Adaptec and Maxtor Team Up For SAS
Adaptec and Maxtor Team Up For SAS
December 8, 2005: Chasing the efficiency and grunt you would associate with the Special Air Service, Maxtor and Adaptec have collaborated on new Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) technology.
SAS is the next generation Small Computer Serial Interface (SCSI) interface and promises greater performance, higher capacity and simpler integration for lower cost. Sounds a bit like the holy grail of storage management, but SAS isn’t short of supporters.
While Adaptec has provided the interface, Maxtor has brought a new range of SAS drives to the table. It boasts the industries highest capacity SAS drive with the Atlas 10k V. And doesn’t do so lightly with up to 300GB and a 16MB cache, potential 4.0 msec seek time and 89MB/sec sustained data transfer.
“Any time you get something new in technology, it’s like someone’s given you a piece of Swiss chocolate and told you it’s better than regular chocolate. Is SAS really better or is the industry just telling us it is?” asks Colfax International CEO Guatam Shah. “In this case, SAS delivers by offering the enterprise performance and reliability of SCSI with the capacity and price point of SATA.”
Resellers such as Rackable Systems, ZT Group and Colfax are already implementing the new interface in their next generation storage solutions, supporting Adaptec’s claim that the benefits for SAS are improved simplicity of deployment, greater reliability and higher performance.
“When you need the muscle from SCSI drives, but also need the storage capacity from the SATA IDE drive, then that is where the SAS technology comes in handy” says Edward Tien, Maxtor’s Country Manager A.N.Z. “In the past there was no way to bridge the two.”
SAS is also backwards compatible with SATA and SATAII technology, which should make migration and integration into existing systems easier.
Atlas Shook
Maxtor has also stuck its flag in the “fastest drive in the world” turf with the Atlas 15k II SAS drive. With capacities up to 147GB, 16MB cache, 98MB/s sustained data transfer rates and as low as 3.0 msec seek time it has certainly thrown down the gauntlet for challengers.
Maxtor Atlas SAS drives are currently shipping and available from distributors worldwide. Adaptec SAS RAID controllers are currently available through distribution to resellers and Adaptec’s online store.
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