LSI Collaborates with Supermicro to Enable End-to-End 6Gb/s SAS Solutions for the Channel

Breadth of LSI and Supermicro 6Gb/s SAS portfolios allow channel customers to deploy high-performance, highly scalable storage solutions

MILPITAS, Calif., October 26, 2009 - LSI Corporation (NYSE: LSI) today announced a collaboration with Super Micro Computer, Inc. to enable end-to-end 6Gb/s SAS solutions for channel customers. Combining LSITM 6Gb/s SAS silicon and MegaRAID® technology with Supermicro® 6Gb/s SAS Server Building Block Solutions® and Seagate® 6Gb/s SAS drives, these solutions enable scalable direct-attached storage topologies that deliver high I/O performance in large cluster and datacenter environments.

"End users are being asked to tackle growing data volumes across a broad spectrum of applications with fewer resources," said Bill Wuertz, senior vice president and general manager, Storage Components Division, LSI. "To address this challenge, LSI is utilizing the breadth of our 6Gb/s SAS product portfolio and extensive interoperability to facilitate scalable, sharable, high-performance end-to-end storage solutions in the channel."

System architects can now design systems using end-to-end LSI 6Gb/s SAS technology from the server to the drive. The Supermicro SC216 and SC936 server storage chassis, each powered by an LSI 6Gb/s SAS expander, support up to 24 2.5-inch or 16 3.5-inch 6Gb/s SAS Seagate Savvio® drives. An optional motherboard with an integrated LSI 6Gb/s SAS controller IC allows each chassis to operate as a server. Server storage performance can be further enhanced by adding either an LSI MegaRAID or Supermicro Universal I/O (UIO) controller card, both powered by an LSI 6GB/s SAS RAID-on-Chip (ROC).

This complete SAS-based solution is designed to provide optimum performance with minimum cost and complexity for business applications such as data mining, Exchange, SQL Server and Web Server. In a recent technology demonstration, the Supermicro SC216 storage chassis achieved read throughput performance exceeding 2.5 GB/s and write throughput of more than 3.0 GB/s, representing a 2X performance improvement compared to the previous-generation product.

"Supermicro's high-performance 6Gb/s SAS storage server building blocks, incorporating proven LSI SAS and MegaRAID technology, enable system builders to deliver superior levels of performance, reliability and scalability for servers, workstations and blade solutions," said Charles Liang, CEO and president of Supermicro. "The SC936 and SC216 storage chassis end-to-end 6Gb/s SAS solutions are just two examples from our extensive selection of products that support this leading-edge technology and feature exceptional power efficiency."

The end-to-end solution is built upon LSI 6Gb/s SAS silicon and MegaRAID software. Embedded components include LSISAS2x36 36-port expanders, LSISAS2008 8-port 6Gb/s SAS controller ICs, LSISAS2108 6Gb/s SAS Raid-On-Chip (ROC) ICs and MegaRAID technology.

About LSI

LSI Corporation (NYSE: LSI) is a leading provider of innovative silicon, systems and software technologies that enable products, which seamlessly bring people, information and digital content together. The company offers a broad portfolio of capabilities and services including custom and standard product ICs, adapters, systems and software that are trusted by the world's best known brands to power leading solutions in the Storage and Networking markets. More information is available at http://www.lsi.com.