Controller and design kit pave way for RAID
-- EDN, January 20, 2000
A new RAID controller and designkit from Intel could open the way for mass deployment of RAID (redundant array of inexpensive disks)-storage workstations and on midrange and entry-level servers. The KMU21 controller, which Intel based on its i960 processor, implements Ultra-2 SCSI and supports RAID levels 0 (data striping), 1 (data mirroring), 5, and 10. Level 5 balances storage cost, performance, and data protection; Level 10 provides the highest reliability and performance. Pricing for the new RAID products was unavailable at press time, but Intel claims the controller and design kit will enable affordable RAID storage even on some high-end PCs.
The KMU21 controller and accompanying software allow online storage-capacity expansion and RAID-level migration without rebooting or powering down the system. For uninterrupted data access, the controller also supports hot-plug disk drives, hot spares, and automatic-rebuilding capability. You can configure a RAID system via any HTML browser, enabling a system manager to create or modify a RAID system remotely-from home, for example.
The controller allows burst transfer rates as high as 80 Mbytes/sec. RAID software from Intel is available for Windows NT 4.0 (plus NT 4.0 Terminal Server and Enterprise), Novell Netware 4.2 and 5.x, and SCO UnixWare 7.1.
Intel Corp, http://developer.intel.com/design/ioo.
-by Gary Legg
