IBM Power System's Fastest RAID Controller

IBM EJ14 PCIe3 12 GB Cache RAID Plus SAS Adapter is the highest performing raid controller (SAS adapter) for IBM Power9 and Power8 systems that will significantly improve raid performance. The IBM EJ14 PCIe3 12 GB Cache RAID PLUS SAS Adapter has four 6 Gb connectors enabling the highest performance HDD or SSD SAS controller capabilities for IBM Power systems using PCIe Gen3 technology and IBM’s latest SAS RAID adapter technology. The EJ14 PCIe3 SAS adapter builds on the success of the EJ0L PCIe3 12 GB Cache RAID SAS Adapters, but delivers up to 100% more write IOPs than the older EJ0L SAS Adapter, and can support almost 2X more drives (72 SSDs and 96 HDDs). A pair of EJ14 PCIe3 12 GB Cache RAID PLUS SAS Adapters can deliver up to 1.6M read IOPS, or up to 360K write IOPS, or up to 878K IOPS using a 70/30 combination of write/reads.

 

In comparison, the older EJ0L PCIe3 12 GB Cache RAID SAS Adapter can only support 48 SSDs and 96 HDDs. A pair of EJ0L PCIe3 adapters running RAID 0 SSDs can only provide up to 750,000 read IOPS in a PCIe Gen1 slot, 800,000 read IOPS in a PCIe Gen2 slot, and about one million read IOPS in a PCIe Gen2 slot using RAID 0. For a very low cost, significant performance gains can be achieved by replacing the older EJ0L RAID SAS Adapter with the latest EJ14. In addition, you may even be able to shrink your hardware footprint and ongoing maintenance costs.

 

If your IBM Power system has any of these PCIe SAS adapters (EJ0J, EJ0M, EL3B, EJ0L, ESA1, ESA2, ESA3, and 5913), and you are noticing latency or performance degradation, consider replacing your existing RAID SAS Adapter with the EJ14 PCIe3 12 GB Cache RAID Plus SAS Adapter. Read detailed performance comparisons for IBM Power9 and Power8 Raid Controllers and SAS Adapters here.

 

Raid performance of the EJ14 PCIe3 12 GB RAID PLUS SAS Adapter using RAID5 and RAID6 parity is absolutely amazing. A pair of EJ14 Adapters can achieve 1.6M read IOPS using RAID 0 and random 4 KB of data, or 360,000 write IOPS using RAID5 and random 4 KB of data. Using RAID 5, data in 4 KB blocks and a mix of 70% reads and 30% writes, a pair of EJ14 PCIe3 12 GB RAID PLUS SAS Adapters can achieve 878,000 IOPS. These test results were done in a lab, and each customer’s performance results will vary based on their unique workload and environment. However, these performance results prove significant benefits can be achieved.

 

The EJ14 PCIe3 12 GB RAID PLUS SAS Adapter provides all the functions available on the PCIe3 12 GB RAID SAS Adapter, including Easy Tier function, and uses the same cables and connections for EXP24S 5887 and EL1S I/O drawers. The EJ14 PCIe3 12 GB RAID PLUS SAS Adapter is supported on IBM i, AIX, Linux and VIOS Power9 and Power8 servers, whereas the earlier PCIe3 12 GB RAID SAS Adapter is only supported on Power8 and Power7 servers.

A pair of adapters works together to deliver additional performance, redundancy, and write-cache protection. Patented active-active capability boosts performance for adapter pairs running at least two arrays. A single adapter configuration is not supported. The pairing must be with two PCIe3 12 GB RAID PLUS SAS Adapters. You cannot pair two different adapters.

 

Just like the older EJ0L PCIe3 12 GB RAID SAS Adapter, integrated flash memory provides protection of the PCIe3 12 GB RAID SAS Adapter write cache without batteries in case of power failure. Likewise, effectively up to 12 GB of write cache is provided using compression of 3 GB of physical cache. Compared to the ESA3 or 5913 PCIe Gen2 adapters, the EJ14 PCIe3 12 GB RAID PLUS SAS Adapter and EJ0L PCIe3 12 GB RAID SAS Adapter offer effectively about six times more cache.

