Adaptec Introduces New Serial ATA RAID Controllers

Adaptec announced a broad Serial ATA (SATA) product family including motherboard solutions and zero-channel, 2-, 4-, 8-, 12- and 16-port add-in RAID cards that deliver protection technology combined with SATA price-per-megaByte performance for desktop PCs, workstations, entry-level and midrange servers and external storage appliances.

The new SATA RAID product line builds on Adaptec's leadership in RAID data protection. Adaptec is working with major disk drive makers, resellers and original equipment manufacturers to drive Serial ATA adoption.

The low per-megaByte cost of SATA drives makes them cost-effective for mid-market servers and workstations as well as disk-based backup applications. Adaptec's SATA product family includes add-in RAID cards to enhance system performance and uptime. The controllers enable the use of longer, thinner cables and smaller connectors than parallel technology to improve chassis airflow and cooling, simplify cable routing and allow system builders to design smaller form factors.

The Adaptec Serial ATA RAID 1210SA, introduced today, is a 2-port card that brings low-cost RAID and up to 1.5 Gigabit-per-second performance to home PCs, workstations and sub-entry servers. The 1210SA features Adaptec's HostRAID, the same mirroring and striping technology embedded in Adaptec's industry-leading Ultra320 SCSI controllers. Future Adaptec Serial ATA RAID controllers will add RAID 5 and 10 for advanced workstation, server and storage appliance data protection.

For home PCs, the 1210SA's striping enhances performance of bandwidth-intensive applications such as video and audio streaming, while its mirroring capability provides disk backup to protect personal finance and other important data.

To simplify storage management and reduce related costs, Adaptec's Serial ATA RAID controllers operate under the same browser-based management software as its SCSI RAID cards. The intuitive RAID management tool allows end users to remotely monitor and configure RAID subsystems through convenient password-protected web access.

Adaptec also introduced today the availability of SATAConnect, a 2-port controller with transfer speeds of up to 1.5 Gigabits per second for desktop PCs. SATAConnect provides a connection to high-performance hard drives to enhance access to data- and bandwidth-intensive applications, such as video, audio, games and other multimedia.