HP 631671-B21 Smart Array P420 6GBPS 2-Ports PCI-E 3.0 X8 SAS-SATA Raid Controller FBWC

HP 631671-B21 Smart Array P420 Controller Overview

Key Features of the HP 631671-B21

• Manufacturer: Hewlett-Packard (HP)
• Product Model: Smart Array P420
• Product Category: SAS-SATA RAID Controller
• Part Number / SKU: 631671-B21

Technical Details and Specifications

• Device Category: FBWC Smart Array RAID Controller
• Memory: 2GB Flash-backed Cache (FBWC)
• Installation Type: Plug-in Card for Servers
• Host Interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8
• Drive Compatibility: Supports up to 64 logical drives
• Interface: SATA 6Gbps / SAS 6Gbps
• Data Transfer Speed: 6Gbps (Gigabits per second)
• Form Factor: Low-profile PCIe card

Backup and Storage Capabilities

• Flash-Backed Cache ensures data integrity and fast recovery
• Support for various RAID configurations: RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10, RAID 50
• Buffer Size: 2GB
• Supports both Hard Drives and Disk Arrays (RAID)
• Channel Count: 8 data channels for efficient management

Connectivity and Expansion Options

• Interfaces: Two SATA/SAS 6Gbps ports with 36-pin 4i Mini MultiLane SAS (SFF-8087)
• Expansion Slot Compatibility: PCI Express 3.0 x8

Ports and Connections

• Total Number of SAS Ports: 2

System Requirements

Operating System Compatibility

• Compatible with Microsoft Windows Server (2003, 2008 editions)
• Supports SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (v10, v11)
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (versions 5, 6)

Compliance and Standards

• WEEE Compliance: Ensures adherence to environmental standards

Server Compatibility

HP ProLiant DL Series

• DL160 Gen8 (Base, Entry, Performance)
• DL320e Gen8 (Base, Entry, Performance)
• DL380e Gen8, DL380p Gen8 (Base, Entry, High Performance)
• DL385p Gen8 (Dedicated Workload, Entry, Maximized Consolidation, Storage)
• DL560 Gen8 (Base, Entry, Performance)

HP ProLiant ML Series

• ML310e Gen8 (Base, Entry, Performance)
• ML310e Gen8 v2 (Base, Entry, Performance)
• ML350e Gen8 (Base, Entry, Performance)
• ML350e Gen8 v2
• ML350p Gen8

HP ProLiant SL Series

• SL210t Gen8 (1U Node)
• SL250s Gen8 (2U Half Width Tray, Left or Right PCIe Gen3)
• SL270s Gen8 (1U, 4U Half Width Tray, SE)

Interface: PCI-E 3.0 X8

The HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller is equipped with the latest PCI-E 3.0 X8 interface, which provides users with numerous benefits and plays a crucial role in enhancing the performance and efficiency of their data storage systems. This advanced interface technology ensures seamless communication between the RAID controller and the server, enabling faster data transfer rates and improved overall system responsiveness.

Enhanced Bandwidth

One of the key advantages of the PCI-E 3.0 X8 interface is its enhanced bandwidth capabilities. With a higher number of lanes compared to previous generations, this interface allows for significantly increased data throughput. The wider path enables quicker transmission of data between the RAID controller and the server, resulting in reduced latency and improved overall system performance.

Faster Data Transfer

The PCI-E 3.0 X8 interface offers faster data transfer rates compared to its predecessors. It provides a maximum transfer speed of up to 8 gigatransfers per second per lane, resulting in an impressive aggregate bandwidth of 64 gigatransfers per second for an x8 slot. This high-speed data transfer capability ensures that the HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller can handle demanding workloads and process large amounts of data efficiently.

Future-Proof Technology

By incorporating the PCI-E 3.0 X8 interface, the HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller ensures compatibility with future generations of servers and expansion cards. This forward-looking technology allows users to future-proof their infrastructure investments and seamlessly integrate the RAID controller into their evolving IT environments without worrying about compatibility issues or performance limitations.

