News and New Products

Serial ATA snags another supporter

By Brian Dipert -- EDN, 1/23/2003

ServerWorks' latest announcements broaden the company's product line beyond its foundation as a chip-set supplier for Intel CPU-based workstations and servers. The $25 (10,000) SWC-IB7453 and $40, 2.5W SWC-IB7451 connect to a PCI-X system bus and manage, respectively, four and eight serial-ATA peripherals. They provide a more highly integrated alternative to dual-port, serial-ATA controllers such as Silicon Image's SiI 3112 for advanced mass-storage subsystems, such as JBOD (just-a-bunch-of-drives) and RAID (redundant-array-of-inexpensive-disks) configurations (see "Controller options smooth mass-storage transition," EDN, April 11, 2002, pg 16).

The unconventional, $11, 700-mW SWC-IB7452 multiplexer provides upstream links to two serial-ATA host controllers and downstream links to either a serial or a parallel ATA device. Both serial-ATA controllers can share the downstream mass-storage peripheral, enabling various failover and load-sharing arrangements. The flexible downstream link enables you to mix and match legacy parallel drives and new serial drives during the in-progress parallel-ATA-to-serial-ATA-technology transition. All three devices are currently available for sampling, and ServerWorks plans to roll out SAS (serial-attached-SCSI) products next year for high-end system designs.

ServerWorks, 1-408-492-1915, www.serverworks.com.