Overview

Overview

*ATTENTION  Convention of usage of important terms: Nytro Cache: This term refers to the on-board Flash module used for user data cache, called Nytro Flash module. SSD: This term refers to external SSDs.

This document describes how to configure, monitor, and maintain the Nytro™ MegaRAID® Application Acceleration Card, using the MegaRAID Storage Manager (MSM), WebBIOS configuration utility (CU), and the MegaRAID command line interface (MegaCLI), and Pre-boot CLI (PCLI).

The LSI® Nytro™ (this is a combination of the LSI proven MegaRAID® controller tightly integrated with built-in Nytro Flash modules to be used as data cache devices with the help of LSI Nytro MegaRAID software) MegaRAID® Application Acceleration Card for DAS is designed to accelerate applications economically with a solution providing leading RAID performance from direct-attached storage combined with intelligent caching using on-board Flash storage.

The Nytro MegaRAID card increases the storage performance, but retains the current investment in direct-attached storage (DAS). Flash technology has become almost synonymous with speed, but it comes at a price premium over hard disk drives (HDD). The Nytro MegaRAID card combines Flash technology with LSI’s industry leading RAID-on-Chip (ROC) implementation. Using intelligent caching algorithms to help identify application hot data (the frequently accessed data is stored and accessed from Flash enabling the lowest possible latency). By combining Flash and HDDs, this solution is designed to enable the lowest cost/GB at the lowest cost/transaction over products supporting only Flash memory.

The Nytro MegaRAID card is easy to use with transparent access to applications. Not all of the solid state disk (SSD) implementations work at enterprise levels. Performance might suddenly drop after only several hours of use. The Nytro MegaRAID card provides more sustainable high performance by using its own on-board PCIe accessible Flash storage. This Flash storage is certified by LSI in internal testing for enterprise applications and offers more consistent latency performance over SAS-accessed Nytro Flash modules. This industry proven LSI software drivers allow many applications to enjoy the performance improvement seamlessly from the Nytro MegaRAID card without any application or file system modifications.

The Nytro MegaRAID card combines Nytro Flash modules with HDD Storage for Economy. In addition to providing caching intelligence and high performance Flash storage, the Nytro MegaRAID card uses LSI’s latest ROC technology, which is PCIe 2.0 and 3.0 compliant. The intelligent caching implementation can provide high performance when using SAS or SATA hard drives. Another benefit is that caching lightens the HDD load, hence HDD RAID rebuilds complete faster and removes traditional HDD head wear from accessing small block requests typical in database environments.