Lenovo ServeRAID M5000 Series Performance Accelerator Key for System x User Guide
- June 3, 2024
- Lenovo
Table of Contents
Lenovo ServeRAID M5000 Series Performance Accelerator Key for System x
ServeRAID M5000 Series Performance Accelerator Key for System x
Product Guide (withdrawn product)
The ServeRAID M5000 Series Performance Accelerator Key for System x® enables
performance enhancements needed by emerging SSD technologies via a seamless
field-upgradeable key. This key can be attached to the ServeRAID M5025, M5015,
and M5014 SAS/SATA Controllers. These features are optimized to cater to the
emerging solid state drive (SSD) technology, which delivers a higher level of
performance in an organization’s storage infrastructure.
Figure 1 shows where the key is installed on a ServeRAID M5015 SAS/SATA
Controller.
Figure 1. The ServeRAID M5000 Series Performance Accelerator Key and the ServeRAID M5015 SAS/SATA Controller
Did you know?
The M5000 Series Performance Accelerator Key is ideal for supporting server
mission-critical applications where high levels of sustained read and write
operations are required (such as video streaming, web content, video-on-
demand, security and surveillance, fixed content, and reference data storage).
It provides performance optimization for SSDs, enables data tiering, and
provides important data recovery features to safeguard valuable data.
Additionally, the accelerator key provides RAID 6 and 60 and SED support.
Part number information
Table 1 lists the ordering part number and feature code. Table 1. Ordering
part number and feature code
Description | Part number | Feature code |
---|---|---|
ServeRAID M5000 Series Performance Accelerator Key | 81Y4426 | A10C |
The ServeRAID M5000 Series Performance Accelerator Key option part number includes the following items:
- One ServeRAID M5000 Series
- Performance Accelerator Key Quick Install Guide
- The Important Notices document
Features
ServeRAID M5000 Series Performance Accelerator Key adds the following performance and data protection enhancements to the standard ServeRAID products:
- MegaRAID FastPath: An I/O accelerator that doubles the I/O operations per second (IOPS) on solid-state drives (SSDs)
- MegaRAID CacheCade: A data-tiering enabler to support hybrid environments of SSDs and HDDs, realizing higher levels of performance
- MegaRAID Recovery: A data recovery feature that works both in pre-boot and OS environments and provides snapshot capabilities for file-level and volume-level data restoration
- LSI SafeStore: Utility for enabling encryption and storing drive keys for self-encrypting drives (SEDs)
- RAID 6 and 60 support: Additional RAID levels for added data protection
Figure 2 shows the location where the Performance Accelerator Key is installed on the adapter.
Figure 2. Location of the Performance Accelerator Key on the supported adapters
Supported ServeRAID controllers
Table 2 lists the ServeRAID SAS/SATA controllers that support the Performance
Accelerator Key. Table 2. Supported ServeRAID controllers
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| |
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| |
|
|
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ServeRAID M5000 Series Performance Accelerator Key| Y| Y| Y| N| N| N| N| N| N|
N| N| N| N| N| N
The minimum firmware level required for the supported adapters to enable the
use of the Performance Accelerator Key is v12.7.0-0020. The latest firmware is
available from:
http://ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5073015
The ServeRAID M5000 Series Performance Accelerator Key cannot be installed at
the same time as the ServeRAID M5000 Series Advanced Feature Key, 46M0930. The
Advanced Feature Key must be removed before the Performance Accelerator Key is
installed. The functions of the Advanced Feature Key are provided by the
Performance Accelerator Key. No further migration steps are needed.
Supported servers
The ServeRAID M5000 Series Performance Accelerator Key is supported on the
System x servers listed in Table 2.
