Specifications
Adapter Family
Adaptec SmartRAID 3200 series — 24G SAS PCIe Gen 4 SAS/SATA/NVMe tri-mode RAID adapters
Port Configurations
32 internal, 16 internal, 16 external and 8 internal port models
Representative Models
SmartRAID 3254-16i and SmartRAID 3254-16e (16-port internal and external)
Host Interface
x8 and x16 PCIe Gen 4
Media Interface
24G SAS, 6G SATA and PCIe Gen 4 NVMe — tri-mode
Storage Controller
Microchip SmartROC 3200 — 5th-generation storage controller
Integrated PCIe Switch
SmartROC 3200 integrates a PCIe switch to enable Microchip DirectPath technology
DirectPath
Industry-lowest-latency, high-bandwidth NVMe path with support for x1, x2, x4 and x8-wide NVMe SSDs
SAS-4 / DCM
SAS-4 (24G SAS) connectivity plus Dynamic Channel Multiplexing (DCM), which aggregates expander-attached SAS or SATA HDDs onto 24G SAS infrastructure
Cache Memory
4 GB DDR4-3200 MHz cache on the 3254-16i / 3254-16e models
Form Factor
MD2 low-profile — 64 mm x 167 mm (2.535 in x 6.6 in)
RAID Levels
0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60 and JBOD with full hardware RAID offload
Software Stack
Unified hardened Adaptec Smart Storage stack, shared with SmartRAID 3100 and SmartHBA 2200
Management
maxView Storage Manager GUI, ARCCONF command-line and UEFI/HII pre-boot configuration
Target Workloads
NVMe and multi-port SAS SSD arrays in server OEM, storage system, data centre and enterprise deployments
Overview
The Adaptec SmartRAID 3200 series is Microchip's 24G SAS tri-mode RAID family, positioned as the most fully featured and secure RAID-enabled SAS/SATA/NVMe server storage solution in the line. It is built on the 5th-generation SmartROC 3200 controller, which integrates a PCIe switch — the key to DirectPath, Microchip's lowest-latency NVMe path.
DirectPath lets the controller talk to NVMe SSDs at x1, x2, x4 or x8 width without the latency penalty of routing every I/O through a RAID core, so the same adapter is credible as both an NVMe RAID controller and a multi-port SAS SSD controller. Dynamic Channel Multiplexing adds the opposite capability: it aggregates expander-attached SAS or SATA hard drives onto the 24G SAS infrastructure, so a single 3200 adapter can front both a high-performance NVMe tier and a large HDD tier.
The family spans 32i, 16i, 16e and 8i port configurations across x8 and x16 PCIe Gen 4 host interfaces, covering internal-drive servers and external storage shelves from one qualified stack. The 16-port models carry 4 GB of DDR4-3200 cache in the MD2 low-profile form factor used throughout modern 1U and 2U servers.
Key Benefits
DirectPath delivers the industry's lowest-latency NVMe connectivity at x1–x8 widths, while DCM aggregates SAS/SATA HDDs onto the same 24G SAS fabric. One controller family covers 32i/16i/16e/8i topologies, and the hardened Smart Storage stack is shared with SmartRAID 3100 and SmartHBA 2200 — fewer firmware and tooling variants to qualify.
Applications
NVMe SSD RAID arrays, mixed NVMe + SAS HDD tiered storage servers, server OEM platforms, external SAS RAID shelves, database and transaction processing storage, virtualisation datastores and enterprise NAS/SAN systems.
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