Not letting Intel take mush of the spotlight with the RS2BL080, LSI has announced no less than five RAID controllers based on 6Gbps SAS technology. All the new MegaRAID 9200 series controllers are powered by the LSI SAS2108 RAID-on-Chip (ROC), have 512 MB of DDR2 memory clocked at 800 MHz, a PCI-Express x8 interface, support both 3Gbps SATA and 6Gbps SAS drives, and are bundled with a Java-based software management tool designed to simplify the creation, monitoring and maintenance of storage configurations.

"As the world's No. 1 provider of RAID controllers in the channel, our commitment to channel partners starts at the top, reaches throughout the company and is backed by the industry’s most complete selection of SATA and SAS RAID controllers and host bus adapters," said Phil Bullinger, executive vice president and general manager, Engenio Storage Group, LSI. "With today's launch, we’re providing our partners with a powerful performance advantage and focused innovations that address their customers' evolving storage requirements in an ultra-competitive industry."

According to LSI, the MegaRAID SAS 9260-4i, 9260-8i and 9260DE-8i (which feature internal ports) cost $389, $599 and $729, respectively, while the 9280-8e and 9280DE-8e (external ports) go for $859 and $945.

MegaRAID SAS 9260-8i