Analysis
PROMISE Technology Strengthens Leadership in Storage Industry with Introduction of SuperTrak 6G RAID Solution
PROMISE TechnologyInc., a leading supplier of versatile RAID storage solutions catering to customers fromenterprise to consumer, announced today its SuperTrak 6G SAS RAID controller cards
with enterprise-level features for use in the entry, SMB and OEM markets. According to
a recent research report published by Gartner in August1, “RAID systems have become
pervasive for data storage and are recognized as a ‘needed’ feature rather than an
‘additional’ feature in storage systems.” This introduction provides enterprise-class
performance, reliability and versatility at an affordable price; it marks the next
advancement in storage, whereby customers have more choice, value and a wider
range of technology features than available before.
The 6G SAS RAID controllers feature PMC Sierra’s PM8011 SRC 8x6G 6Gb/s SAS
RAID-on-Chip (RoC) with up to 512 MB of DDRII memory and are capable of delivering
over 2GB of bandwidth with a single controller in HBA mode over the PCI Express 2.0
bus. The controller is an intelligent and robust solution offering RAID 6 data protection
features along with advanced error handling that meet today’s enterprise level data
storage requirements. In addition, the controllers offer onboard cache memory with a
battery backup option for 72-hour data retention.
“This new family of RAID controller cards combines PMC-Sierra’s industry-leading
RAID-on-Chip architecture with PROMISE’s market-tested RAID stack to deliver a robust, enterprise-class 6G SAS solution,” said Zaki Hassan, director of product
marketing for PMC-Sierra’s Enterprise Storage Division. “The SuperTrak 6G SAS RAID
controller cards enable OEMs to seamlessly transition from 3G to 6G technology and
provide the increased performance, scalability and reliability that today’s IT
professionals require.”
The high performance architecture supports flexible connectivity to both SAS and SATA
hard drives delivering enterprise-class availability, performance and reliability for
Windows and Linux environments. The solution can do up to four levels of JBOD
cascading in each port for a total of up to eight JBOD connection and 256 HDDs. Up to
four 24-bay J-Class units can be connected to a single SAS HBA for a total of 96 drives.
The solution is also forward upgrade compatible between the SuperTrak to the
PROMISE VTrak.
In bringing our new RAID card to the market we provide real end-to-end 6G solutions
for the customer,” said Chi Chen Wu, CTO, PROMISE Technology. “We are the only
vendor responding directly to the demands for improved efficiency and expansion
capabilities coupled with a dramatically improved host bus interface and RAID
performance.
Data center demands for expanded capacity and support for virtualization applications
are driving system requirements for improved host bus interface and RAID
performance. The PROMISE RAID controller card, with 6Gb/s SAS and PCIe is a key
part of meeting these demands. SuperTrak SAS controllers provide a comprehensive
list of OS support including Windows, Linux, Free BSD, VMware and Solaris operating
systems, while its RAID features support greater than 2TB per array and per logical
drive.
The SuperTrak series includes WebPAM Pro, PROMISE’s Web 2.0 browser-based GUI
which provides such outstanding features as remote RAID management over a TCP/IP
network, on-demand and scheduled media patrol and online RAID controller firmware
upgrades.
The PROMISE 6G solutions are ideal for server-level customers who require affordable
storage coupled with enterprise-level performance and features. Today everyone is
trying to solve the ongoing dilemma of cutting costs without sacrificing performance;
with this introduction, PROMISE has solved that challenge. Today's announcement is
another example of how PROMISE is redefining the dynamics of data storage in
response to customer and market requirements.