Microchip announces industry's first NVMe and 24G SAS tri-mode RAID and HBA storage adapter is now shipping in volume production

Cloud service providers and server original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) designing storage platforms need to deliver exceptional performance, flexibility, and security for next-generation data centers. Microchip Technology Inc. (Nasdaq: MCHP) today announced the Adaptec® Smart Storage PCIe® Gen 4 NVMe Tri-Mode SmartRAID 3200 RAID adapter, along with the Adaptec SmartHBA 2200 and Adaptec HBA 1200 host bus adapters. These adapters enable next-generation NVMe and 24G SAS connectivity and manageability with market-leading performance while providing the new levels of security required for next-generation data center infrastructure.

“Microchip’s new Adaptec Tri-Mode storage adapters deliver the performance, connectivity, security and manageability that cloud computing and server OEM customers demand from the latest PCIe Gen 4-based server storage solutions,” said Andrew Dieckmann, assistant vice president of product marketing for Microchip’s Data Center Solutions business unit. “These adapters set a new industry standard for storage adapter security and performance with flexible support for 12G SAS and 6G SATA SSDs and HDDs via the latest NVMe and 24G SAS media.”

“Our cloud and enterprise customers require storage systems that can quickly move massive data sets efficiently and reliably,” said Greg Matson, senior director of strategic planning and product marketing for Intel NPSG. “Microchip’s latest Smart Storage Adapters support x8 and x16 PCIe Gen 4, delivering up to four times the performance of previous generations. Paired with Intel’s latest TLC and QLC PCIe 3D NAND SSDs, they help boost the performance of high-density storage solutions.”

“Our NVMe and SAS/SATA infrastructure innovations are delivering the media flexibility, reliability and scalability to meet the performance and cost targets our customers demand,” said Sangyeun Cho, senior vice president of the Memory Software Development Team at Samsung Electronics. “Samsung’s latest PCIe Gen4 NVMe and 24G SAS SSDs have completed compatibility testing with Microchip’s SmartRAID 3200 adapters and are available for immediate deployment.”

Microchip's Smart Storage Adapters offer 8 to 32 ports of NVMe 4.0 and/or 24G SAS drive support, and provide x8 and x16 PCIe Gen 4 CPU interface options, delivering up to 4x performance improvement compared to previous generations. Advanced features such as Dynamic Channel Multiplexing (DCM) SAS link aggregation technology provide greater than 99% expander link efficiency, significantly improving the performance of high-density storage solutions.

Microchip's Smart Storage Adapters feature the market-leading Smart Storage protocol stack and comprehensive management tools. This latest generation of adapters adds support for the SFF-TA-1005 industry standard for Universal Backplane Management (UBM) and Intel® Virtual Pin Port (VPP) for Smart Backplane Management, as well as the Distributed Management Task Force's standards-based Platform Level Data Model (PLDM)/Redfish® Device Enablement (RDE), simplifying out-of-band management via MCTP/BMC.

“Micron NVMe and SATA SSDs offer a wide range of performance and capacity options for demanding enterprise workloads, whether in on-premises data centers or in the cloud,” said Currie Munce, vice president of storage solutions architecture at Micron. “The combination of Adaptec Tri-Mode adapters and Micron SSDs provides our customers with the flexibility to deploy high-performance, low-latency NVMe and SATA storage on a common system platform.”

“New storage technologies are helping to propel the IT industry forward, improving application performance and data center efficiency,” said Alvaro Toledo, senior vice president and general manager of KIOXIA America’s SSD business unit. “Solutions like Microchip’s Tri-Mode Smart Storage Adapter enable next-generation storage architectures and maximize the value KIOXIA brings to customers with its 24G SAS and SFF-TA-1001 (U.3) compliant PCIe 4.0 SSDs.”

“HDDs are expected to hold the vast majority of exabytes stored in data centers by 2030 and beyond,” said Sai Varanasi, vice president of product line management at Seagate Technology, a leading global hard drive manufacturer. “Microchip’s reliable and secure adapters, including support for multi-actuator devices, are a key enabler for these latest data center deployments.”

Storage infrastructure requires security capabilities at both the adapter level and the supply chain. Microchip's new generation of adapters includes the industry's broadest range of secure storage options, supporting self-encrypting drives (SEDs) and maxCrypto™ controller-based encryption (CBE). These new capabilities extend the encryption boundary beyond just SED devices to now protect data stored in cache. Microchip's Trusted Platform technology provides the required supply chain security and is compliant with the Open Compute Security Project initiative.

Deployment Tools

Microchip's Adaptec SmartRAID 3200 RAID adapter, Adaptec SmartHBA 2200, and Adaptec HBA 1200 host bus adapters share common intelligent storage deployment tools, such as Adaptec maxView Storage Manager and ARCCONF management tools for local management, MCTP for remote management via the BMC and Chiplink diagnostic tools, and DMTF standards-based Platform Level Data Model (PLDM)/Redfish Device Enablement (RDE). Public firmware, software, and documentation are available at www.adaptec.com/support. A dedicated Adaptec knowledge base is available at https://ask.adaptec.com.

Availability

Adaptec SmartRAID 3200, SmartHBA 2200, and HBA 1200 board-level adapters, offering up to 32 ports of SAS/SATA/NVMe internal connectivity and x8 or x16 PCIe Gen 4 host interfaces, are now available in production. Additionally, an updated cable portfolio, including 24G SAS-4 and NVM-capable cables, provides effective end-to-end configuration coverage.

For more information, visit www.microchip.com/smartstorage or contact a Microchip sales representative or authorized worldwide distributor. To purchase products mentioned in this article, visit our purchasing portal or contact a Microchip authorized distributor.

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