based MegaRAID controller family.

 

The MegaRAID Express 500 is an entry level-to mid-range RAID controller

 

solution. MegaRAID Express 500 offers a cost-effective way to implement

 

RAID in a server. The MegaRAID Express 500 has a 160 M Ultra and Wide

 

SCSI channel supporting data transfer rates up to 160 Megabytes per second

 

(MB/s) per channel. The SCSI channel supports up to fifteen non-Ultra SCSI

 

devices. MegaRAID Express 500 includes MegaRAID features and

 

performance.

Features

 

MegaRAID Express 500 features include:

 

• provides a high performance I/O migration path while preserving existing PCI-SCSI

 

software

 

• Performs SCSI data transfers up to 160 MB/s

 

• performs synchronous operation on a wide LVD SCSI bus

 

• allows up to 15 LVD SCSI devices on the wide bus

 

• includes an Intel® i960RM that performs RAID calculations and routing

 

• supports 8, 16, 32, 64, or 128 MB of SDRAM cache memory in a DIMM socket

 

used for read and write-back caching and RAID 5 parity generation

SCSI Channel

The MegaRAID Express 500 upgrade card includes one Ultra3 SCSI channel.

 

The channel is powered by a Q-Logic ISP10160A 160M SCSI processor.

 

 

NVRAM and Flash ROM A 32 KB x 8 NVRAM stores RAID system configuration information. The MegaRAID Express 500 firmware is stored in flash ROM for easy upgrade.

SCSI Connectors MegaRAID Express 500 has one ultra high density 68-pin external connector for external storage subsystem and one high density 68-pin internal connector.

Chapter 1 Overview

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