Technologies in HP ProLiant Gen8 c-Class server blades

workloads. The Gen8 Smart Array controller with SSDs is 60 times faster than the previous generation controller with

traditional hard drives. When you combine Gen8 Smart Array controller and SSD performance with PCIe 2.0 support,

bandwidth increases more than 85%.

ProLiant Gen8 servers use HP Smart Array P-Series Controllers. The servers also accommodate HP I/O accelerators,

which reduce write latencies and increase the overall load capability of each server. HP I/O accelerators can drive down

costs in HPC environments.

For more information about ProLiant Smart Storage technology, read the technology brief “Selecting storage

controllers: technology considerations.” Find it at www.hp.com/servers/technology.

HP Smart Array controllers and storage technologies

We embed HP Smart Array P-Series Controllers on the system board or offer them as daughter cards on ProLiant Gen8

server blades. The controllers utilize the PCI Express 3.0 host interface and the 6 Gb/s SAS or 6 Gb/s SATA storage

interfaces. Technology enhancements for the P-Series controllers include increased performance and Smart Array

Advanced Pack (SAAP) 2.0 features. P-Series controllers also allow up to 200 drives, Active Health Logging, and

Predictive Spare Activation. These controllers use an embedded RAID-on-Chip (ROC).

Smart Array P-Series controllers work with the following tools:

 Active Health Logging

 Array Configuration Utility (ACU)

 ACU-CLI (command line interface)

 SNMP agents

 Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) providers

Flash-backed write cache standard on most controllers

As cache memory speeds get faster and cache sizes get larger, battery technology has been pushed to the limit by ever-

increasing energy demands for primary power loss data protection. With ProLiant Gen8, we are completing the

transition to the flash-backed cache (FBWC) for all Gen8 Smart Array products. This enables HP to provide faster and

larger caches. This industry-leading technology also eliminates the issues associated with battery maintenance and

disposal.

FBWC is now standard on most Smart Array Controllers. FBWC uses a large capacitor and flash memory instead of

battery power to hold write cache data. FBWC provides lifetime data retention should the power go out. When the server

is powered back on, FBWC writes the data to the drive. Depending on the controller model, FBWC is available in 512 MB, 1

GB, or 2 GB modules.

HP I/O Accelerators

HP I/O Accelerators are available for ProLiant DL and BL servers. For ProLiant Gen8 servers, we moved to 25nm NAND

technology that will improve performance. We provide HP I/O accelerators for situations when you have specific

applications that require them.

Predictive Spare Activation technology

Predictive Spare Activation technology protects data by rebuilding an identified problem drive to a spare drive before it

is needed. This eliminates a period of exposure during the drive rebuild when an additional drive could fail. HP drives can

report a predictive failure before an actual drive failure occurs. Predictive Spare Activation automatically copies the data

from a predictive failure drive to a global spare drive. The copy operation reduces the time before the spare drive

becomes active. After the copy completes, the predictive failure drive is marked as a drive failure. You can then remove

it from the RAID set for servicing.

Advanced Data Mirroring

A new feature of the Smart Array Advanced Pack 2.0 is Advanced Data Mirroring (ADM). ADM uses additional drives for

redundancy, but data are actively read from and written to the drives. ADM allows triple mirroring of RAID 1 and 1+0