Date: 17/03/2010

LSI sampling 6Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI Switches

LSI is sampling 6Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) switches. The new LSI model SAS6160 and SAS6161 switches with zoning feature allow multiple servers to connect to one or more independent external storage systems. The model SAS6160 and SAS6161 switches feature a rack-mountable 16-port, 1U profile in respective half-width and full-width form factors making them suitable for rack-mounted server and storage installations in cloud computing, mega data center and small- to medium-sized business environments.


"The SAS interface is widely used inside servers and storage arrays," said Bob Laliberte, senior analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group. "However, with the introduction of 6Gb/s SAS and now 6Gb/s SAS switches, organizations of all sizes will have the ability to extend SAS beyond today's DAS environments to create simple, low-cost and high-performance networked storage environments. Given the need for storage to support virtualized server environments and the advanced features and benefits offered by shared storage, these solutions are well-timed."

Both SAS6160 and SAS6161 feature 24Gb/s SAS connections on 16 x4 SAS lanes to deliver an aggregated bandwidth of 384Gb/s. Each model supports SAS and SATA connectivity to more than 1,000 devices enabling larger SAS topologies and tiered storage solutions.

LSI SAS616x switches offer complete SAS domain management including port configuration, zoning, firmware management, diagnostics and viewing of the SAS topology. High-availability applications can be supported by using two switches with redundant data paths.

"Leveraging our expertise and technology leadership, we are delivering the industry's first high-performance SAS switching solution for extending DAS environments," said Steve Fingerhut, senior director of marketing, Storage Components Division, LSI. "With fully integrated management software and extensive end-to-end interoperability testing, customers are assured of plug-and-play simplicity when deploying SAS616x series switches into existing SAS-based environments."

Production quantities are expected to be available to OEM customers in the second half of this year.