Help with RAID Products specifications:
General Specifications
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| Bus-based RAID Controller | Bus-based or controller card hardware RAID is a conventional type of hardware RAID, and is most commonly used for lower-end systems. This specialized RAID controller (computer board) is installed into the PC or server, and the array drives are connected to it. It essentially takes the place of the SCSI host adapter or IDE/ATA controller that would normally be used for interfacing between the system and the hard disks; it interfaces to the drives using SCSI or IDE/ATA, and sends data to the rest of the PC over the system bus (typically PCI). Some motherboards, particularly those intended for server systems, come with some variant of integrated RAID controller. These are built into the motherboard, but function in precisely the same manner as an add-in bus-based card. The only difference is that integrated controllers can reduce overall cost at the price of flexibility. | ||
| External RAID Controller | External RAID Controllers are external devices for higher-end design systems. In this case the RAID controller is removed completely from the system to a separate box. Within the box the RAID controller manages the drives in the array, typically using SCSI, and then presents the logical drives of the array over a standard interface (again, typically a variant of SCSI) to the server using the array. The server sees the array or arrays as just one or more very fast hard disks; the RAID is completely hidden from the machine. In essence, one of these units really is an entire computer unto itself, with a dedicated processor that manages the RAID array and acts as a conduit between the server and the array. | ||
| RAID Disk Array | RAID disk arrays are collections of storage disks with a controller(s) to manage the storage of data on the disks. The array is a disk subsystem that appears as a single, large, fast disk drive, even though it is in fact composed of many drives configured in an array. | ||
| Other | Other unlisted or proprietary product. | ||
| Search Logic: | All products with ANY of the selected attributes will be returned as matches. Leaving all boxes unchecked will not limit the search criteria for this question; products with all attribute options will be returned as matches. | ||
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| RAID Level Supported | |||
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| RAID 0 | Data is split across drives. RAID Level 0 is not redundant. Failure of any disk in the array results in all data loss. This level is also known as striping. | ||
| RAID 1 | RAID 1 is also known as mirroring with two hard drives. It provides redundancy by duplicating all data from one drive to another drive. | ||
| RAID 2 | RAID Level 2 uses hamming error correction codes for error detection. It is used with drives that do not have built-in error detection. | ||
| RAID 3 | RAID Level 3 strips data at a byte level across several drives, with parity stored on one drive. | ||
| RAID 4 | RAID Level 4 strips data at the block level across several drives, with parity stored on one drive. The parity information allows recovery from the failure of any single drive. RAID Level 4 performance is very good for reads, but writes require that parity data be updated each time. | ||
| RAID 5 | RAID Level 5 is also known as striping with distributed parity. RAID Level 5 is similar to Level 4, but distributes parity among the drives. No single disk is dedicated to parity. | ||
| RAID 10 | Combines RAID 0 striping and RAID 1 mirroring spanned across multiple drive groups (super drive group). This level provides redundancy through mirroring. | ||
| RAID 30 | Data is "striped" across multiple drive groups (super drive group). Maintains parity information that can be used for data recovery. | ||
| RAID 50 | Data is "striped" across multiple drive groups (super drive group). For data redundancy, drives are encoded with rotated XOR redundancy. | ||
| JBOD | Sometimes referred to as "Just a Bunch of Drives." Each drive is operated independently like a normal disk controller, or drives may be spanned and seen as a single drive. This level does not provide data redundancy. | ||
| Other | Other types such as NRAID, etc. | ||
| Search Logic: | All products with ANY of the selected attributes will be returned as matches. Leaving all boxes unchecked will not limit the search criteria for this question; products with all attribute options will be returned as matches. | ||
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| Maximum Data Transfer Rate: | The rate (in MBytes/sec) of the data transmitted to the disk arrays from the controller. | ||
| Search Logic: | All matching products will have a value greater than or equal to the specified value. | ||
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Interfaces
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| Host Interface | |||
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| 32-bit PCI | Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) is a local bus system designed for high-end computer systems. It transfers 32 or 64 bits of data at a clock speed of 33 MHz. The PCI bus supports 3 to 5 critical peripherals, which are either integrated directly onto the motherboard or added via expansion cards. The PCI bus fully supports cards developed for standard I/O buses. 32-bit PCI is a 32-bit bus that supports rates of 33 MHz. | ||
