IBM MegaRAID 8480 RAID Controller Description, General Description, Controller Limitations

1.2MegaRAID 8480 RAID Controller Description

The MegaRAID 8480 Storage Adapter is available with eight PHYs. The MegaRAID 8480 has one Intel IOP333 I/O processor that controls eight external SAS/SATA ports through two SAS 4x external connectors.

1.2.1Controller Limitations

The MegaRAID 8480 Storage Adapter has the following limitations:

•You can connect only one device per SAS PHY unless you use an expander

•You can use a maximum external cable length of six feet (LSI recommends using shorter cables, if possible)

•Cables have to meet the SAS specification

•Though you can mix SAS drives and SATA drives in the same virtual disk, LSI strongly discourages the practice

•See Section 3.3.4, “Electrical Characteristics,” for information about the power requirements, and Section 3.3.5, “Operating and Non- operating Conditions” for information about the minimum and maximum temperature ranges

1.3General Description

The MegaRAID 8480 Storage Adapter brings 3.0 Gbit/s Serial Attached SCSI and 3.0 Gbit/s Serial ATA II performance to host adapter, workstation, and server designs. The controller supports external storage devices, which allows you to use a system that supports enterprise-class SAS and desktop-class SATA II drives. Each MegaRAID 8480 Storage Adapter can connect to drives directly and can use expanders to connect to additional drives. Simplified cabling between devices is an additional benefit.

The RAID controller integrates eight high-performance SAS/SATA II PHYs and a PCI Express bus master DMA core. Each of the eight PHYs is capable of 3.0 Gbit/s SAS link rates and 3.0 Gbit/s SATA II link rates.

MegaRAID 8480 RAID Controller Description 1-3

Copyright © 2006-2007 by LSI Corporation. All rights reserved.