The 6998 controller is the most sophisticated and highest-performing controller to date from Engenio. Its sixth-generation XBB™ architecture boasts our fastest cache memory, 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel (FC) host and drive interfaces, high-speed busses, and multiple processing elements to optimize resource utilization.

The 6998 controller's high-speed XOR engine generates RAID parity with no performance penalty, enabling this compute-intensive task to be handled efficiently and effortlessly. A separate processor focuses on data movement control, allowing setup and control instructions to be processed and dispatched independent of data.

Two 6998 controllers are integrated into a controller module and combined with one or more drive modules to create a fully featured storage system. These dual controller systems are fully-redundant and support up to eight 4, 2 or 1 Gb/s FC host connections and 224 Fibre Channel or Serial ATA (SATA) disk drives.


6998 Controller Module Features and Specifications

• Dual-active 6998 controllers
• Eight 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel host channels
  • 3,200 MB/s of host-side bandwidth
  • Support for 4 Gb/s, 2 Gb/s and 1 Gb/s connectivity
  • Support for direct-attach and SAN-attach
  • Support for point-to-point, arbitrated loop and fabric connectivity
• Eight 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel drive channels
  • 3,200 MB/s of drive-side bandwidth
• Up to 16 GB of dedicated data cache
• Custom XOR engine generates RAID parity with no performance penalty
• Specialized I/O control processor focuses on data movement
• Performance:
  • Burst I/O from cache: 550,000 IOPS
  • Sustained I/O rate from FC media: 79,000 IOPS
  • Sustained throughput from FC media: 1,600 MB/s