Introduction

The FastTrak SX8300 SATA 3Gb/s PCI-X RAID 5 controller delivers industry-leading RAID 5 performance at an unprecedented price/performance ratio. For companies running popular applications like web services, file/email servers, audio/video streaming and nearline storage, the FastTrak SX8300 opens the world of professional RAID 5 performance and data protection and combines it with cost-effective Serial ATA (SATA) 3Gb/s drives for the ultimate internal storage solution. Based on Promise's OEM-proven RAID 5 technology, the FastTrak SX4300/8300 competes with SCSI RAID 5 controllers--at one-half to one-third of the price.

The FastTrak SX8300 controller supports Serial ATA 3Gb/s drives and conforms to Serial ATA II, Extensions to SATA 1.0 specification with Native Command Queuing and Disk Activity LED headers support. Command Queuing increases I/O performance by intelligently reordering data requests so that the data can be accessed more quickly.

Hardware-Assisted RAID 5 Architecture
RAID 5 implementation involves striping data and parity information (XOR) across the storage array. Since those parity calculations are so processor-intensive, RAID 5 controllers traditionally require a dedicated CPU to perform the XOR calculations and manage the array. Instead of adding a costly dedicated I/O processor to the controller, Promise's FastTrak SX8300 controller uses an integrated XOR engine for parity calculations, delivering extraordinary performance at a dramatically lower price. This approach takes advantage of today's ultra-powerful PC CPUs to manage the array and outperform traditional RAID 5 solutions.

Improved RAS Functions
Based on an architecture similar to the widely successful FastTrak S150 SX4-M, the FastTrak SX8300 adds enhanced features for improved RAS (Reliability, Availability and Serviceability). In addition to an improved RAID algorithm, among the enhanced features are multiple logical drive support, media patrol and read check table. Equipped with the new web-based Promise Array Manager (WebPAM) software, FastTrak SX8300 is extremely easy to manage for both Windows and Linux environments through a browser-based graphical user interface.

Features

• 8-port SATA RAID controllers with 3.0 Gb/s per port
• 64-Bit/133MHz PCI-X Host Bus Interface
• Low Profile form factor
• Support for RAID level 0, 1, 5, 10, and JBOD
• Improved RAS (Reliability, Availability, and Serviceability) functions
• Online capacity expansion and RAID level migration to add capacity as needed
• Hardware-Assisted RAID 5 Architecture
• Multiple logical drive support
• Automatic/manual rebuild of hot spare drive
• PerfectRAID™ technology for robust error handling and recovery

Specifications

• Eight SATA ports at 3.0Gb/s (300MB/sec)
• Storage capacity up to 8.0 terabytes (with eight 500GB drives x2 controllers/system)
• Supports Native Command Queuing
• 64-bit, 133MHz PCI-X host bus interface
• Promise 41721/81731 RAID Processor with XOR engine for RAID parity calculations and memory controller for local cache memory
• On-board ECC DDR cache memory: 32MB for SX4300, 64MB for SX8300
• FRAM for RAID5 transaction log to avoid data corruption in the event application hangs
• Dual controller support within a system
• Supports SAF-TE enclosure management
• Low-profile form factor ideal for 1U/2U server
• Combine with the SuperSwap 4100 for an advanced internal storage system