Lenovo ServeRAID M1215 Product Manual

ServeRAID M1215 SAS/SATA Controller

Product Guide

The ServeRAID M1215 SAS/SATA Controller is a low-cost 12 Gbps internal RAID 0/1/10 solution that can
be upgraded to a cacheless RAID 5 with a Features on Demand (FoD) license upgrade. The M1215
provides two internal mini-SAS HD connectors with eight lanes of 12 Gbps SAS and eight lanes of PCIe

3.0 to facilitate high data transfer rates.

The M1215 controller is a part of the ServeRAID M Series family that offers a complete server storage
solution consisting of RAID controllers, cache/flash modules, energy packs, and software feature upgrades
in an ultra-flexible offerings structure.

Figure 1. ServeRAID M1215 SAS/SATA Controller

Did you know?

The M1215 is an entry-level internal data storage solution that provides hardware RAID capabilities and
advanced features, such as online capacity expansion and RAID-level migration. The optional RAID 5
upgrade and support for self encrypting drives no longer requires a hardware key because the upgrade
functionality is implemented through Features on Demand (FoD) software licenses.

With increased demand for performance and advanced features, the M1215 provides a seamless
migration path to the full-featured RAID controllers, such as the ServeRAID M5210. The information about
existing arrays can be recognized and imported into the new controller without any reconfiguration.

Rigorous testing of the M1215 by Lenovo through the ServerProven® program ensures a high degree of
confidence in storage subsystem compatibility and reliability. Providing an additional peace of mind, this
controller is covered under Lenovo warranty.

ServeRAID M1215 SAS/SATA Controller 1

Part number information

Table 1 provides the ordering part numbers and feature codes.

Table 1. Ordering part numbers and feature codes

Description Part number Feature code

ServeRAID M1215 SAS/SATA Controller 46C9114 A45W

ServeRAID M1200 Series Zero Cache/RAID 5 Upgrade-FoD 00AE930 A5H5

The ServeRAID M1215 option part number includes the following items:

One ServeRAID M1215 adapter card with full-height (3U) bracket attached

Low-profile (2U) bracket

Documentation package

The ServeRAID M1200 Series Zero Cache/RAID 5 Upgrade option part number includes the following
items:

M1200 Series upgrade authorization letter

Feature Activation Instructions

Features

The ServeRAID M1215 SAS/SATA Controller has the following standard features:

Auto-resume on array rebuild or array reconstruction after loss of system power
Auto-resume uses non-volatile RAM (NVRAM) to save rebuild progress during a host reboot or
power failure to automatically resume from the last checkpoint. Auto-resume ensures that data
integrity is maintained through the process. The card supports a number of features that are able to
be implemented without rebooting the server. Applications, such as email and web server, benefit
from avoiding downtime during transition.

Online Capacity Expansion
Online Capacity Expansion (OCE) allows the capacity of a virtual disk to be expanded by adding
new physical disks or making use of unused space on existing disks, without requiring a reboot.

Online RAID Level Migration
Online RAID Level Migration (also known as logical drive migration) provides the ability to migrate a
virtual disk from any RAID level to any other RAID level without requiring a reboot. System
availability and application functionality remain unaffected.

Fast initialization for quick array setup
Fast initialization quickly writes zeroes to the first and last sectors of the virtual drive. This feature
allows you to immediately start writing data to the virtual drive while the initialization is running in
the background.

Consistency check for background data integrity
Consistency check verifies that all stripes in a virtual disk with a redundant RAID level are
consistent. The consistency check will mirror data when an inconsistent stripe is detected for a
RAID 1 and will recreate the parity from the peer disks in the case of a RAID 5. Consistency checks
can be scheduled to take place periodically.

Extensive online configuration options and advanced monitoring and event notification
Management tools provide convenience for the configuration of logical volumes and alerting when
errors have occurred or are about to occur.

Patrol read for media scanning and repairing

ServeRAID M1215 SAS/SATA Controller 2

Patrol read is a background sentry service designed to proactively discover and correct media
defects (bad sectors) that arise normally as a disk drive ages. The service issues a series of verify
commands, and if a bad block is discovered, the card's firmware uses RAID algorithms to recreate
the missing data and remap the sector to a good sector. The task is interruptible based on
controller activity and host operations. The firmware also provides an interface where the patrol
read task can be initiated, set up for continuous operation, and terminated from a management
application. Patrol read can be activated by manual command or automatically.

Global and dedicated Hot Spare with Revertible Hot Spare support
A hot spare rebuilds data from all virtual disks within the disk group in which it is configured.
ServeRAID provides the ability to define a physical disk as a hot spare to replace a failed drive. Hot
spares can be configured as either global or dedicated. A global hot spare allows any physical drive
to be designated as a hot spare. A dedicated hot spare allows the user to assign a hot spare drive
to a particular array of the same drive type.

