Milpitas, Calif. -- March 18, 2002 -- Promise Technology, Inc. today announced release of its UltraTrak™ SX & RM Series of external SCSI-to-ATA RAID subsystems designed for servers and professional workstations.
UltraTrak SX8000 (tower) and RM8000 (3U rackmount) can house up to eight Ultra ATA drives. The SX4000 (tower only) supports up to four Ultra ATA drives.
Employing a standard external Ultra160 LVD SCSI interface, the UltraTrak SX & RM Series units provide RAID 50*, 30*, 5, 3, 0+1, 1, 0 and JBOD support for servers and workstations running Windows, Linux, Netware, and Mac OS operating systems.
UltraTrak subsystems work with standard onboard or add-in Ultra160 LVD SCSI controllers (not included). When populated with up to eight Ultra ATA drives, UltraTrak array(s) appear to the system as a standard SCSI drive(s).
UltraTrak subsystems work independent of the actual operating system platform. Users configure and manage UltraTrak SX or RM Series subsystems using a built-in LCD display screen with electronic push buttons.
The subsystems each enable hot swap and/or hot spare support for continuous operation of fault tolerant arrays in case of drive failure.
"Because UltraTrak subsystems use Ultra ATA drives, users can achieve price differences greater than 3-to-1 when compared with SCSI RAID or Fibre Channel RAID enclosure/drive combinations," said Sam Sirisena, Promise vice president of sales and marketing worldwide.
UltraTrak SX & RM Series supports online array expansion, allowing users to add additional drives on-the-fly to increase storage capacity for any array if initially populated with less than the maximum amount of drives.
UltraTrak subsystems each include an internal RAID controller utilizing the same best-selling Ultra ATA interface that has been tested by virtually every major drive manufacturer and OEM for Ultra ATA drive compatibility. The controller includes an Intel i960RM RISC microprocessor for dedicated management of disk I/Os and parity calculation.
"As the pioneer of the ATA RAID concept and the acknowledged industry leader of this product category, Promise is dedicated to assuring that business professionals and MIS administrators have the best storage solution possible for networks and professional workstations," Sirisena said. "UltraTrak SX and RM subsystems deliver the power, protection, and RAID features of external SCSI subsystems at a fraction of the price."
The UltraTrak subsystems employ audible alarms, LEDs, and an LCD panel to indicate drive and array status including disk access, disk failure, and disk rebuild. In addition, the UltraTrak units monitor enclosure status including temperature, fan status, and voltage.
Lockable drive carriers allow Ultra ATA drives to slide in and out of the UltraTrak SX and RM enclosures for easy drive configuration and support of hot swap drive replacement in the event a drive fails. Redundant cooling fans maintain enclosure temperature even if one fan fails. In addition, the SX8000 and RM8000 units include redundant, hot swappable power supplies.
*RAID 30 and 50 supported on SX8000 and RM8000 only