3Ware: The Escalade 9000 Series Vs. Raidcore

3Ware is taking the competition in the Serial ATA market quite seriously these days, and is now introducing a new generation of RAID controllers. The Escalade 9000 series is available with 4, 8 or 12 SATA ports and is based on the 3ware developed StorSwitch technology. Meanwhile, the company's 7000 series (Ultra ATA) and the 8000 family of controllers (SATA) are also still available.

By launching the Escalade 9000, 3ware now supports arrays with more than 2 TB (65 bit addressing) and is talking about reading rates in the range of 400 MB/s (reading) and 110 MB/s (writing) in RAID 5. In contrast to the RC4000 made by Raidcore, 3ware's solutions generally employ an integrated RAID processor (XOR unit), which substantially cuts the load for system processors. A hardware cache can be equipped using SO-DIMMs. Currently, the company is developing an intelligent backup battery (which maintains its own cache log; it can also regenerate data from individual hard drive caches), drivers for 64 bit operating systems, as well as higher functionalities such as Online Capacity Extension or RAID Level Migration.

The premier version, Escalade 9500S-12 MI, allows for the integration of four ports, respectively, via an integrated cable. This greatly reduces the cabling required in compact systems.