Promise First to Market Enhanced SATA Product Line Supporting Advanced New SATA 1.5G Drives

Promise First to Market Enhanced SATA Product Line Supporting
Advanced New SATA 1.5G Drives
Non-RAID and RAID 0/1 Solutions Offer Improved Performance With Command Queuing
Support and More Enhanced SATA Features 


MILPITAS, Calif., Sept. 1  /PRNewswire/ -- Promise Technology, Inc., originator
and leading supplier of ATA RAID solutions, today announced the availability of
a complete line of Enhanced Serial ATA (SATA) host-bus adapters (HBAs) for SATA
1.5G drives.  As the next step in the evolution of SATA-based products, these
new Enhanced SATA controllers incorporate some new features and add support for
the latest drive improvements like command queuing for increased I/O
performance.  These first-to-market Enhanced SATA adapters offer desktop,
workstation, and small server users the leading edge in ATA storage technology.

While Serial ATA storage products are widely available, the Serial ATA standard
has a defined roadmap for product improvements.  The next step in the evolution
of Serial ATA is defined by the Serial ATA II, Extensions to SATA 1.0
specification, and Promise's new Enhanced SATA solutions are designed to meet
this advance with updates to the company's proven, industry-leading
controllers.  Promise's Enhanced SATA offering includes two non-RAID
controllers, the SATAII150 TX2plus and the SATAII150 TX4, and two RAID
controllers, the FastTrak TX2200 and the FastTrak TX4200.

"Serial ATA continues to evolve, offering users increasing performance and
advanced features that can improve their storage system.  As the first to
market HBA solutions that address these technology improvements, Promise's line
of Enhanced SATA adapters reinforces the company's commitment to improving ATA
technology," said Albert Mu, vice president of network server and storage
group, Promise Technology, Inc.  "Promise's line of Enhanced SATA adapters
provides desktop, workstation, and small server users with leading edge ATA
storage technology and the confidence of proven interface adapter solutions
from the industry leader."

For customers that want to add RAID functionality to their storage system, the
FastTrak TX2200 and FastTrak TX4200 offer users solutions for improved
performance and data protection.  The FastTrak TX2200 provides an ideal
entry-level solution with support for two drives and RAID 0 for improved
performance or RAID 1 for data protection.  With four Serial ATA ports, the
FastTrak TX4200 provides a cost-effective full-featured RAID solution with
support for RAID 0, RAID 1, or RAID 10.

The SATAII150 TX2plus and the SATAII150 TX4 are non-RAID controllers.  For
consumers who want to migrate their existing ATA components to a serial
platform, the SATAII150 TX2plus provides a hybrid solution that combines two
independent SATA ports and one Parallel ATA channel for support of up to two
Serial and two Ultra ATA drives.  For an all-serial upgrade, the Promise
SATAII150 TX4 offers four independent SATA ports for up to four Serial ATA 1.5G
drives.

Promise's Enhanced SATA solutions support advanced features including SATA
Tagged Command Queuing, Native Command Queuing and Disk Activity LED headers.
With drives that can take advantage of this capability, Command Queuing
increases I/O performance by intelligently reordering data requests so that the
data can be more quickly accessed than if the commands weren't ordered.

"Combined with Promise Technology's FastTrak TX4200 controller, WD Raptor hard
drives have demonstrated cost-effective high performance, beating SCSI
solutions in recently published independent test results," said Hubbert Smith,
director of marketing for enterprise products at Western Digital.  "In its
four-drive RAID 0 testing setup, StorageReview.com found that the FastTrak
TX4200 opened a significant gap between itself and other controllers. Together,
the FastTrak TX4200 and WD Raptor provide one of the fastest hard
drive/controller solutions available."

Promise's Enhanced SATA PCI adapter solutions include advanced HBA features for
ultimate application flexibility.  The line of HBAs features a low-profile form
factor that is compact enough to fit into small rackmount servers.  All of the
cards support a 66MHz PCI bus for up to 266MB/sec burst data transfer rate. 
And all of Promise's Enhanced SATA adapters use a Promise ASIC with large LBA
support for drives above 137GB and an onboard BIOS that automatically
identifies and configures drive type.

The SATAII150 TX2plus controller lists for $41 (MSRP).  The SATAII150 TX4
controller lists for $59 (MSRP).  The FastTrak TX2200 controller lists for $60
(MSRP).  The FastTrak TX4200 controller lists for $106 (MSRP).  These products
are available now through Promise's excellent coverage of worldwide
distributors.  Visit (http://www.promise.com/) for additional product
information.

About Promise Technology, Inc.

Promise Technology is the originator and global leader of SATA / ATA RAID,
using cost-effective ATA technology to design and manufacture fast, reliable
data protection and storage alternatives to SCSI RAID systems.  With its
history of ATA product and technology development, Promise Technology is the
recognized world leader in ATA controllers, ATA RAID cards and ATA RAID
subsystems.  Promise Technology maintains ongoing product development
relationships with leading ATA hard drive manufacturers and server and storage
OEMs.  Headquartered in Milpitas, CA, the company maintains offices in Europe,
Taiwan, and China.  For more information, visit Promise Technology's website at
http://www.promise.com/. 

DATASOURCE: Promise Technology, Inc.



CONTACT:  Michael Chang of Promise Technology, Inc., [phone],





Web site:  http://www.promise.com/ 

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