Table 2. Supported System x servers (part 1)
| | | | | | |
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| | |
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| |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---
ServeRAID M5000 Series Performance Accelerator Key| 81Y4426| N| N| Y| N| Y| N|
N| Y| Y| N| N| Y| Y
Table 2. Supported System x servers (part 2)
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| | | | |
| | | |
| |
| | | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---
ServeRAID M5000 Series Performance Accelerator Key| N| Y| Y| N| N| N| N| Y| Y|
N| Y| N| N| N| N| Y
See the ServerProven website for the latest information about the adapters
supported by each System x server type:
http://www.lenovo.com/us/en/serverproven/
Once the hardware key has been installed on the controller, the Recovery,
Safestore, and CacheCade Features can be configured through the WeBIOS or
MegaRAID Storage Manager Utilities. Figure 3 shows the LSI MegaRAID Storage
Manager Dashboard View.
MegaRAID Recovery
MegaRAID Recovery enhances the ServeRAID data protection feature set by
offering snapshot functionality that allows users to capture source volume
data changes and either Restore-from-View or Rollback to a previous point in
time (PiT) should accidental or malicious data deletion or infection occur.
While traditional overnight backups continue to be the preferred method for
creating physical copies of data for offsite or archival purposes, MegaRAID
Recovery meets a growing need for more frequent backups and reduced recovery
times. By supplementing traditional backup methods with MegaRAID Recovery, IT
organizations can greatly enhance their level of business continuity, data
protection, and restore capabilities.
How MegaRAID Recovery works
MegaRAID Recovery preserves the state of information stored on a virtual drive
at a specific point in time using a copy-on-write methodology. This means that
when data is written to a designated volume or virtual drive (VD), the
original data that was present before being written over is then copied to a
snapshot repository. The VD will continue to accept new data while copying
original data to the repository. The snapshot repository will then continue to
collect the original data that is being written over until a snapshot event
takes place. Once a snapshot is taken, all of the new and old data on the VD
becomes original data. So the repository never becomes a complete copy of the
source VD.
Figure 4 shows a server with three VDs and a single snapshot repository.
Figure 4: Server with three VDs and a single snapshot repository
As snapshots are taken and the repository fills with different PiTs, MegaRAID
Recovery is able to restore a VD’s data should volume or file-level corruption
or deletion occur. Recovery offers two methods for restoring data:
- Restore from View: Allows users to conveniently mount a view of the snapshot in MSM and drag-and-drop lost data and files back into the source data volume
- Rollback: Allows users to quickly return the application to a previous point in time, prior to infection or malicious data corruption, without requiring re-installation of the application
No data movement
One of the key advantages of MegaRAID Recovery is its ability to create PiTs
without physically duplicating data. By simply opening up a new volume that
keeps track of any changes to data in the source volume, MegaRAID Recovery
avoids the physical movement or copying of data, enabling each PiT to be
created in seconds, regardless of the size of the source volume.
Space-efficient snapshots
Each MegaRAID Recovery PiT volume snapshot is a fraction of the original
volume size, because it only keeps track of the changes that are made to a
volume after the PiT is created. Disk space for PiTs is pre-allocated
(reserved as the Snap Repository), and the PiT is expanded in small increments
as new data is written to the volume. Multiple PiTs of each volume can be
retained online, enabling frequent snapshots to be stored in a space-efficient
manner.
Reduce IT costs and improve data protection
Communication and file-sharing applications encounter many changes in the data
throughout the day. Most small and medium businesses (SMBs) have limited IT
resources and can only run data backups once every 24 hours, most of which
occur overnight. This longer backup cycle increases the risk that important
changes made during the day are lost before the next backup occurs. MegaRAID
Recovery allows for quick and frequent snapshots of data to be taken with a
only a few mouse-clicks, limiting reliance on dedicated IT resources.
Boot volume protection
MegaRAID Recovery also offers a convenient way to implement additional boot
volume protection. By isolating a server’s boot volume to a separate virtual
drive and enabling the Auto Snapshot feature, users can be guaranteed that
bootable snapshots exist, should OS corruption occur. If, for any reason, the
boot volume gets corrupted, the user can reboot, and within WebBIOS, choose
the last known good snapshot (PiT) and roll back the boot volume. If there is
a malicious file present that has created the corruption on the boot volume,
administrators can roll back to a PiT before the malicious file was present.
