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SATA II and SAS RAID CARD ROUNDUP
HighPoint Technologies
HPT-1820A
In the
SATA-I RAID controller shootout article, the HPT
1820A easily outperformed its competition in nearly
all of the benchmarks. It is a relatively
simple controller card, sporting a PCI-X 133MHz
interface, one ASIC, 8 ports, no external or
replaceable cache memory, and only SATA-I 1.5 Gb/s
HDD support. Perhaps it is that simplicity
which made it dance through the tests with
impressive numbers.
Images of the HPT-1820A
are as follows:
 
Manufacturer's specifications:
RocketRAID 1820A Highlights
 |
|
Supports 64bit,
66/100/133MHz PCI-X |
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Supports a maximum
of 8 hard disks |
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Up to 8 SATA II
and SATA I hard drives |
|
Supports RAID 0,
1, 5, 10, and JBOD |
|
Windows-based RAID
configuration & management software tool
(compatible with BIOS) |
RocketRAID 1820A Host Adapter
With 8 Serial ATA channels,
the RocketRAID 1820A provides multi-level RAID
support including RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 and JBOD.
With an optimized XOR technique and advanced
Intelligent Cache Algorithm powered by the HPT
601, the RocketRAID 1820A provides a significant
performance enhancement for RAID
implementations. The RocketRAID1820A solution is
aimed at enterprise storage, NAS storage, web
servers, video streaming, back up and security
systems.
Controller Specifications
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Supports 64bit, 66/100/133MHz PCI-X |
|
Backwards compatible with PCI slot |
| Supports
a maximum of 8 hard disks |
| Supports
Tagged Command Queuing |
| Advanced
Cache Algorithm and Optimized XOR
Technique |
| IDE hard
disk compatible when used with
RocketHead 100 converters (Optional)
|
| Supports
RAID 0, 1, 5, 10, and JBOD |
| Supports
hot-spare for automatic rebuild |
| Bootable
disk or disk array support |
|
Windows-based RAID configuration &
management software tool (compatible
with BIOS) |
|
Real-time monitoring of device status
and error alarm with popup message box
and beeping |
| Event
log for easy troubleshooting |
| Large
LBA supports drive capacity exceeding
137GB |
RAID Management Utilities
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BIOS / OS-based Management Software
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Operating Systems Windows NT
4.0, 2000 ,XP,2003 and
Windows 2003 for AMD64, Windows XP for AMD64
Linux (SuSE, Red Hat, Debian), and FreeBSD
Mac OS X Tiger
Limited
Warranty
HighPoint's Management Console is an application,
unlike the browser-based interfaces used by other
manufacturers in this article. Similarly, it
can access an array through the LAN.
Here are the benchmark
results. The underpowered processor and PCI-X
interface clearly show their limitations:
Hardware RAID-0,
16k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 8MB Zones
Hardware RAID-0,
16k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 32MB Zones
Hardware RAID-0,
16k Stripe, ATTO Mark
Hardware RAID-0,
2048k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 8MB Zones
Hardware RAID-0,
2048k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 32MB Zones
Hardware RAID-0,
2048k Stripe, ATTO Mark
Hardware RAID-1,
HD Tach 3.0 8MB Zones
Hardware RAID-1,
HD Tach 3.0 32MB Zones
Hardware RAID-1,
ATTO Mark
Hardware RAID-5,
16k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 8MB Zones
Hardware RAID-5,
16k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 32MB Zones
Hardware RAID-5,
16k Stripe, ATTO Mark
Hardware RAID-5,
2048k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 8MB Zones
Hardware RAID-5,
2048k Stripe, HD Tach 3.0 32MB Zones
Hardware RAID-5,
2048k Stripe, ATTO Mark
Ouch!
Software RAID-0,
ATTO Mark
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