Enhanced Performance - Dell PowerEdge Quick Manual

PERC 5 architecture
3.2 GB/sec 1 GB/sec
peak peak Bottleneck
throughput throughput
Intel
®
LSISAS1068
DDR2-400 IOP333
controller IC
processor
PCI-X
x8 PCIe
2 GB/sec
peak
throughput
Figure 1. Dell PERC 5 and PERC 6 controller architectures
deployment with Dell PowerVault storage,
and flexible RAID configuration and man-
agement tools. The controllers support
Microsoft® Windows Server® 2003 with
Service Pack 1 (SP1) (32-bit and 64-bit),
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (32-bit
and 64-bit), Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® 4
Update 5 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
(32-bit and 64-bit), Novell® SUSE® Linux
Enterprise Server 10 (64-bit), Microsoft
Windows® XP with SP2 (32-bit and 64-bit),
and Microsoft Windows Vista® (32-bit and
64-bit) operating systems.

enhanced performance

The PERC 6 is designed to increase per-
formance in each of the four key areas
that can affect controller performance:
hardware features, caching policies, read
and I/O policies, and software features.
Each is important and should be consid-
ered when evaluating a RAID controller in
a host server along with other server fea-
tures that may affect performance, such
as the OS and hard drives.
Organizations should also keep in
mind that different applications display
different workload characteristics, and
that these workload footprints can affect
server performance. However, many
applications can be categorized as having
a sequential read/write profile or a
random read/write profile. Sequential
read/write applications typically include
Reprinted from Dell Power Solutions, May 2008. Copyright © 2008 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.
PERC 6 architecture
Over 4 GB/sec
peak
throughput
x8
CPU
DDR2-667
3 Gbps
complex
SAS
x8 PCIe
2.4 GB/sec
2 GB/sec
peak throughput
peak throughput
Host
chipset
CPU
media streaming, backup and restore,
and network attached storage and near-
line storage applications. Workstation
and file servers also handle large data file
read/write requests, making sequential
data performance a critical performance
RAID levels
Enclosures per port
Ports
Write policies
Read policies
Virtual disks per controller
Cache memory size
PCIe link width
256 KB, 512 KB, and
1,024 KB stripe sizes
SATA NCQ support
Global, dedicated, and
affinity hot spares
Online capacity expansion
Hot-swappable drives
Mixed-capacity physical
disk support
Hardware exclusive OR
(XOR) assistance
Figure 2. Feature comparison of Dell PERC 5 and PERC 6 controllers
requirement in enterprise environments.
For these applications, storage subsys-
tem performance is typically measured
Over 4 GB/sec
by sequential throughput, in megabytes
LSI 1078
peak
ROC
throughput
per second.
x8
SAS
3 Gbps
cally include transaction processing
core
SAS
applications such as databases, Web-
2.4 GB/sec
based e-commerce applications, and
Bottleneck
peak throughput
other multitasking business solutions. For
these applications, storage subsystem
performance is typically measured in
I/Os per second.
CPU
hardware features
The PERC 6 continues the Dell focus on
designing RAID solutions based on the
latest interface technologies, from PCI to
PCIe, from parallel to serial. Employing a
ROC integrated circuit (IC) featuring a
high-speed, 64-bit, error-correcting code
(ECC)–protected DDR2 SDRAM interface;
a hardware RAID assist engine for parity
perc 5
0, 1, 5, 10, and 50
Up to three
2 x 4 wide ports
Write-through and write-back
Normal, read-ahead, and adaptive
Up to 64
256 MB
x8
Global and dedicated
hot spares only
4
4
4
4
Random read/write applications typi-
perc 6
0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, and 60
Up to three
2 x 4 wide ports
Write-through and write-back
Normal, read-ahead, and adaptive
Up to 64
256 MB (up to 512 MB
for PERC 6/E)
x8
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
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