PCIe SAS RAID card comparison

Use the tables provided here to compare the main features of PCI Express (PCIe) SAS RAID cards.

Table 1. PCIe SAS RAID controller cards
CCIN (custom card identification number) 2B4C 2B4F 574E 57B3 57B7 57B9
Description PCIe x4 Internal 3 Gb SAS RAID Adapter PCIe x4 Internal 3 Gb SAS Adapter PCIe x8 Ext Dual-x4 3 Gb SAS RAID Adapter PCIe x8 Ext Dual-x4 3 Gb SAS Adapter PCIe x1 Auxiliary Cache Adapter PCIe x8 Ext Dual-x4 3 Gb SAS Adapter and Cable Card
Form factor Planar-unique PCIe Planar-unique PCIe PCIe x8 PCIe x8 Planar Auxiliary Cache Combination PCIe x8 and Cable Card
Adapter failing function code LED value 2D28 2D27 2518 2516 2504 2D0B
Physical links 6 (two 2x wide ports to shared SAS drives and one 2x wide port to 57CB) 3 (Directly attached SAS drives) 8 (two mini SAS 4x connectors) 8 (two mini SAS 4x connectors) 2 4 (bottom mini-SAS 4x connector required to connect by an external AI cable to the top mini-SAS 4x Cable Card connector)
RAID levels supported RAID 0, 5, 6, 10 RAID 0, 51, 10 RAID 0, 5, 6, 10 RAID 0, 51, 61, 10   RAID 0, 51, 61, 10
Adding disks to an existing disk array supported RAID levels RAID 5, 6 RAID 5 RAID 5, 6 RAID 5, 6   RAID 5, 6
Write cache size4 175 MB   380 MB   175 MB  
Read cache size            
Cache battery pack technology LiIon   LiIon   LiIon  
Cache battery pack FFC 2D1B   2D0E   2D05  
Cache battery concurrent maintenance No No Yes No Yes No
Cache data present LED Yes No Yes No Yes No
Removable cache card No No Yes No No No
Auxiliary write cache (AWC) support No No No No Yes No
High availability (HA) two system RAID Yes No Yes Yes No No
HA two system JBOD No No No Yes No No
HA single system RAID Yes No Yes Yes No No
Requires HA RAID configuration Yes No Yes No No No
JBOD support No Yes No Yes No Yes
  • 1 The write performance of RAID 5 and RAID 6 might be poor on adapters that do not provide write cache. Consider using an adapter that provides write cache when using RAID 5 or RAID 6 or use solid-state drives (SSDs) where supported to improve write performance.
  • 2 RAID 0 requires the use of AIX® logical value manager (LVM) mirroring.
  • 3 The integrated SSDs are allowed to run in JBOD mode.
  • 4 Nonvolatile write cache is supported only for RAID disk arrays.
Table 2. PCIe SAS RAID controller cards
CCIN (custom card identification number) 57BA 57C7 57CB 57CC 57CD 57CF
Description PCIe x8 Ext Dual-x4 3 Gb SAS Adapter and Cable Card PCI Express x8 Planar 3 Gb SAS Adapter (Disk/Media Backplane) PCIe x4 Planar 3 Gb SAS RAID Adapter PCIe x8 Internal 3 Gb SAS Adapter PCIe SAS RAID and SSD Adapter 3 Gb x8 PCI Express x8 Planar 3 Gb SAS RAID Adapter (with 175 MB Cache RAID - Dual IOA Enablement Card)
Form factor Combination PCIe x8 and Cable Card Planar Planar cache enablement PCIe unique to IBM® PureSystems® Double Wide PCIe x8 with 1 - 4 integrated SSDs Planar and Enablement Card
Adapter failing function code LED value 2D0B 2D14 2D26 2D29 2D40 2D15
Physical links 8 (two mini SAS 4x connectors, one required to connect by an external AI cable to the top mini-SAS 4x Cable Card connector) 8 8 (two 2x wide ports to shared SAS drives and one 2x wide port to 2B4F, one physical link to DVD, and optionally one physical link to tape drive) 1 4 (one direct SAS physical link to each integrated SSD) 8
RAID levels supported RAID 0, 51, 61, 10 RAID 0, 51, 61, 10 RAID 0, 5, 6, 10 RAID 0 RAID 02, 5, 6 RAID 0, 5, 6, 10
Adding disks to an existing disk array supported RAID levels RAID 5, 6 RAID 5, 6 RAID 5, 6   RAID 5, 6 RAID 5, 6
Write cache size4     175 MB     175 MB
Read cache size            
Cache battery pack technology     LiIon     LiIon
Cache battery pack FFC     2D1B     2D19
Cache battery concurrent maintenance No No No No No Yes
Cache data present LED No No Yes No No Yes
Removable cache card No No No No No No
Auxiliary write cache (AWC) support No No No No No No
High availability (HA) two system RAID No No Yes No No Yes
HA two system JBOD No No No No No No
HA single system RAID No No Yes No No Yes
Requires HA RAID configuration No No Yes No No Yes
JBOD support Yes Yes No Yes Yes3 No
  • 1 The write performance of RAID 5 and RAID 6 might be poor on adapters that do not provide write cache. Consider using an adapter that provides write cache when using RAID 5 or RAID 6 or use solid-state drives (SSDs) where supported to improve write performance.
  • 2 RAID 0 requires the use of AIX logical volume manager (LVM) mirroring.
  • 3 The integrated SSDs are allowed to run in JBOD mode.
  • 4 Nonvolatile write cache is supported only for RAID disk arrays.
Figure 1. CCIN 574E PCIe x8 Ext Dual-x4 3 Gb SAS RAID adapter (disk/media backplane)
CCIN 574E PCIe x8 Ext Dual-x4 3 Gb SAS RAID adapter
Figure 2. CCIN 57B3 PCIe x8 Ext Dual-x4 3 Gb SAS adapter
CCIN 57B3 PCIe x8 Ext Dual-x4 3 Gb SAS adapter
Figure 3. CCIN 57B7 Planar auxiliary cache
CCIN 57B7 Planar auxiliary cache
Figure 4. CCIN 57B9 PCIe x8 Ext Dual-x4 3 Gb SAS adapter and cable card
CCIN 57B9 PCIe x8 Ext Dual-x4 3 Gb SAS adapter and cable card
Figure 5. CCIN 57BA PCIe x8 Ext Dual-x4 3 Gb SAS adapter and cable card
CCIN 57BA PCIe x8 Ext Dual-x4 3 Gb SAS adapter and cable card
Figure 6. CCIN 57C7 PCI Express x8 Planar 3 Gb SAS adapter (with 175 MB Cache RAID - Dual IOA Enablement card)
CCIN 57C7 PCI Express x8 Planar 3 Gb SAS adapter
Figure 7. CCIN 57CD PCIe SAS RAID and 3 Gb x8 SSD adapter
CCIN 57CD PCIe SAS RAID and 3 Gb x8 SSD adapter
Figure 8. CCIN 57CF PCI Express x8 Planar 3 Gb SAS RAID adapter (with 175 MB Cache RAID - Dual IOA Enablement card)
CCIN 57CF PCI Express x8 Planar 3 Gb SAS RAID adapter
Figure 9. CCIN 2B4C PCIe x4 internal 3 Gb SAS adapter
CCIN 2B4C PCIe x4 internal 3 Gb SAS adapter
Figure 10. CCIN 2B4F PCIe x4 internal 3Gb SAS RAID adapter
CCIN 2B4F PCIe x4 internal 3 Gb SAS RAID adapter
Parent topic: Feature comparison of SAS RAID cards


Last updated: Wed, May 24, 2017