http://www.wwpi.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1945 Adaptec launches RAID controllers for PCI Express Mar 20 -- Adaptec Inc., a provider of storage solutions, has launched a comprehensive line of Unified Serial RAID (redundant array of independent disks) controllers for the PCI Express (PCIe) interface. These multi-port controllers deliver cost-effective connectivity for high-capacity SATA (Serial-ATA) and high-performance SAS (Serial-Attached SCSI) drives, Adaptec said. The company has also announced the release of its Ultra320 SCSI (small computer small interface) single-channel host bus adapter (HBA) for the PCIe interface. The RAID controller line and the Ultra320 SCSI HBA were announced by Adaptec last week. The new line of Unified Serial RAID controllers consists of five different products and includes 4 and 8-port low-profile models, as well as 12 and 16-port designs, Adaptec of Milpitas, California said. Designed for bandwidth-intensive applications including media servers, email databases, and application servers, these Adaptec Unified Serial RAID controllers deliver enhanced I/O (input-output) performance, expanded scalability and high throughput, the company said. Fujitsu and Adaptec were early to develop serial interface products for enterprise adoption, according to Fujitsu Computer Products of America Inc. of Sunnyvale, California. Fujitsu has a close relationship with Adaptec, and the combination of Fujitsu’s serial hard drives with Adaptec’s Unified Serial controllers provides customers and partners with compatible, tested solutions that will enhance performance and scale to manage enterprise data intensive applications, Fujitsu said. The new family of Adaptec Unified Serial controllers enable enterprises to boost performance, scalability and reliability of their SATA disk drive-based solutions, coupled with the ability to also connect to high-performance SAS drives or both types of drives in the same system, Adaptec said. In addition, by leveraging the comprehensive compatibility test lab, Adaptec has ensured that its Unified Serial controllers are compatible and fully supported by over 270 third-party systems and devices, the company said. Advanced Industrial Computer Inc. (AIC) aims at providing reliable, scalable, and cost-effective SAS/SATA storage enclosures to its customers, according to the City of Industry, California-based company, whose enclosure products went through compatibility testing with the new Adaptec PCIe RAID controllers. With Adaptec's latest RAID technology and its reliability, AIC/Xtore will team with Adaptec to offer users compatible storage components with performance and capacity support, AIC said. Adaptec's line of Unified Serial RAID controllers are available with 4 to 16 3 Gb/s (gigabits-per-second) ports, that offer connectivity to both SATA and SAS disk drives, the company said. The new line which consists of five new solutions has been designed specifically for entry to mid-range servers and workstations, it added. The new line includes the Adaptec RAID 3405 with 4 internal ports, the Adaptec RAID 3805 with 8 internal ports, the Adaptec RAID 31205 with 12 internal ports, the Adaptec RAID 31605 with 16 internal ports, and the Adaptec RAID 3085 with 8 external ports and dual path failover functionality for external data path redundancy, Adaptec added. All these new controllers come standard with Adaptec's RAID data protection including protection against the failure of two disk drives (RAID 6), and high- performance RAID 5 with hot space (RAID 5EE), Adaptec said. The Adaptec Advanced Data Protection Suite also includes RAID 1E and Copyback Hot Spare for improved management and the ability to automatically reset a hot spare configuration, the company said. Customers can also choose to purchase the optional Snapshot Backup feature that creates a point-in-time copy of an array for improved data backup, management and disaster recovery, Adaptec added. Adaptec's suite of Unified Serial RAID controllers for PCIe enables system builders to sell a range of solutions with a variety of price points using a single storage architecture, the company said. The line of Unified Serial RAID controllers offers the Unified Serial Architecture, which allows the use of both SATA and SAS hard disk drives for optimal flexibility, capacity and performance options, Adaptec said. The new line of RAID controllers offers PCIe host interface with up to 256 MB (megabytes) ECC-protected data cache, the company said. The line also offer Adaptec RAID Code (ARC) which delivers an advanced feature set. In addition