Chapter 1. General description
9
The Dual Controller Disk Backplane without write cache supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 5T2,
6T2, and 10T2 (#EPVP). The pair of controllers handles all 12 integrated SAS bays and
the DVD bay.
The Split Disk Backplane (two single controllers without write cache supports RAID 0, 1, 5,
6, 10, and 10T2 (#EPVQ). This is the default configuration in e-config. Each of the two
controllers handles four SFF-3 and two 1.8-inch SAS bays. One of the controllers handles
the DVD bay.
Each of the three backplane options provides SFF-3 SAS bays in the system unit. These
2.5-inch or small form factor (SFF) SAS bays can contain SAS drives (HDD or SSD) mounted
on a Gen3 tray or carrier. Thus, drives that are designated for SFF-1, or SFF-2 bays do not fit
in an SFF-3 bay. All SFF-3 bays support concurrent maintenance or hot-plug capability. All
three of these backplane options support HDDs or SSDs or a mixture of HDDs and SSDs in
the SFF-3 bays. If you mix HDDs and SSDs, they must be in separate arrays (unless you are
using the Easy Tier function).
For more information about disk controller options, see 1.6, “I/O drawers” on page 9.
1.5.2 Storage Backplane Integrated Easy Tier function
The Easy Tier function is provided with all three storage backplanes (#EPVN, #EPVP,
#EPVQ). Conceptually, this function is like the Easy Tier function found in IBM Storage
products such as the IBM System Storage DS8000®, IBM Storwize® V7000, and SAN
Volume Controller. However, it is implemented just within the integrated Power Systems SAS
controllers and the integrated SAS bays. Hot data is automatically moved to SSDs, and cold
data is automatically moved to disk (HDD) in an AIX, Linux, or VIOS environment. No user
application coding is required.
Clients commonly have this hot/cold characteristic for their data. It is typical for 10% - 20% of
the data to be accessed 80% - 90% of the time. This is called the
hot data
. If you can get the
hot data onto SSDs, it can dramatically improve the performance of I/O-bound applications.
And by keeping the cold data on HDDs, the total cost per gigabyte of the solution can be
minimized. You can end up with high I/O performance at a reasonable price. By avoiding the
need for lots of HDD arms for performance, you can reduce the number of I/O drawers,
maintenance, rack/floor space, and energy.
For more information about Easy Tier, see 1.6, “I/O drawers” on page 9.
1.5.3 DVD and boot devices
A slimline media bay that can hold a SATA DVD-RAM is included in the feature EPVN, EPVP,
and EPVQ backplanes. The DVD drive is run by one of the integrated SAS controllers in the
storage backplane, and a separate PCIe controller is not required.
1.6 I/O drawers
The following sections describe the available I/O drawer options for this server.
Summary of Contents for E850C
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