Dell 03PCN3 QLogic QLE2662L Dual Port 16Gb FC PCIe HBA Low Profile

Product Overview

The Dell 03PCN3 (powered by the QLogic QLE2662L Gen 5 Fibre Channel controller) is a high-performance, dual-port 16Gbps Host Bus Adapter (HBA) engineered for enterprise Storage Area Networks (SANs). Featuring QLogic’s native Fibre Channel stack, it delivers full line-rate performance with exceptionally low CPU utilization due to robust hardware offloads. This low-profile card is purpose-built to accelerate mission-critical storage traffic, virtualized cloud applications, and high-transaction enterprise databases.

Technical Specifications

General Information

• Manufacturer: Dell / QLogic (Marvell)

• Dell Part Number (DP/N): 03PCN3 / 3PCN3 / CN-03PCN3

• QLogic Model: QLE2662L (Low Profile variant)

• Device Type: Host Bus Adapter (HBA)

• Generation: Gen 5 Fibre Channel (16GFC)

• Form Factor: HHHL (Half-Height / Half-Length) Plug-in Card

• Bracket Profile: Low-Profile (Ships with a low-profile bracket; full-height bracket options exist)

Hardware & Interface

• Bus Interface: PCI Express 3.0 x8 (Mechanically compatible with x8 and x16 physical slots)

• Data Transfer Rate: 16 Gbps per port (Line-rate full-duplex per port)

• Number of Ports: 2 Ports (Dual-Port)

• Connectivity Technology: Wired / Fiber Optic

• Interface Type: 2 x 16Gb SFP+ Fiber Channel Cages (Typically bundled with 16Gb SR optical transceivers)

• Host Interrupts: INTx and MSI-X support

Advanced Performance & Protocols

Storage Performance Optimization

• IOPS Throughput: Capable of driving over 1.2 million I/O transactions per second (IOPS), minimizing latency in all-flash arrays (AFAs) and heavily loaded multi-core server platforms.

• Hardware Offloads: Native Fibre Channel execution entirely offloaded to the processor ASIC, sparing precious system CPU cycles for application workloads.

• StarPower™ Technology: Implements advanced dynamic power management, which matches the adapter’s PCIe lane utilization with active storage bandwidth demands to save energy.

Virtualization Enhancements

• VMflex™ Technology: Comprehensive infrastructure support for high-density virtual machine (VM) architectures.

• NPIV Support: Native N_Port ID Virtualization allows assigning distinct world-wide names (WWNs) to individual virtual machines, managing them as independent physical entities directly at the SAN switch level.

Fibre Channel Specifications

• Topology: Point-to-point, switched fabric (N_Port)

• Protocols Supported: SCSI-FCP (Fibre Channel Protocol for SCSI), FC-TAPE, FCP-2

Physical & Environmental Parameters

Environmental Boundaries

• Operating Temperature: 32 °F to 149 °F (0 °C to 65 °C)

• Storage Temperature: –4 °F to 158 °F (–20 °C to 70 °C)

• Operating Humidity: 10% to 90% non-condensing relative humidity

Compliance & Agency Approvals

• Safety: US, Canada, Europe

• EMI/EMC: FCC Class A, CE Mark, VCCI, AS/NZS, KC (Korea)

• RoHS: Fully compliant

Server Compatibility & OS Support

Server Infrastructure Compatibility

Optimized across Dell PowerEdge server families (Gen11, Gen12, Gen13, and Gen14) requiring high-density external enterprise SAN storage links:

• PowerEdge Rack Servers: R520, R620, R720, R720xd, R820, R910, R630, R730, R730xd, R930, R640, R740, R740xd

Supported Operating Systems

• Microsoft Windows Server (2012, 2012 R2, 2016, 2019, 2022)

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)

• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES)

• VMware vSphere / ESXi

• Oracle Solaris / Citrix Hypervisor (XenServer)