The HPE Smart Array P420i Controller is a low profile, 6 Gb/s, PCIe 3.0, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) RAID controller that provides enterprise class, storage performance and data protection for select HPE ProLiant Gen8 rack servers and tower servers. It features eight internal SAS ports and delivers increased server uptime by providing advanced storage functionality, including online RAID level migration (between any RAID levels) with flash back write cache, global online spare, and pre-failure warning. Data Compatibility among all models of Smart Array controllers allows simple and easy migration at any time when needs for higher performance, capacity, and availability increase. Even new generations of Smart Array controllers can understand the data format of previous generations of Smart Array controllers.

Features

• The SA-P420i Controller supports up to 27 drives depending on the server implementation.
• Seamless upgrades from past generations and upgrades to next generation HPE high performance and high capacity Serial Attached SCSI Smart Array controllers.
• 6Gb/s SAS technology delivers high performance and data bandwidth and contains full compatibility with 6Gb/s SATA technology.
• x8 PCIe 3.0 host interface technology delivers high performance and data bandwidth up to 8 GB/s maximum bandwidth.
• Modular, easy-to-upgrade design lets you optimize performance by upgrading from 40-bit 512MB cache to 72-bit 1GB Flash Backed Write Cache or 72-bit 2GB Flash Backed Write Cache (FBWC).
• Addition of the flash backed cache upgrade enables array expansion, logical drive extension, RAID migration, and stripe size migration.
• The HPE SSD Smart Path feature included in the Smart Array software stack improves SSD read for all RAID levels and RAID 0 write operations by optimizing the path to each SSD attached to the controller.
• Mix-and-match SAS and SATA hard drives, lets you deploy drive technology as needed to fit your computing environment.
• Low-profile PCI Express form factor - ships with a full size bracket for deployment in either a low profile or full sized slot.