Improved Scalability

The PCI-E 3.0 X8 interface also enhances the scalability of storage systems. It provides more lanes and increased bandwidth, enabling users to connect multiple RAID controllers and expand their storage capacity without sacrificing performance. This scalability feature is particularly beneficial for businesses that anticipate rapid data growth or require flexible storage solutions to meet their evolving needs.

Better Power Efficiency

In addition to its performance benefits, the PCI-E 3.0 X8 interface also offers improved power efficiency. By utilizing advanced power management techniques, the interface minimizes power consumption, resulting in lower energy costs and reduced environmental impact. This energy-efficient design ensures that the HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller operates optimally while keeping power consumption in check.

Data Transfer Rate: 6GBPS

When it comes to data storage, a fast and reliable data transfer rate is crucial for ensuring smooth operations and efficient performance. The HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller excels in this aspect with its impressive data transfer rate of 6Gbps, providing users with a wide range of benefits and ensuring seamless data flow within their storage infrastructure.

High-Speed Data Transfer

The 6Gbps data transfer rate of the HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller allows for lightning-fast communication between the controller and connected drives. This high-speed transfer ensures that data-intensive tasks, such as file transfers, backups, and database operations, are completed swiftly and without any bottlenecks. The increased data transfer rate significantly reduces latency and improves overall system responsiveness.

Efficient Workload Handling

With a 6Gbps data transfer rate, the HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller can handle demanding workloads with ease. It ensures that large volumes of data can be transferred quickly between the controller and the drives, enabling efficient processing of complex applications and reducing the time required for data-intensive operations. This capability is particularly beneficial for businesses that rely on high-performance storage solutions to support their critical operations.

Seamless RAID Rebuilds

In the event of a drive failure, the RAID controller's ability to quickly rebuild the array is crucial for minimizing downtime and ensuring data integrity. The 6Gbps data transfer rate plays a vital role in this process. It enables the RAID controller to efficiently reconstruct the data from the remaining drives onto the replacement drive, restoring redundancy and protecting against further data loss. With a faster data transfer rate, the rebuild process completes more quickly, reducing the window of vulnerability and allowing users to resume normal operations promptly.

Improved Storage Efficiency

The 6Gbps data transfer rate also enhances storage efficiency by enabling users to leverage high-capacity drives without sacrificing performance. With faster data transfer capabilities, the HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller can fully utilize the available bandwidth of modern SATA and SAS drives, ensuring that the storage system operates at its maximum potential. This efficiency improvement translates into better utilization of storage resources and more cost-effective storage solutions for businesses.

Future-Proof Investment

The 6Gbps data transfer rate offered by the HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller ensures compatibility with existing infrastructure and future storage technologies. This feature allows users to protect their investment by seamlessly integrating the controller into their current environment while maintaining the ability to take advantage of faster drives or technologies as they become available. This future-proofing capability ensures that businesses can adapt to changing storage requirements without significant infrastructure changes or disruptions.

Ports: 2

The number of ports on a RAID controller plays a crucial role in determining its connectivity options and flexibility within a storage infrastructure. The HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller features two ports, providing users with several benefits and ensuring seamless integration into their storage systems.

Expanded Connectivity

With two ports, the HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller allows users to connect multiple drives and expand their storage capacity. The controller supports a wide range of SAS and SATA drives, enabling users to build versatile storage solutions tailored to their specific needs. This expanded connectivity ensures that businesses can scale their storage infrastructure as their data requirements grow without limitations.

Redundancy and Fault Tolerance

The dual ports of the HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller offer redundancy and fault tolerance, ensuring uninterrupted operation and data integrity. By connecting drives to separate ports, users can create redundant paths to the data, protecting against single point failures. In the event of a port failure, the controller automatically switches to the healthy port, allowing users to continue accessing their data without interruption. This redundancy feature is particularly crucial for businesses that require high availability and cannot afford downtime.

