3Ware Handles Heavy Loads

These cards can be used for custom servers suitable for video editing, disk-to-disk backup and other applications that are tough on storage resources.

An 8-port version of the card was sent to the CRN Test Center as part of an Aberdeen Stonehaven A381 Dual Opteron server. The 3U powerhouse featured two AMD Opteron processors, two 80-Gbyte SATA drives and six 74-Gbyte, 10,000-rpm SATA drives in a RAID array. The Aberdeen server came with the AMCC 3ware 9500S-8 with battery backup, which is priced at $599.

The 9000S RAID controllers are based on the StorSwitch architecture, a design that communicates with each drive through a unique port identifier.

The StorSwitch architecture lets each drive simultaneously perform read or write functions. With a high-speed interface to each port and an internal switched fabric architecture, the internal bus can support 12 drives at up to 150 MBps per drive. In a RAID 5 configuration, the 3ware 9500S SATA RAID controllers can sustain more than 400-MBps reads and more than 100-MBps sequential writes with less than 3 percent CPU utilization.

The controllers are available with four, eight or 12 ports and the AMCC StorSave Platform. StorSave supplies power to the cache memory module during a power outage. The battery keeps the contents of the controller cache memory intact for up to 72 hours.

The 3ware 9500S SATA RAID controllers support RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 10, 50 and single disk, and are compatible with Windows 2003, XP and 2000, RedHat Linux, Suse Linux and other operating systems.

PRODUCT SNAPSHOT
>AMCC 3ware 9000 Series SATA RAID controller

COMPANY: Applied Micro Circuits.
San Diego
(877) 883-9273
www.3ware.com
DISTRIBUTORS: Bell Micro, Synnex
MODELNo.: 95005-8
PRCE: $599