IBM Power System 5148-21L

Feature details
SAS RAID adapters
The SAS RAID adapters have the following features:
v PCI Express (PCIe3) system interface
v Physical link (phy) speed of 6 Gbps SAS
v Optimized for SAS disk configurations that use dual paths through dual expanders for
redundancy and reliability
v Adapter managed path redundancy and path switching for multiported SAS devices
v Embedded PowerPC processor, hardware XOR DMA Engine, and hardware Finite Field
Multiplier (FFM) DMA Engine (for Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID))
v Support for RAID 0, 5, 6, and 10 disk arrays
v Additional features when the PCIe3 x8 cache SAS RAID internal adapter 6 Gb card is installed:
– Adapters support nonvolatile write cache
– Support for RAID 5T2, 6T2, and 10T2 tiered disk arrays (depending on the Operating
System support)
– Adapters configured in dual storage IOA or high availability (HA) RAID mode for best
reliability and availability
v RAID disk arrays supported as a boot device
v Advanced RAID features:
– Hot spares for RAID 5, 6, 10, 5T2, 6T2, and 10T2 disk arrays
– Background parity checking
– Background data scrubbing
– Disks formatted to 528 bytes per sector, providing cyclical redundancy checking (CRC) and
logically bad block checking (T10 Data Integrity Fields)
– Optimized hardware for RAID 5 and 6 sequential write workloads
– Optimized skip read/write disk support for transaction workloads
Related information:
Serial-attached SCSI cable planning
Serial-attached SCSI cable planning
SAS subsystem storage configurations
Several SAS subsystem storage configurations are supported on the 5148-21L, 5148-22L, 8247-21L,
8247-22L, 8247-42L, 8284-21A, 8284-22A, 8286-41A, or 8286-42A systems.
The configuration you use depends on the combination of SAS features that you have installed on your
system. The following table provides an overview of the features and related configurations.
Table 4. SAS subsystem storage configurations
SAS subsystem
configuration
Supported SAS
RAID adapter
External SAS
components SAS port cables SAS cables Limitations
Base function
storage
configuration
PCIe3 x8 SAS RAID
internal adapter 6 Gb
6 Gb (CCIN 57D7)
None None Internal mini SAS HD
cables
Base function
storage
configuration
with the split disk
feature
Two PCIe3 x8 SAS
RAID internal
adapters 6 Gb (CCIN
57D7)
None None Internal mini SAS HD
cables
SAS subsystem 5