Load Balancing

The dual ports of the HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller also enable load balancing across multiple drives. By distributing I/O traffic between the ports, load balancing optimizes performance by preventing bottlenecks and ensuring that each drive operates at its maximum potential. This feature is particularly beneficial for storage systems with heavy workloads or multiple users accessing data simultaneously, as it allows for efficient utilization of resources and improved overall system performance.

Flexible Drive Configuration

The two ports on the HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller offer flexibility in drive configuration options. Users can choose to connect drives in various configurations, including RAID levels such as RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, and RAID 10. This flexibility allows businesses to tailor their storage solutions to their specific requirements, whether it be maximizing performance, ensuring data redundancy, or achieving a balance between the two. The ability to configure drives in different ways provides users with the flexibility to adapt their storage infrastructure as their needs evolve.

Simplified Cable Management

The dual ports of the HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller also simplify cable management within the server. With two ports available, users can minimize cable clutter and ensure a more organized and efficient server environment. This improved cable management not only enhances airflow and cooling within the server but also simplifies troubleshooting and maintenance tasks, reducing downtime and improving overall system reliability.

Supported Drives: SAS, SATA

The compatibility of a RAID controller with different drive types is essential for building a flexible and efficient storage infrastructure. The HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller supports both SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) and SATA (Serial ATA) drives, providing users with a wide range of options and ensuring compatibility with various storage devices.

Versatility in Drive Selection

By supporting both SAS and SATA drives, the HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller offers users versatility in selecting the most suitable drives for their specific requirements. SAS drives are known for their high performance, reliability, and scalability, making them an excellent choice for businesses that demand maximum speed and data integrity. On the other hand, SATA drives provide a cost-effective solution for businesses with less demanding performance requirements or budget constraints. The ability to choose between SAS and SATA drives allows users to optimize their storage infrastructure based on their unique needs and budget considerations.

Scalability and Growth

The support for both SAS and SATA drives enables users to scale their storage infrastructure easily. SAS drives are particularly well-suited for environments that require high-performance storage solutions and anticipate rapid data growth. With their greater bandwidth capabilities and superior reliability, SAS drives can handle demanding workloads and support the expansion of storage capacity without sacrificing performance. SATA drives, on the other hand, provide a more cost-effective solution for businesses with less intensive storage requirements. The support for both drive types ensures that users can adapt their storage infrastructure to changing demands and future growth.

Data Protection and Redundancy

The HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller's support for both SAS and SATA drives allows users to implement various RAID configurations to protect their data and ensure redundancy. SAS drives, with their superior reliability and error correction capabilities, are often used in RAID configurations that prioritize data integrity, such as RAID 5 or RAID 6. SATA drives, while not as fault-tolerant as SAS drives, can still be used in RAID configurations that provide redundancy and protect against drive failures. The ability to utilize both drive types ensures that users can design a storage system that meets their specific data protection and redundancy requirements.

Cost-Effective Storage Solutions

By supporting both SAS and SATA drives, the HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller enables users to build cost-effective storage solutions tailored to their needs. Businesses with budget constraints or less demanding performance requirements can benefit from using SATA drives, which typically have a lower cost per gigabyte compared to SAS drives. By combining SATA drives with the RAID capabilities of the controller, users can achieve a balance between cost and performance without compromising data protection or reliability.

Easy Drive Replacement

The support for both SAS and SATA drives simplifies drive replacement in case of failure or upgrades. Users can easily replace a failed drive with a compatible SAS or SATA drive without worrying about compatibility issues. This feature ensures that businesses can quickly restore data redundancy and maintain uninterrupted operations in the event of a drive failure.

Cache: FBWC

The cache is an essential component of a RAID controller, providing temporary storage for frequently accessed data and improving overall system performance. The HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller is equipped with FBWC (Flash-Backed Write Cache), a type of cache that offers significant benefits and plays a crucial role in enhancing the efficiency and reliability of data storage systems.

