3Ware 7500-12 - Escalade RAID Controller Features Manual

• Supports up to twelve Ultra
ATA/133 drives with a single PCI
card, enabling up to 2 terabyte
of disk storage
• StorSwitch ™ non-blocking architec-
ture for reliable, scalable, and high-
performance hardware RAID
• On-board processor and firmware
provides management for all
RAID functions
• RAID 0, 1, 10, 5 and JBOD support
• 64-bit/32-bit PCI-compatible
• BIOS setup utility and PnP, BBS
compliant bootable BIOS
• Hot-swap and hot-spare features
for data availability
• Windows ® and Linux ® operating
system support
Escalade
ATA RAID Controller
3ware's Escalade 7500-12 controller is the only ATA RAID controller available that
connects up to twelve ATA/133 hard disk drives. Delivering unmatched 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.
Cost Effective Storage Capacity
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 Fibre 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.
Switched Architecture Delivers Highest
Performance RAID
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 dedi-
cated 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.
™
7500-12
Advanced RAID Software and Firmware
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 man-
agement 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 incorpo-
rates 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.
Escalade Sets a New Standard for RAID
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 multi-
channel SCSI RAID cards. With this latest addition
to the Escalade 7500 series of RAID controllers,
3ware has revolutionized the world of RAID.