LSI's Four Channel IDE RAID Host Bus Adapter

Once the strictly in the realm of high-end high-dollar storage applications, RAID (in some form or other) has made its way all the way down to the level of the personal PC. LSI's new MegaRAID i4 isn't at the top of the line but it probably isn't going to be used in little Johnny's bedroom either. The company says the four-channel RAID adapter is targeted at cost-sensitive storage environments. It has built-in Intel i960RS I/O processor support and offers two dual-channel IDE controllers with support for up to eight drives per adapter in a half-size PCI form factor. MegaRAID i4 uses the FlexRAID online RAID management utility to let you change logical drive configuration without interrupting data storage activities. Other MegaRAID capabilities include background initialization for faster RAID 5 array setup; Auto Resume, which picks up array rebuild or reconstruction where it left off if the system shuts down; and random logical drive deletion without bringing the system down.