Improved Read and Write Performance

The FBWC feature of the HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller significantly improves read and write performance by caching frequently accessed data in the controller's cache memory. By storing this data in a high-speed cache rather than accessing it directly from the drives, the controller can deliver the data to the server more quickly, reducing latency and improving overall system responsiveness. This improved performance is particularly noticeable in applications that rely heavily on random read and write operations, such as databases or virtualized environments.

Enhanced Data Protection

FBWC not only enhances performance but also provides an additional layer of data protection. By temporarily storing data in cache before writing it to the drives, FBWC ensures that data is protected against power failures or system crashes. In the event of an unexpected power loss, the controller's battery-backed cache preserves the cached data until power is restored, preventing data loss or corruption. This feature is particularly critical for businesses that handle mission-critical data and cannot afford any loss or corruption of information.

Efficient Disk Utilization

The FBWC feature also improves disk utilization by optimizing write operations. When write requests are received, FBWC consolidates multiple small writes into larger sequential writes before flushing them to the drives. This process, known as write coalescing, reduces the number of disk accesses required for write operations, minimizing disk wear and tear and improving overall disk efficiency. By reducing unnecessary disk I/O, FBWC extends the lifespan of the drives and ensures efficient utilization of storage resources.

Improved System Reliability

The FBWC feature enhances the overall reliability of the storage system. By temporarily storing data in cache, FBWC reduces the workload on the drives, minimizing their exposure to heavy I/O operations. This reduced workload not only improves drive longevity but also reduces the risk of drive failures and data loss. The improved system reliability provided by FBWC ensures that businesses can rely on their storage infrastructure for critical operations without worrying about unexpected failures or data corruption.

Seamless Integration and Configuration

The HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller's FBWC feature seamlessly integrates into existing storage environments and is easy to configure. The controller's management software allows users to adjust cache settings according to their specific requirements, enabling them to optimize performance, data protection, and disk utilization based on their unique needs. This flexibility in cache configuration ensures that businesses can fine-tune their storage infrastructure to achieve the desired balance between performance, reliability, and efficiency.

Part Number: 631671-B21

The part number of a product serves as a unique identifier and is essential for accurately identifying and procuring specific products. The HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller is identified by the part number 631671-B21, which carries several benefits and importance for users.

Precise Product Identification

The part number 631671-B21 ensures precise product identification, allowing users to easily locate and procure the exact HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller they need. By using the correct part number when ordering or searching for product information, users can avoid confusion and ensure that they receive the specific model they require. This precise identification is particularly important when working with vendors or service providers who rely on accurate part numbers to fulfill orders or provide support.

Compatibility Assurance

The part number 631671-B21 also serves as a compatibility assurance for users. By confirming that the part number matches their server or storage system specifications, users can be confident that the HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller is compatible with their existing infrastructure. This compatibility assurance ensures that the controller can be seamlessly integrated into the system without any compatibility issues or performance limitations.

Easy Maintenance and Support

When it comes to maintenance or support, having the correct part number simplifies the process. By providing the part number 631671-B21, users can quickly and accurately communicate their specific product requirements to service technicians or support personnel. This streamlined communication enables faster troubleshooting and resolution of any issues that may arise, reducing downtime and minimizing disruptions to business operations.

Product Documentation and Information

The part number 631671-B21 serves as a reference point for accessing product documentation, specifications, and other relevant information. By using the part number when searching for resources online or within the manufacturer's website, users can easily find detailed information about the HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller, including user manuals, technical specifications, firmware updates, and compatibility matrices. This easy access to product information ensures that users have the necessary resources to maximize the controller's capabilities and troubleshoot any potential issues.

Inventory Management

The part number 631671-B21 is also crucial for inventory management purposes. By accurately tracking and managing the part numbers of RAID controllers within their storage infrastructure, businesses can ensure efficient inventory control and procurement processes. The part number serves as a unique identifier that simplifies inventory tracking, stock replenishment, and lifecycle management of the HP Smart Array P420 Raid Controller.