Double Servings
A new LSI chip helps keep up with the data surge.
Courtesy LSI Corp.
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E-mailWorldwide digital content volume will nearly double between 2011 and 2012, growing to 2.7 zettabytes (a zettabyte is 1 billion terabytes), according to research group International Data Corp. To help data-center servers keep up with demand, engineers at LSI Corp. (NYSE: LSI) took a fresh look at everything they knew about building chips to address the data storage challenges businesses face, says Kelly Bryant, vice president of product planning and marketing in LSI’s RAID storage division.
“We looked at how silicon and software work together in integrated software systems [SAS],” Bryant says. “To drive performance gains, we offloaded some of the software capabilities by implementing them in the silicon.” The result is the industry’s first 12-gigabit-per-second SAS RAID-on-Chip (ROC) technology. LSI says one 8-port 12Gb/s SAS ROC can process 1 million input/output operations a second — a 57 percent jump over previous technology. That speed is critical for high-speed trading and e-commerce sites, Bryant says, noting that using existing technology would require multiple chips and a dozen hard disk drives.
LSI says it has also introduced the first 12Gb/s SAS expander chip for servers and external storage systems, which, with the SAS ROC, can be plugged into existing servers for an immediate boost in capacity and speed. “Such technologies are crucial for helping accelerate application performance in servers as the industry looks for new ways to evolve their IT infrastructure,” LSI President and CEO Abhi Talwalkar says.
