Multimedia Warehouse (MMW) a division of Siltek Distribution Dynamics (SDD) and local distributor of Mylex RAID products, has released the eXtremeRAID2000, a Mylex RAID solution aimed at mid-to-high-end server environments.
" eXtremeRAID2000 conforms to the Ultra 160 SCSI interface standard, which is a subset of the Ultra3 SCSI interface standard and delivers a 160MB/second transfer rate, doubling the data throughput of Ultra2 SCSI RAID controllers. Mylex has been a supporter of this standard since its planning stages," says Mogammad Peters, SCSI Technology product manager at MMW.
It also integrates Intel's StrongArm 233 MHz SA110 RISC processor with Mylex's own firmware. These two components de-couple disk drive I/O management tasks from the network operating system (NOS), thereby freeing the NOS to service other applications.
The controller includes up to 256 MB of ECC (Error-Correcting Code) protected cache memory and a separate Parity-protected subsystem for instruction execution.
Each controller features four Wide Ultra 160 SCSI LVD channels that support up to 60 drives, allowing system configurations of over 4.32TB of high performance storage per controller and, in NT environments, each server in the network can hold up to 32 eXtremeRAID 2000 controllers. "These capabilities allow the network manager to improve storage system performance as the network grows," says Peters.
PCI Hot Plug allows network administrators to replace controllers without powering down the system. Other fault tolerance features include automatic detection of failed drives, automatic and transparent rebuild of replacement drives, online RAID expansion and SMART (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) capable drive support, as well as SAFE-TE (SCSI Accessed Fault-Tolerant Enclosures) and SES (SCSI Enclosure Services) enclosure management.
The controller provides full RAID level 0, 1, 0+1, 3, 5, 10, 30, 50 and JBOD configuration capabilities.
Included as standard in the package is Mylex's Web Array Manager, a new browser-based enterprise RAID management software application. "Web Array Manager allows RAID systems to be managed from any Web browser and offers the a comprehensive set of RAID management tools, including online RAID capacity expansion, drive cloning and remote cluster management," says Peters.
Also available with the controller is Mylex's Global ArrayManager, which enables the RAID system to be configured, managed and monitored remotely from anywhere in the world.
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Siltek Limited
Siltek Limited is the leader in the Southern African Information Technology (IT) Supply Chain with projected turnover of R3-billion in the year to end-June 2000. Listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, Siltek comprises several complementary operating divisions, each of which is a dominant player in its niche area.