3ware Escalade 7500-12

3ware Escalade 7500-12 ... storage capacity on a single controller, it is ideally suited for storage applications requiring up to two terabytes of storage. Delivering superior reliability, scalability and performance, the Escalade 7500-12 ATA controller sets the new standard for ATA RAID. ATA disk drives are less than half the cost per megabyte of storage than comparable SCSI drives. These drives deliver tremendous value in capacity and reliability, while the Escalade 7500-12 controller delivers the features and performance previously available only on SCSI or Fiber RAID systems. By combining these low cost drives with the Escalade 7500-12, customers can get the highest performance RAID 5 for less than half the cost of a comparable SCSI solution.

3ware's StorSwitch architecture applies network packet switching principles to storage. In a typical SCSI architecture the drives share a single bus. Performance is compromised because drives have to wait until the bus is free before they can perform a read or write command. By contrast, with the Escalade 7500-12 card, each disk drive has a dedicated bus eliminating the need to wait as other drives perform read or write commands. The 7500-12 controller can simultaneously write to all drives delivering much higher performance. This non-blocking switched architecture reduces the requirement for expensive on-board cache and provides both drive and cable fault isolation for greater system reliability. The Escalade 7500-12 card includes a built-in BIOS utility for creating, deleting, verifying and rebuilding arrays, making installation and set-up easy. 3DM, 3ware's web browser-based array management utility allows local and remote management and monitoring of arrays and their disks. It provides e-mail notification of disk array events and error conditions. 3ware's advanced firmware delivers many of the features one expects with more expensive SCSI drives and controllers, but not typically available in ATA. These include command re-ordering, elevator seeks, dynamic sector repair, asynchronous error messaging and more. The firmware now incorporates a staggered spin-up for drives that support this feature. This allows the controller to sequence the spin-up of drives, reducing the power demands at boot-up, eliminating excessive wear-and-tear on the power supply and the need for larger, more expensive power supplies.

The Escalade 7500-12 ATA RAID controller is the highest performing, highest capacity ATA controller available. Its unique switched architecture delivers performance levels previously only seen with multichannel SCSI RAID cards. With this addition to the Escalade 7500 series of RAID controllers, 3ware has revolutionized the world of RAID.