 

When a EXP24S drawer is in mode 2, not all of the SAS bays on the I/O drawer can be accessed by the adapter pair unless a second set of ports is used to access the other half of the drawer, and if the second set of ports is used for the other half of the drawer, then the maximum number of drawers per adapter pair is reduced. Thus the PCIe3 12 GB RAID PLUS SAS Adapters maximums of 96 HDDs or 72 SSDs for four mode 1 drawers and is 48 HDDs or 48 SSDs with four mode 2 drawers.

 

If the EXP24S I/O drawer is in mode 2, then half of its SAS bays can be controlled by one pair of EJ14 SAS adapters and the other half can be controlled by a different EJ14 adapter pair or by zero-write-cache SAS adapters. The IBM e-config tool assumes the SAS bays of an individual I/O drawer are controlled by one type of SAS adapter, however customers can customize the EXP24S and adapter setup beyond the understanding of the e-config tool. For example, an EXP24S drawer in mode 2 could have a pair of PCIe3 12 GB RAID PLUS SAS Adapters controlling half its SAS bays and a pair of ESA3 adapters controlling the other half.

 

The quantity HDDs that can be controlled by an adapter pair depends on the number of I/O drawers and the mode setting. Below are some examples of how the EXP24S 5887 drawer can be customized to meet customer requirements:

 

Up to 96 HDDs by using four EXP24S drawers in mode 1
Up to 48 HDDs by using two or four EXP24S drawers in mode 2
Up to 72 HDDs by using two EXP24S drawers in mode 2 and two EXP24S drawers in mode 1

 

The SSD configuration options and maximums are different from HDD usage. A pair of EJ14 Adapters can support a maximum of 72 SSDs, of which all SSDs must be attached to the bottom one or two or three sets of ports. Although SSDs and HDDs can be mixed on the same adapter pair, SSDs and HDDs cannot be attached to the same set of adapter ports. The total number of SSDs and HDDs on an adapter pair is 96. If more than 48 SSDs are used on a pair of EJ14 adapters, then HDDs cannot be added to the pair. Furthermore, if 48 SSDs are used, there is a maximum of three EXP24S drawers supported.

 

The EJ14 PCIe3 12 GB RAID PLUS SAS Adapter supports RAID 0, 5, 6, 10 and Easy Tier function for RAID 5T2, 6T2, 10TR2 and operating system mirroring for AIX, Linux, and VIOS environments. For IBM i, the EJ14 supports RAID 5, 6, 10 and operating system mirroring, and hot spare is supported for all platform environments. The EJ14 allows for RAID sets for up to 32 devices depending on the environment.

 

For additional performance, pairs of SAS adapters support Active/Active protocols. This means that as long as there are at least two arrays configured per pair of adapters, additional I/O performance is gained by using the bandwidth of both adapters in the pair.

 

IBM Power9 and Power8 systems that support the EJ14 (CCIN 57B1):
9009-22A, 9009-41A, 9009-42A, 9223-22H, 9223-42H, 9040-MR9, 9080-M9S, 8284-22A, 8286-41A, 8286-42A, 8408-44E, 8408-E8E, 9080-MHE, 9080-MME, 9119-MHE, 9119-MME, 9008-22L, 8247-21L, 8247-22L, 8247-42L, 8284-22A, 8286-41A, 8286-42A, 8408-44E, 8408-E8E, 9080-MHE, 9080-MME, 9119-MHE, 9119-MME

 

IBM Power8 and Power7 systems that support the EJ0L (CCIN 57CE):
8202-E4D, 8205-E6D, 8231-E2D, 8247-21L, 8247-22L, 8247-42L, 8284-22A, 8286-41A, 8286-42A, 8408-44E, 8408-E8D, 8408-E8E, 9080-MHE, 9080-MME, 9109-RMD, 9117-MMC, 9117-MMD, 9119-FHB, 9119-MHE, 9119-MME, 9179-MHC, 9179-MHD

 

EJ14 OS Requirements:
AIX version 6.1 with the 6100-09 Technology Level and Service Pack 7, or later
AIX version 7.2 with the 7200-00 Technology Level and Service Pack 2, or later
AIX version 7.1 with the 7100-04 Technology Level and Service Pack 2, or later
IBM i 7.2 TR4, or later, or IBM i 7.3, or later
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2 or later
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11, Service Pack 4, or later
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12, Service Pack 1, or later
Ubuntu 16.04, or later
VIOS 2.2.4.20, or later
PowerKVM - No support currently provided with PowerKVM