Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller 12 (PERC12)
Summary
Dell Technologies’ newest RAID controller iteration, PERC 12, which is using the new Broadcom SAS4116W series chip, has increased support capabilities, including 24 Gbps SAS drives, increased cache memory speed to 3200 Mhz, 16-lane host bus type. Also, most notably, only one front controller that supports either NVMe or SAS based on the PowerEdge server model type and backplane configuration.
PERC 12 card management applications include Comprehensive Embedded Management (CEM), Dell OpenManage Storage Management, The Human Interface Infrastructure (HII) configuration utility, and the PERC command line interface (CLI). These applications enable you to manage and configure the RAID system, create and manage multiple disk groups, control and monitor multiple RAID systems, and provide online maintenance.
Introduction
As storage demands expand and processing 
loads grow, RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) data protection has become a necessary staple for proper enterprise storage management. Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller (PERC) provides a RAID solution that is powerful and easy-to-manage for enterprise storage data protection needs.
Dell Technologies’ newest RAID controller iteration, PERC 12, has increased support capabilities: 24 Gbps SAS drives, an increased cache memory speed of 3,200 MHz, and a 16-lane host bus type.
PERC12 PowerEdge Support
H965i Adapter controller
PERC12 Adapter Card adds an Active Heat Sink (Fan) on the controller, providing additional cooling capabilities, to ensure that the controller is always running at optimum temperature and does not compromise on performance because of overheating. The controller connects directly on the motherboard using a PCIe slot and uses a SlimLine connector (or a NearStack connector) for the SAS/NVMe interfaces.
H965i Front controller
PERC12 Front Card upgrades the hardware design when compared to the previous generation controller. Mixing NVMe drives with SAS and SATA drives at the same time is not supported. However, you can have direct attached NVMe drives and PERC managed SAS/SATA drives. Also, mixing HDD and SSD in a virtual drive is not supported. The controller has a SlimLine connector (or a NearStack connector) for both PCIe and SAS/NVMe interfaces.
H965i MX controller
PERC12 MX Card is designed specifically for MX chassis servers and includes an energy pack similar to other form factors for power backup in case of power loss. This helps ensure proper customer cache offload to avoid any data loss. The controller connects directly on the motherboard using a PCIe slot and uses a SlimLine connector (or a NearStack connector) for the SAS/NVMe interfaces.
PERC 12 Supported Operating Systems
Windows Server
- Windows Server 2019
- Windows Server 2022
Linux
- RHEL 8.6
- RHEL 9.0
- SLES 15 SP4
- Ubuntu 22.04
VMware
- ESXi 7.0 U3
- ESXi 8.0
See Dell Technologies Enterprise operating systems support for a list of supported operating systems by specific server for the PERC 12 cards.
Hardware RAID Performance
NVMe Key RAID Metrics (PERC11 / PERC12)
Table 1. Latency / Rebuild
Key NVMe RAID 5 Metrics (PERC11 / PERC12)
Table 2. IOPS / Bandwidth
Key SAS RAID Metrics (PERC10 / PERC11 / PERC12)
Table 3. IOPS / Latency Reduction During Rebuild
Key SAS RAID Metrics (PERC10 / PERC11 / PERC12)
Table 4. IOPS / Bandwidth
Conclusion
Dell PowerEdge RAID Controller 12 or PERC 12 continues to innovate by supporting hardware RAID for NVMe drives. The PERC 12 series consists of PERC H965i Adapter, PERC H965i Front, and PERC H965i MX.