to standard RAID levels (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10, and RAID 50), the Adaptec Advanced Data Protection Suite delivers improved hot spare performance (RAID 5EE) and a patented RAID 6/60 technology, which allows for up to two simultaneous drive failures, Adaptec added. The new line of Unified Serial RAID controllers support array sizes up to 512 TB (terabytes), which allows full usage of new, higher capacity SATA drives, Adaptec said. The new line also utilizes the Adaptec Storage Manager, which is a next- generation storage management software that runs on all Adaptec controllers for optimizing RAID data volumes, disk utilization, provisioning, diagnostics and storage expansion, the company said. The enterprise storage market is evolving significantly as high-capacity, high- reliability SATA drives become a substantial part of corporate storage strategy, according to Western Digital Corp. (WD) of Lake Forest, California. Western Digital is addressing this growing market segment with a family of enterprise-class SATA drives, ready for SAS-system integration, the company said. WD drives also went through compatibility testing with the new Adaptec PCIe RAID controllers, it added. Adaptec is providing the market with a family of controllers that provide customers the flexibility to scale with SATA and/or SAS drives in the same system, WD said. The two companies worked together in testing WD drives for compatibility with the new Adaptec PCIe RAID controllers to ensure a technologically seamless experience for customers, the company said. The company aims at making it easier for its resellers and system builders to do business with Adaptec, the company said. Resellers and system builders can standardize on one vendor with the broadest product line of low and high-port Unified Serial RAID controllers for PCI, PCI-X and new low-profile models for PCIe, Adaptec said. With Adaptec's reliability and compatibility and interoperability testing, customers are assured that its solutions will work in demanding application environments, the company said. Adaptec has priced its solutions competitively and in line with current SATA-based controllers, the company added. Adaptec also released its low-profile Ultra320 SCSI single-channel HBA for the PCIe interface. Designed to protect investments in existing hardware, while delivering support for the host connection, the Adaptec 29320LPE Ultra320 SCSI HBA delivers PCIe connectivity and system flexibility for attaching SCSI devices to a workstation or server including tape drives, tape libraries, disk drives and RAID arrays, Adaptec said. For companies faced with the need to maximize existing infrastructure investments due to a flat or declining IT budget, the Adaptec 29320LPE Ultra320 SCSI HBA offers seamless backward compatibility between previous-generation SCSI devices and the new PCIe host bus interface, Adaptec said. The Adaptec SpeedFlex technology enables the Adaptec 29320LPE Ultra320 SCSI HBA to ensure maximum performance, while maintaining full backward compatibility with legacy equipment, the company said. By increasing the performance capabilities of older devices, the Adaptec 29320LPE Ultra320 SCSI HBA leverages and protects a company's IT investments, while eliminating the potential risks associated with transitioning to an Ultra320 technology, Adaptec added. Traditional SCSI continues to be the primary technology for companies who must store and backup essential data on disk drives and tape libraries in their existing infrastructure, Adaptec said. With the PCIe solution that gives companies expanded connectivity and high performance for all SCSI devices regardless of generation, Adaptec is enabling IT departments to leverage their existing investment without sacrificing performance or network capabilities, the company said. The new Adaptec 29320LPE Ultra320 SCSI controller will be available through the company’s worldwide distributors and resellers from later this month. The 29320LPE has a MSRP (manufacturers’ suggested retail price) of US $240, the company said. The new line of Unified Serial RAID controllers will also be available from the end of this month with the company’s worldwide distributors and resellers, Adaptec said. The MSRP of the new Adaptec RAID 3405 with 4 internal ports is US$ 390. The RAID 3805 with 8 internal ports comes at a MSRP of US$575, the RAID 3085 with 8 external ports comes at a MSRP of US$ 745, the RAID 31205 with 12 external ports comes at a MSRP of US$ 795, and the RAID 31605 with 16 external ports comes at a MSRP of US$ 995, the company said. .