Adaptec drives into RAID and software

Storage hardware and software producer Adaptec is focusing on its share of the RAID market, after acquiring US storage solution provider Distributed Processing Technology.

The $246 million purchase includes cash for outstanding DPT shares plus the value of assumed DPT options.

The acquisition signals Adaptec's efforts to broaden its solutions in the RAID market. "The demand for storage capacity continues to grow, and is fuelled by the Internet and user demands for online access to information," said Adaptec country manager for Australia and New Zealand, Malcolm Parsons.

"RAID provides high performance and enhanced data protection for storage, and is important in a non-stop computing world."

Adaptec will also move further into Storage Area Networks (SAN), by entering a deal to co-develop, market and sell Fibre Channel host bus adapters for Windows NT-based servers with Hewlett-Packard subsidiary Agilent Technologies.

Adaptec will license Agilent's Fibre Channel host adapter and software driver technology. Both companies will jointly develop and market solutions based on Agilent's Tachyon architecture, which allows servers to utilise Fibre Channel to communicate with storage devices such as tape drives, RAID arrays and storage clusters.

Fibre Channel provides the connectivity and bandwidth needed to transmit large data files between storage, server and client nodes. This will make the solutions suitable for SAN applications, in which data must be moved from individual servers to one larger and universally accessible server.