Product Overview
1-1
Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Product
Overview
1.1.1 Product
Introduction
This chapter briefly introduces the Galaxy (ES) A16F Fibre-to-SATA
(Serial ATA) subsystem. The drive bays support SATA-II (Serial ATA)
disk drives. The 16-bay model comes with four (4) FC-4G host channels via
eight (8) SFP LC-type host ports and sixteen (16) hot-swappable SATA
disk drives in a 3U chassis. The subsystem is powered by Galaxy’s
proprietary ASIC400 RAID
engine, which features
expanded bandwidth and
RAID6 configurations. The
RAID controller comes
with a pre-installed
memory buffer of up to
2GB in size for transient handling of I/Os. Each FC-4G channel is capable
of delivering data at the speed of 4Gbit/s. An onboard hub (bypass) can be
used to connect the corresponding FC channels on partner controllers
together to facilitate fault-tolerant connections. A common backplane
provides fault-tolerant data paths between the controller pair and other
components, such as disk drives, power supplies, etc. The subsystem is
ideal for high performance and high availability storage applications, and is
highly flexible via the additional FC-4G host ports.
Data cached in memory is protected by a Li-Ion battery backup unit (BBU)
that comes with an embedded EEPROM for storing service data. If the one-
year life expectancy of a BBU is reached, system administrators will be
notified by event messages. The BBU is independently accessible and hot-
replaceable.
Two (2) cooling modules protect the subsystem from overheating, and two
(2) hot-swappable power supply unit (PSU) modules ensure constant power
to the subsystem. The modular design of the subsystem ensures reliability
and the ease of subsystem maintenance.
Figure 1-1: Galaxy A16F Subsystem
