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PROMISE EX8760T 8-port 6Gbps SAS/SATA RAID
Controller
Introduction
We've seen
first-generation 6Gbps SAS / SATA RAID controllers
from other players such as LSI's 9260-8i.
Here, we will be looking at Promise Technology's
top-notch SuperTrak EX8760T. This is an
8-port controller with support for 6Gbps SAS or SATA
drives. It interfaces using a PCIe x8
connector. Here are it's specs, as shown at
the Promise Technology website:
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6Gb/s SAS/SATA Interface
Hardware-accelerated RAID 5 and RAID
6 for maximum data protection
Supports RAID levels 0, 1, 1E, 5, 6,
10, 50, 60
PerfectRAID technology featuring
robust error handling, error recovery
and media patrol
Automatic/manual rebuild of
dedicated and global hot spare drive
Online capacity expansion and RAID
level migration to add capacity as
needed
Optional 72 hour battery backup
module to preserve data in controller
cache during power failure
Force Unit Access writes data
immediately to hard drive to minimize
data loss
Linux Open Source driver support
Multiple logical drive support
PMC Sierra 8011 I/O processor
PCI Express 2.0 x8 Host Bus
Interface
Supports the latest Solid State
Drives (SSD)
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Looking deeper into the brains of the EX8760, we
see that the PMC Sierra 8011 runs the show.
It is a dedicated RAID CPU, humming at 600MHz.
This is a departure from older RAID card design
utilizing Intel dual-core processors at 1.2GHz.
To compare, LSI's 9260-8i board uses LSI's own
RAID-on-Chip IC, at 800MHz. So basically,
we have a contrast in design implementations.
Controlling the EX8760T is very simple in any
OS, thanks to the Promise WebPAM. Because
it is accessed through a browser, any system on
the network can change settings on the RAID
controller - superb!
Our test system consists of an MAD 890FX
motherboard, an AMD Phenom II 975BE, 4GB
DDR3-1333 RAM, a Crucial C300 256GB 6Gbps SSD
with Windows 7 x64 Ultimate. First,
here's how the EX8760 performed with the fastest
6Gbps SSD, at this time:
As you can see, the EX8760T truly performed at
the 6Gbps range, exceeding the 3Gbps threshold.
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