Single controller multipathing (failover) I/O load balancing
The ServeRAID's firmware detects and uses multiple paths from the controllers to the SAS drives
that are in enclosures. With redundant paths to the same port of a device, if one path fails, another
path can be used to communicate between the controller and the drive. Using multiple paths with
load balancing, instead of a single path, can increase reliability through redundancy.

Human Interface Infrastructure (HII) configuration utility for pre-boot array configuration and
management
HII is a utility that allows you to configure drive groups and logical drives before installing or booting
the operating system.

MegaRAID Storage Manager management software
MegaRAID Storage Manager is an easy-to-use advanced RAID management application that is
used across the entire family of ServeRAID M controllers. It allows you to configure, monitor, and
maintain drive groups, virtual drives, and advanced features with an intuitive GUI, reducing
administrative efforts and simplifying troubleshooting.

Note: RAID 10 and 50 drive groups do not support Online Capacity Expansion and Online RAID Level
Migration. RAID 0, 1, and 5 drive groups do not support Online Capacity Expansion and Online RAID Level
Migration if two or more virtual drives are defined on a single drive group.

The following features are optional and require the purchase of an additional upgrade:

RAID 5, 50 support with Zero Cache/RAID 5 Upgrade (part number 00AE930)

MegaRAID SafeStore support for self-encrypting drive (SED) services
MegaRAID SafeStore encryption services offer instant secure erase and local key management for
self-encrypting drives. Instant secure erase permanently removes data when repurposing or
decommissioning SEDs. SafeStore local key management provides the necessary management
and protection of SEDs using a simple pass phrase, security key identifier, and security key file that
can be set and applied to all SEDs assigned to a ServeRAID adapter. This feature removes the
complexity of managing each SED’s unique encryption key, and essentially, it relieves the
administrator of most of the daily tasks of securing data. The SafeStore feature is a part of a RAID 5
upgrade (part number 00AE930).

ServeRAID M1215 SAS/SATA Controller 3

Technical specifications

The ServeRAID M1215 SAS/SATA Controller has the following specifications:

LSI SAS3008 12 Gbps RAID on Chip (ROC) controller

PCI Low Profile, Half-length - MD2 form factor

Eight internal 12 Gbps SAS/SATA ports

Two internal mini-SAS HD connectors (SFF-8643)

Supports 12, 6, and 3 Gbps SAS and 6 and 3 Gbps SATA data transfer rates

Up to 12 Gbps throughput per port

PCI Express 3.0 x8 host interface

Support both RAID and JBOD (pass-thru mode with system drives) configurations

Up to 32 drives, including hot spares, are supported in a RAID configuration.
Up to 64 drives are supported in a JBOD (non-RAID) configuration.

Support for RAID levels 0, 1, and 10 standard; support for RAID 5, 50 with optional upgrade

Zero Controller Cache, no battery/flash backup

Support for SAS and SATA hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid-state drives (SSDs)

Support for simple swap and hot swap drives

Support for intermixing SAS and SATA HDDs and SSDs. Mixing different types of drives in the same
array (drive group) not supported.

Optional support for self-encrypting drives (SEDs) with MegaRAID SafeStore

Support for up to 32 virtual drives, up to 32 drive groups, up to 16 virtual drives per one drive group,
and up to 32 physical drives per one drive group

Support for virtual drive sizes greater than 2 TB

Fixed stripe size of 64 KB

Compliant with Disk Data Format (DDF) configuration on disk (COD)

S.M.A.R.T. support

MegaRAID Storage Manager management software

Feature upgrade matrix

The ServeRAID M1215 SAS/SATA Controller provides support for RAID 0, 1, and 10 as standard, ready to
use or "out-of-the-box" capabilities. An optional feature upgrade is available to expand standard
capabilities with RAID 5, 50 and self-encrypting drives. This Features on Demand (FoD) upgrade is a
software license. The following table lists the available upgrade and its capabilities.

Table 2. ServeRAID M1215 optional upgrade and its features

Feature RAID 5, 50 SED

Option description Part Number Type

ServeRAID M1200 Series Zero Cache/RAID 5 Upgrade FOD 00AE930 FoD Yes Yes

ServeRAID M1215 SAS/SATA Controller 4

Server support

The following tables list the servers that the M1215 controller is supported in.

Note: The M1215 controller does not support 6 Gb SAS/SATA internal storage backplanes that can be
installed in x3500 M4 and x3550 M4 servers.

