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Ultra100 TX2 Card Supports 66MHz & 33MHz PCI-based Motherboards; Assures Maximum Data Transfers for Ultra ATA/100 Drives
San Jose, CA !X Promise Technology, Inc. announced today it will begin distribution of the first 66MHz PCI Bus controller card designed to support Ultra ATA/100 drives. The Ultra100 TX2 provides complete Ultra ATA/100 support for 66MHz PCI-based motherboards that allow up to 200MB/sec PCI bus data transfers.
Ultra100 TX2 will have a suggested list price of $49.
The new card supports all features of Ultra ATA/100 drives, including 100MB/sec burst data transfers and CRC high-speed error-checking. Ultra100 TX2 can be used on 33MHz PCI motherboards and is backward-compatible with older Ultra ATA and IDE drives.
Promise Ultra100 TX2 also improves drive performance under Windows 98/ME/NT4/2000. Ultra100 TX2's software drivers automatically boost performance for all drives (ATA and SCSI) installed in a PC by up to 40 percent.[1]
Ultra100 TX2 bundles a free Ultra ATA 80-wire/40-pin cable that offers improved data reliability and signal integrity by adding 40 extra ground wires than standard 40-wire/40-pin IDE cables. Without the required cable, Ultra ATA/100 drives will only run at 33MB/sec.
Up to four drives and/or ATAPI devices are supported by the two IDE ports on the Ultra100 card. Each port offers separate device timing to run each attached device at its highest-rated speed. Ultra100 TX2 also provides bus mastering for improved performance.
The Ultra100 TX2 uses the world's best-selling, most widely tested onboard BIOS that automatically recognizes Ultra ATA/100 drives. The BIOS also allows the card to be fully backward-compatible with other IDE drives -- including Ultra DMA/66, Ultra DMA/33, older IDE drives, CD-ROM/DVD drives, and other ATAPI devices. Ultra100 TX2 co-exists with motherboard IDE ports, adding two additional IDE ports to a typical system. This permits up to 8 internal IDE devices to be used.
"Ultra100TX2 and Ultra ATA/100 drives let new 66MHz PCI-based system builders and upgraders to take advantage of the rapidly growing Ultra ATA price advantage versus SCSI while improving system response times and improving data reliability," said Sam Sirisena, Promise Technology vice president of sales and marketing. "As the first such card on the market backed by solid relationships with all major Ultra ATA/100 drive manufacturers and most major OEMs, we expect tremendous industry and enduser response for Ultra100 TX2."
The new card works with major operating systems including Windows 2000/NT4/ME/98/95, and Netware 3.12/4.1x/5.
Since 1988, Promise Technology, Inc. has offered high performance ATA controllers for PC storage and has been recognized as the creator and leader of ATA RAID since 1997. The world's biggest OEMs and resellers look to Promise for ongoing innovations in ATA controller design as the company continues to create the most powerful ATA-based controllers today.
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[1] Under Winbench'99 Business Winmarks. Restrictions may apply.
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