| 64-bit PCI | Peripheral Component Interconnect. PCI is a local bus system designed for high-end computer systems. It transfers 32 or 64 bits of data at a clock speed of 33 MHz. The PCI bus supports 3 to 5 critical peripherals, which are either integrated directly onto the motherboard or added via expansion cards. The PCI bus fully supports cards developed for standard I/O buses. 64-bit PCI is a 32-bit bus that supports rates of 66 MHz. | ||
| SCSI | Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) is an interface standard for connecting peripheral devices to computers. Hardware components for implementing a SCSI interface include connector ports on computers and cables for connecting peripheral devices to the computer. SCSI is gradually being supplanted by the newer USB standard. | ||
| Fibre Channel | Fibre Channel technology uses optical fibers to connect computers and peripheral devices that require high bandwidth. It functions via a serial data transfer architecture that is compatible with SCSI. The most prominent Fibre Channel standard is Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) which can support full-duplex data transfer rates of 100MBps. | ||
| IEEE 1394 (FireWire®) | IEEE 1394 or FireWire® is an interface standard adopted by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for very fast digital data transfers such as streaming video. IEEE 1394 connectors are used to transmit and receive data among FireWire devices, and are designed to replace external high-speed peripheral connections to personal computers, including hard disks, CD-ROMs, DVDs, graphics cards, high-speed scanners, direct video, monitors, etc. Tiny, robust FireWire connectors will also become important parts of home entertainment, communication, and appliance networks. FireWire is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc. | ||
| USB | Universal serial bus (USB) is a 4-wire, 12-Mbps serial bus for low-to-medium speed peripheral device connections to personal computers (PC), including keyboards, mice, modems, printers, joysticks, audio functions, monitor controls, etc. The USB design is standardized by the USB Implementers Forum (USBIF), an organization that includes leading companies from the computer and electronics industries. The current USB specification is USB 2.0, which supports data transfer rates of up to 480 Mbps. | ||
| Other | Other unlisted or proprietary host interfaces. | ||
| Search Logic: | All products with ANY of the selected attributes will be returned as matches. Leaving all boxes unchecked will not limit the search criteria for this question; products with all attribute options will be returned as matches. | ||
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| Disk Channels Interface | |||
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| SCSI | Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) is an interface standard for connecting peripheral devices to computers. Hardware components for implementing a SCSI interface include connector ports on computers and cables for connecting peripheral devices to the computer. SCSI is gradually being supplanted by the newer USB standard. | ||
| Fibre Channel | Fibre Channel technology uses optical fibers to connect computers and peripheral devices that require high bandwidth. It functions via a serial data transfer architecture that is compatible with SCSI. The most prominent Fibre Channel standard is Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) which can support full-duplex data transfer rates of 100MBps. | ||
| ATA (PATA) | ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) is a disk drive implementation that integrates the controller on the disk drive itself. It is an interface standard that extends the ISA bus of the IBM PC-AT to attach peripherals. It is also known as Parallel ATA (PATA). The original ATA is better known as IDE. There are several types of ATA. ATA: Known also as IDE, supports one or two hard drives, a 16-bit interface and PIO modes 0, 1 and 2. ATA-2: Supports faster PIO modes (3 and 4) and multiword DMA modes (1 and 2). Also supports logical block addressing (LBA) and block transfers. ATA-2 is also known as Fast ATA and Enhanced IDE (EIDE). ATA-3: Minor revision to ATA-2. Ultra-ATA: Also called ATA-33, Ultra DMA, UDMA and DMA-33, supports multiword DMA mode 3 running at 33 MBps. ATA/66: A version of ATA proposed by Quantum Corporation, and supported by Intel, that doubles Ultra ATA's throughput to 66 MBps. ATA/100: A version of ATA proposed by Quantum Corporation, and supported by Intel, that supports 100 MBps. ATA/133 that supports transfer rates of up to 133 MBps. | ||
| SATA | Serial ATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment, or SATA) is a serial interface standard that extends the ISA bus of the IBM PC-AT to attach peripherals. The original ATA is better known as IDE. Serial ATA is a disk-interface technology developed by a group of the industry's leading vendors to replace parallel ATA. Serial ATA is a point-to-point connection and allows multiple ports to be aggregated into a single controller that is typically located either on the motherboard or as an add-in, RAID card. Serial ATA technology can deliver at least 1.5 Gbps (150 MB/sec) of performance to each drive within a disk drive array. | ||
| Other | Other unlisted or proprietary disk interfaces. | ||
| Search Logic: | All products with ANY of the selected attributes will be returned as matches. Leaving all boxes unchecked will not limit the search criteria for this question; products with all attribute options will be returned as matches. | ||
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