As we have seen with the latest server processors such as Sandy Bridge-EP and Ivy Bridge, PCI Express (PCIe) 3.0 is becoming widely available. To address this LSI has released a PCIe 3.0 controller, the LSI SAS 2308 to provide additional bandwidth over its PCIe 2.0 SAS 2008 controllers. The LSI SAS 2308 is a 6.0gbs SAS 2 or SATA III based controller that features eight ports and native PCIe 3.0 connectivity. In the forums we have maintained a LSI Controller Mapping between LSI controllers and their OEM counterparts. This post will be updated with both information on the LSI SAS 2308 based RAID controllers as well as the different OEM models commonly found in the marketplace. Oftentimes LSI SAS 2308 controllers are less expensive when found as OEM parts from Intel, Dell, HP, IBM, Supermicro and others, so it makes sense in many cases to purchase the OEM versions of the LSI SAS 2308 based cards.
Quick Notes on the LSI SAS 2308
- Integrated MegaRAID® support available upon request
- High Performance IOP PowerPC 440 @ 800MHz
- 6Gb/s SAS Interface, Supports 1.5Gb/s, 3Gb/s, and 6Gb/s SAS and SATA data transfer rates
- 8 port SAS/SATA controller
- Spread spectrum clocking
- Supports SSP, SMP, STP and SATA protocols
- SAS and SATA device support
- Supports narrow and wide ports
- T-10 data protection model
- Optical Support and Advanced Error Reporting (AER)
- PCI Express hot plug support
- Supports up to 1,000 devices
- PCI Express 3.0 Interface
- Supports x8, x4, x1 PCIe lanes at a transfer rate up to 8.0 GT/s per lane, full duplex
- Lane and polarity reversal
- SR-IOV (16 virtual functions)
- Supports End-to-End CRC (ECRC) and Advanced Error Reporting (AER)
- PCI Express hot plug support
- Advanced Power Management support
- Slumber and Partial power mode support for SAS and SATA devices
- Programmable SAS link power down
- Variable PCIe bandwidth negotiation
- External memory interface support
- Flash ROM
- NVSRAM for Integrated Mirroring
- Communication Interfaces
- I2C interfaces for enclosure management services
- UART and Ethernet interface for debug
- SFF-8485 Compliant, SGPIO
- JTAG support
- 837 FPBGA-HP (25mm)
Supported RAID Modes
- RAID 0, RAID1, RAID 10, RAID 1E
Cards Based on the LSI SAS 2308
The following listing is for the RAID Controllers and HBAs based on the LSI SAS 2308 SAS 2 and SATA III RAID controller. Naming Convention: i=internal port(s), e=external port(s). LSI original SAS 2308 based controller, all cards are PCIe 3.0 x8 unless otherwise noted.
LSI MegaRAID
- LSI SAS 9205-8e 2×4 ports SAS external, no cache, no BBU, can be flashed to either IT or IR mode, possibly even to LSI9240 making it a dual core version (LSI 9245 which was planned). This is a PCI Express (PCIe) 2.0 x8 card.
Intel
- Intel® RAID Controller RS25GB008 2×4 ports SAS external, no cache, no BBU, Flashed to IT mode
- Intel® Integrated RAID Module RMS25JB080 Proprietary Interface
- Intel® Integrated RAID Module RMS25JB040 Proprietary Interface
- Intel® Integrated RAID Module RMS25KB080 2×4 ports SAS internal horizontal, RAID 0, RAID1, RAID 10, RAID 1E, no cache, no BBU
- Intel® Integrated RAID Module RMS25KB040 1×4 ports SAS internal horizontal, RAID 0, RAID1, RAID 10, RAID 1E, no cache, no BBU
- Intel® RAID Controller RS25GB008 2×4 port external SAS, no cache, no BBU, Flashed to IT mode
Tyan Motherboards
- TYAN S7053 (S7053WGM2NR) 2×4 ports SAS internal, RAID 0, RAID1, RAID 10, RAID 1E, no cache, no BBU
- TYAN S7053 (S7053WGM4NR) 2×4 ports SAS internal, RAID 0, RAID1, RAID 10, RAID 1E, no cache, no BBU
- TYAN S7066 (S7066WGM3NR) 2×4 ports SAS internal, RAID 0, RAID1, RAID 10, RAID 1E, no cache, no BBU
ASRock Motherboards
- Extreme11 2×4 ports SAS internal
Supermicro Motherboards
- X9QR7-JTF – 4×4 ports SAS internal 2×4 ports SAS internal, RAID 0, 1 and 10, no cache, no BBU
- X9DR7-LN4F – 2x 4 port SAS internal 2×4 ports SAS internal, RAID 0, 1 and 10, no cache, no BBU
- X9DR7-JLN4F – 2x 4 port SAS internal 2×4 ports SAS internal, RAID 0, 1, 10 and JBOD, no cache, no BBU
- X9DRD-7LN4F – 2x 4 port SAS internal 2×4 ports SAS internal, RAID 0, 1 and 10, no cache, no BBU
As a side note, I tested the LSI 9205-8e and found its performance for data warehousing (sequential reads) to be identical to the 9200-8e, which was surprising. I hope (and expect) that a PCIe3 card with the same controller would show better performance.
Patrick, if you need a pile of SSD drives to test one of these cards in a socket 2011 machine, let me know.
Will see what I can get to play with. One interesting note is that I have heard PCIe 2.0 cards off of an Xeon E5 PCIe 3.0 bus are showing better latency. Have not had time to try this myself.
Officially the LSI9205 is a PCIe Gen2 card, even though the SAS2308 is a PCIe Gen3 Chipset.
The only real difference really is the 800Mhz SAS208 vs the 533Mhz SAS2008, other than that they are pretty well the same.
You may notice a difference with 8x SATA3 SSD’s as the SAS2308 can probably handle a more throughput, but otherwise the SSD’s will be the bottleneck.
HP H220/221/222 are all LSI 2308 based HBA.