Promise SuperTrak EX8350 Serial ATA PCIe RAID 6 Controller

Promise Updated: 2009-01-05 RSS
Promise SuperTrak EX8350 Serial ATA PCIe RAID 6 Controller

High-Performance, Maximum Reliability SATA 3Gb/s RAID Solution

SuperTrak EX8350 Highlights

* 8-Port Serial ATA (SATA) RAID controller with 3.0 Gb/s per port
* PCI-Express x 4 Host Bus Interface
* Support RAID levels 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50 and JBOD
* Linux open source driver support
* Online capacity expansion and RAID level migration to add capacity as needed
* Hardware- accelerated RAID 6 Capable for maximum reliability
* Intel IOP333 XScale® I/O processor
* Multiple logical drive support
* Automatic/manual rebuild of hot spare drive
* PerfectRAID technology for robust error handling and recovery
* Battery backup module optional

High Performance SATA 3Gb/s RAID Controller for Servers and Storage Systems
The SuperTrak EX8350 RAID controller is a cost-effective high-performance, high-capacity solution for internal storage systems. With support for SATA 3Gb/s drives and Promise's proven RAID engine, the SuperTrak EX8350 RAID controller is designed to meet the needs of disk-to-disk backup, NAS storage, security and surveillance, video editing, and near-line storage.

Enterprise-class RAID Features and Management
The SuperTrak EX8350 RAID controllers include advanced RAID features for greater data protection and management. Greater than 2 TB support allows for very large arrays in 64-bit platforms. An enhanced RAID platform with advanced features such as multiple logical drive support, media patrol, read check table and bad sector remapping protects your storage investment. Equipped with the new web-based Promise Array Manager (WebPAM) software, SuperTrak EX8350 is extremely easy to manage for both Windows and Linux environments through a browser-based graphical user interface.

SATA 3Gb/s Support
The SuperTrak EX8350 controller supports SATA 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 data can be accessed more quickly.

Supports PCI-Express for High Throughput
The SuperTrak EX8350 takes advantage of the high throughput performance of the PCI-Express host bus interconnect. Using the x 4 PCI-Express bus, the controller is capable of achieving throughput of up to 1GB per second.

Intelligent RAID Architecture
The SuperTrak EX8350 delivers exceptional multi-drive performance by taking advantage of Intel's XScale® 80333 I/O processor technology. It offers advanced RAID 6 technology for high level fault tolerance, allowing multiple simultaneous drive failures without downtime or data loss.

For more information about RAID 6, check out our case study with Intel Corporation -"Intelligent RAID 6 Uses Dual Independent Parity Coding Schemes for Extra Data Protection"

Controller Specifications
* Eight SATA ports at 3.0Gb/s (300MB/sec)
* Storage capacity up to 16.0 terabytes (with eight 500GB drives x 4 controllers/ system)
* PCI-Express x 4 host bus interface
* Intel IOP333 XScale® I/O processor (500 MHz)
* 128MB DDR ECC on-board controller cache
* Battery back-up module option
* Four controller support within a system
* Low profile form factor ideal for 1U/2U server
* Combine with the SuperSwap 4100 for an advanced internal storage system

RAID Levels Supported
* RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50 and JBOD

RAID Fault Tolerance and Robustness Features
* Multiple logical drive support enables combining different RAID levels on one set of disks
* Read Check table to avoid data read errors
* Online capacity expansion and RAID level migration to add capacity --on the fly--as needed
* PerfectRAID technology for error handling and recovery of fatal, media and disk errors
* Support hot swap of failed drives and hot spares
* Automatic/manual rebuild of hot spare drive
* Background initialization for instant drive availability
* Supports bad sector remapping
* Variable stripe block size support to meet various application requirements
* Synchronization can be scheduled periodically for RAID array data consistency

Advanced Performance Features
* Multiple caching policy support
* Packet commands and interrupt coalescing minimize interrupts for better performance
* Elevator seek streamlines commands based upon data location on the disk

Web-based Promise Array Manager
* Creates, deletes, expands, and converts disk arrays remotely
* Array synchronization and rebuild scheduling
* Monitors drive, array, and enclosure status and provides online event logging
* E-mail notification of drive, array, controller or enclosure events (e.g. error or degrade conditions)

Operating Systems
* Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/2003
* Red Hat Linux, SuSE Linux, Linux open source driver

SuperBuild BIOS
* Array configuration utility at the BIOS level
* BIOS Boot Specification support: boot system from any array
* Flash-upgradeable BIOS for future upgrades