Support for System x and dense servers with Xeon E5/E7 v4 and E3 v5 processors

Table 3. Support for System x and dense servers with Xeon E5/E7 v4 and E3 v5 processors

Part
number Description

46C9114 ServeRAID M1215 SAS/SATA Controller Y Y Y Y N Y N

00AE930 ServeRAID M1200 Zero Cache/RAID 5 Upgrade FOD Y Y Y Y N Y N

Support for servers with Intel Xeon v3 processors

Table 4. Support for servers with Intel Xeon v3 processors

Part
number Description

46C9114 ServeRAID M1215 SAS/SATA Controller N N Y Y Y N Y

00AE930 ServeRAID M1200 Zero Cache/RAID 5 Upgrade FOD N N Y Y Y N Y

x3250 M6 (3943)

x3250 M6 (3633)

x3550 M5 (8869)

x3650 M5 (8871)

x3850 X6/x3950 X6 (6241, E7 v4)

nx360 M5 (5465, E5-2600 v4)

sd350 (5493)

x3100 M5 (5457)

x3250 M5 (5458)

x3500 M5 (5464)

x3550 M5 (5463)

x3650 M5 (5462)

x3850 X6/x3950 X6 (6241, E7 v3)

nx360 M5 (5465)

ServeRAID M1215 SAS/SATA Controller 5

Support for servers with Intel Xeon v2 processors

Table 5. Support for servers with Intel Xeon v2 processors

Part
number Description

46C9114 ServeRAID M1215 SAS/SATA Controller Y N Y N N Y N Y Y N N N N

00AE930 ServeRAID M1200 Zero Cache/RAID 5

Upgrade FOD

N N N N N N N Y Y N N N N

For more information about the servers that support each adapter, see the ServerProven website:

http://www.lenovo.com/us/en/serverproven/xseries/controllers/matrix.shtml

x3500 M4 (7383, E5-2600 v2)

x3530 M4 (7160, E5-2400 v2)

x3550 M4 (7914, E5-2600 v2)

x3630 M4 (7158, E5-2400 v2)

x3650 M4 (7915, E5-2600 v2)

x3650 M4 BD (5466)

x3650 M4 HD (5460)

x3750 M4 (8752)

x3750 M4 (8753)

x3850 X6/x3950 X6 (3837)

x3850 X6/x3950 X6 (6241, E7 v2)

dx360 M4 (E5-2600 v2)

nx360 M4 (5455)

ServeRAID M1215 SAS/SATA Controller 6

Drive support

The ServeRAID M1215 SAS/SATA Controller supports the drives that are supported in the servers listed in
the following tables. The maximum number of drives that can be connected to the RAID controller is limited
by the maximum number of internal drive bays for a supported server.

Table 6: 1.8-inch SSDs
Table 7: 2.5-inch hot-swap 12 Gb SAS/SATA HDDs
Table 8: 2.5-inch hot-swap 6 Gb SAS/SATA HDDs
Table 9: 2.5-inch hot-swap 12 Gb SAS/SATA SSDs
Table 10: 2.5-inch hot-swap 6 Gb SAS/SATA SSDs
Table 11: 3.5-inch hot-swap 12 Gb SAS/SATA HDDs
Table 12: 3.5-inch hot-swap 6 Gb SAS/SATA HDDs
Table 13: 3.5-inch hot-swap 12 Gb SAS/SATA SSDs
Table 14: 3.5-inch hot-swap 6 Gb SAS/SATA SSDs
Table 15: 2.5-inch simple-swap 6 Gb SAS/SATA HDDs
Table 16: 3.5-inch simple-swap 6 Gb SAS/SATA HDDs
Table 17: 2.5-inch internal 12 Gb HDDs for NeXtScale
Table 18: 2.5-inch internal 6 Gb HDDs for NeXtScale
Table 19: 3.5-inch internal 12 Gb HDDs for NeXtScale
Table 20: 3.5-inch internal 6 Gb HDDs for NeXtScale
Table 21: 2.5-inch internal 6 Gb SSDs for NeXtScale

Table 6. 1.8-inch SSDs

Xeon v2 Xeon v3 Xeon v4 & v5

Part
number Description

1.8-inch hot-swap SSDs - 6 Gb SATA - Enterprise Entry (<3 DWPD)

00AJ050 S3500 400GB SATA 1.8" MLC Enterprise Value SSD N N N Y N N N Y N N N N Y

x3500 M4 (7383, E5-2600 v2)

x3550 M4 (7914, E5-2600 v2)

x3650 M4 BD (5466)

x3750 M4 (8753)

x3500 M5 (5464)

x3550 M5 (5463)

x3650 M5 (5462)

nx360 M5 (5465, E5-2600 v3)

x3250 M6 (3943)

x3250 M6 (3633)

x3550 M5 (8869)

x3650 M5 (8871)

nx360 M5 (5465, E5-2600 v4)

ServeRAID M1215 SAS/SATA Controller 7