The additional boot volume protection from MegaRAID Recovery provides a more
convenient way to re-enter an operating system and debug corruption issues.
Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service provider support
The Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) provides the backup infrastructure for
the Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 operating systems.
VSS has native support, using a standard set of application programming
interfaces (APIs) for creating consistent point-in-time copies of data,
regardless of the snapshot technology or application. As a certified Microsoft
VSS Provider, MegaRAID Recovery can be initiated by VSS in order to create PiT
volume snapshots on demand. This functionality provides a straight-forward and
standard way to produce clean snapshots of a volume while coordinating with
different types of business applications, file-system services, backup
applications, and storage hardware.
MegaRAID FastPath
MegaRAID FastPath is a high-performance IO accelerator for solid state drive
(SSD) arrays connected to a ServeRAID controller card. This advanced software
is an optimized version of ServeRAID technology that can dramatically boost
storage subsystem and overall application performance — particularly those
that demonstrate high random read/write operation workloads — when deployed
with a M5000-series controller connected to SSDs.
Enabling MegaRAID FastPath
Enabling MegaRAID FastPath does not require any special configuration. Simply
connect the Performance Accelerator Key to the ServeRAID controller and
MegaRAID FastPath will be enabled. As the user implements SSDs into an array,
he should see a significant increase in overall application performance.
Application workloads that will benefit most from MegaRAID FastPath with SSD
volumes are those with small and random I/O patterns requiring high
transactional throughput, such as OLTP.
RAID 0 random workload performance
With MegaRAID FastPath enabled, SSD configurations tuned for small, random
block-size IO activity — typical of transactional database applications — can
sustain over 150,000 I/O reads per second in RAID 0 configurations. This is
two times the transactional performance of identical configurations when the
MegaRAID FastPath software is disabled. This is particularly evident in 4 K
random reads and random writes, as well as 4 K and 8 K OLTP transaction-
oriented benchmarks.
In Figure 5, note that in the standard mode where MegaRAID FastPath software
is not enabled, arrays are able to reach more than 80,000 IOPs. This is due to
additional performance tuning optimizations over previous 6 Gbps MegaRAID
SATA+SAS generations. However, with the MegaRAID FastPath software enabled,
users can experience more than a 70% increase in IOPs throughput.
Figure 5. Performance benefits of having MegaRAID FastPath enabled (light
green) versus disabled (dark green) – RAID 0 random workloads
RAID 5 random workload performance
In Figure 6, read performance in RAID 5 configurations demonstrates similar
IOP performance as RAID 0. When comparing RAID 5 write performance, MegaRAID
FastPath software demonstrates 2.5 times the IOP’s performance over an
identical configuration with this feature disabled.
Figure 6. Performance benefits of having MegaRAID FastPath enabled (lighter
color) versus disabled (darker color) – RAID 5 random workloads
RAID 0 application performance
MegaRAID FastPath software significantly boosts server application performance
levels for typical workloads as well. MegaRAID controllers with MegaRAID
FastPath software disabled are limited to 80,000 IOPs, whereas application
performance improves by up to 45% with MegaRAID FastPath software enabled
(Figure 7).
Figure 7. Typical workloads – RAID 0
MegaRAID CacheCade
MegaRAID CacheCade software allows customers to blend inexpensive SATA or SAS hard disk drives (HDDs) with a small amount of solid state storage capacity to provide a substantial performance boost while avoiding complete 1:1 replacement of SATA HDDs with faster SAS HDDs, adding additional SATA HDDs or moving to an all-SSD RAID volume to achieve performance requirements. This combination of HDDs and SSDs as secondary cache helps improve IOPs per dollar, particularly in random read-intensive applications. Simply select an SSD and associate it with one or more virtual drives to configure and use CacheCade software.
