Promise Technology Announces FastTrak TX2000 ATA RAID Card for Ultra ATA/133 Drives

Promise Technology Announces FastTrak TX2000 ATA RAID Card for Ultra ATA/133 Drives

Promise Technology, Inc. has released its new FastTrak TX2000, the first two-channel ATA RAID 0, 1 card and internal RAID subsystem designed for Ultra ATA/133 drives and 66MHz PCI-based motherboards. A FastTrak TX2000 Pro kit, which includes the FastTrak TX2000 card and two SuperSwap 1000 hot-swap drive enclosures, will be available in March.

FastTrak TX2000 products support RAID levels 0, 1, 0+1 and JBOD using up to four Ultra ATA/133 drives1. TX2000 arrays are designed to be remotely managed using Promise Array Management (PAM) software for Windows-based PCs via a common TCP/IP network connection or through local control.

FastTrak TX2000 Pro bundles the TX2000 card with two Promise SuperSwap 1000 hot-swappable drive enclosures. Under two-drive RAID 1 mirroring, TX2000 supports continuous hot swap2 operation. The SuperSwap 1000 chassises -- which each occupy a 5.25" system bay -- provide electronic protection of all internal system components and drives during drive replacement while the system remains powered on.

For desktop PCs or performance workstations, FastTrak TX2000 supports RAID 0 striping of up to four drives, providing sustained data transfer rates faster than those of single-drive, non-RAID UDMA/133 controllers.

With its support of 66MHz PCI-based motherboards3, TX2000 allows top-end data transfer rates across the bus of 266MB per second -- double the rate of33MHz PCI bus motherboards. The TX2000's onboard BIOS with 48-bit LBA support automatically recognizes and optimizes performance of Ultra ATA drives and supports drive sizes exceeding 137GB each.

Automatic array setup (FastBuild(TM)) and network-accessible PAM Windows software allow easy creation and monitoring of RAID array(s), attached drives, and TX2000 controller. When SuperSwap enclosures are used, PAM also monitors enclosure and cooling fan status.

"FastTrak TX2000 takes full advantage of our first-to-market introduction of Ultra ATA/133 BIOS support," said Sam Sirisena, Promise vice president of sales and marketing worldwide. "Using these new low-cost Ultra ATA/133 drives, FastTrak TX2000 and TX2000 Pro provide advanced RAID features at a third the cost of similar SCSI RAID storage."

About Promise

Promise Technology, Inc. is the recognized world leader in ATA controllers, ATA RAID cards, and ATA RAID subsystems. The company maintains ongoing product development relationships with most major ATA hard drive manufacturers and OEMs. Headquartered in Milpitas, CA, the company has offices in Europe, Taiwan, and China.

1. Backward compatible with Ultra ATA/100/66/and 33 hard drives.

2. When used with Promise SuperSwap chassises

3. Backward compatible with 33MHz PCI motherboards with 133MB/sec data transfers across PCI bus