Promise developed the FastTrak S150 SX4 controller. It is the first solution they offer for people wanting to use both RAID 5 and SATA, and according to Promise it becomes the world’s first SATA RAID 5 solution to be offered by a Tier 1 OEM – NEC Corporation, using it in their Express5800/120Ef servers.
Promise are not first offering such a controller though; this product will be lined up against 3Ware with their Escalade® 8506 Series , and Highpoint, who already have a few RAID 5 SATA controllers available. However, Promise claims that the new FastTrak S150 SX4 controller offers a better price/performance ratio than we are used to.
RAID 5 is recognized as the storage professional’s choice for its combination of enhanced performance, data protection, and increased capacity, but the cost of RAID 5 hardware has traditionally restricted its broad market success.
The FastTrak S150 SX4 sets a new standard in RAID 5 HBA architecture by replacing high cost traditional IO processor on the RAID HBA with a low cost high performance Promise RAID 5 ASIC that integrates a RAID 5 XOR engine and cache memory controller.
Promise’s product allows users to install up to 256 MB SD-RAM cache through a single slot. It supports both 33MHz and 66Mhz PCI buses. Apart from that, there are the usual things like hot swapping, anti-failure protections, failure remedies, …
Read the product sheet here.