How CacheCade works
Certain applications access different data sectors more frequently than other
data sectors. By determining which data is accessed more frequently, it is
possible to move the more frequently accessed data to a faster media, allowing
for faster overall READ performance from the controller. CacheCade software
allows for frequently read data (hot-spot) to be moved to second-tier SSD
cache for much faster retrieval of that data when it is time for it to be re-
read. This provides significant performance improvement of 2x to 50x for read-
intensive applications such as web, file, SQL, and other transactional server
applications
Figure 8. CacheCade in action
Enabling CacheCade
Once the Performance Accelerator Key is connected to the M5000 Series
Controller, CacheCade can be configured through the MegaRAID Storage Manager
Utility. When configuring for CacheCade, it is necessary to make sure that no
volume data be stored on the available SSDs prior to creating the SSD cache.
Performance impact
CacheCade uses SSDs to super-swell the M5000 Series controller cache. As with
any other SSD caching implementation, the amount of performance improvement
that is achieved differs depending on the application that is running. For
this generation, users will see greater performance gains in READ-intensive
applications.
Supported operating systems
The ServeRAID M5000 Series Performance Accelerator Key supports the operating
systems that are supported by the ServeRAID controllers:
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Web Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Datacenter Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Datacenter x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Enterprise Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Enterprise x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Standard Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003/2003 R2, Standard x64 Edition Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Datacenter x64 Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Datacenter x86 Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Enterprise x64 Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Enterprise x86 Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Standard x64 Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Standard x86 Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Web x64 Edition
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Web x86 Edition
- Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003/2003 R2 Premium Edition
- Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003/2003 R2 Standard
- Edition Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 AS for AMD64/EM64T
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 AS for x86
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 ES for AMD64/EM64T
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 ES for x86
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 WS/HPC for AMD64/EM64T
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 WS/HPC for x86
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server Edition
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server Edition with Xen
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server with Xen x64 Edition
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 Server x64 Edition
- SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 10 for AMD64/EM64T
- SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 10 for x86
- SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 10 with Xen for AMD64/EM64T
- SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 for AMD64/EM64T
- SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 for x86
- SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server 11 with Xen for AMD64/EM64T
- VMware ESX 4.0
- VMware ESXi 4.0
See the ServerProven website for the latest information about the specific versions and service packs supported: http://www.lenovo.com/us/en/serverproven/. Click System x servers, then Disk controllers to see the support matrix. Click the check mark that is associated with the System x server in question to see the details of the operating system support.
Related publications
For more information see the following documents:
-
US Announcement Letter
http://ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi- bin/ssialias?infotype=dd&subtype=ca&&htmlfid=897/ENUS110-239 -
ServeRAID M5000 Series Performance Accelerator Key Quick Install Guide
http://ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5086180 -
ServeRAID-M Software User’s Guide
http://ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5086126 -
ServeRAID M5025 Product Guide
http://lenovopress.com/tips0739 -
ServeRAID M5015 and M5014 Product Guide
http://lenovopress.com/tips0738 -
System x RAID products home page
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/systems/servers/options/systemx/storage/raid- adapters/raid-controllers/ -
ServeRAID M5025, M5015, and M5014 firmware
http://ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=MIGR-5073015 -
ServeRAID software matrix
http://ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=SERV-RAID
Related product families
Product families related to this document are the following:
- RAID Adapters
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References
- IBM Support
- IBM Support
- IBM Support
- IBM Support
- ServeRAID M5015 and M5014 SAS/SATA Controllers Product Guide (withdrawn product) > Lenovo Press
- ServeRAID M5025 SAS/SATA Controller Product Guide (withdrawn product) > Lenovo Press
- Welcome | ServerProven
- RAID Adapters > Lenovo Press
- ServeRAID M5000 Series Performance Accelerator Key for System x Product Guide (withdrawn product) > Lenovo Press
- Copyright and Trademark Information | Lenovo US | Lenovo US
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