Mark, I wonder how much competition this privately held company is giving PTEC?
Article.
American Megatrends, Inc. Announces Series 466WS Ultra2 LVD PCI RAID for Workstations...
February 25, 1999
ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE) -- AMI Presents its Expertise in RAID Technology and its Migration to Workstations at Intel Developer Forum Conference
Editorial Summary
-- The MegaRAID 466WS implements support for Ultra-2 SCSI
peripherals that can burst at 80 MB per second for the
Workstations.
-- AMI's New MegaRAID 466WS PCI RAID controller offers new standards
of usability for workstations.
-- The MegaRAID 466WS PCI RAID controller outperforms all other PCI
RAID controllers in its class.
American Megatrends announced today the release of its first Ultra2 Low Voltage Differential (LVD) SCSI PCI RAID controller for workstations.
AMI, one of the fastest growing RAID companies in the world, today announced that it will participate in the Intel Developer Forum Conference. This conference will be held in Palm Springs, California from February 23 through February 25. AMI will discuss the need to bring intelligent RAID to the workstation environment, a fast growing market. AMI will present its leading edge RAID technology, implemented in the low-cost, high-performance MegaRAID 466 WS controller for workstations. The 466WS RAID controller utilizes a single Ultra2 LVD channel to support SCSI peripherals that can burst data at 80 MB per second. This controller also utilizes an advanced Intel microprocessor, providing the highest performance PCI-based hardware RAID solution for workstations.
This half size 32-bit controller is targeted for workstations and offers all the mission critical features that have made the MegaRAID controllers a de-facto standard of top PC server companies. In addition to superior software and drivers support, the new MegaRAID 466WS provides superior management utilities and intelligent caching support of up to 64MB. The 466WS makes an excellent choice for CAD, digital video, graphics, web servers and database applications.
The MegaRAID 466WS utilizes the new i960 RP I/O processor, which is a high-performance dedicated I/O subsystem incorporated directly into the controller. To help increase its availability, the MegaRAID 466WS incorporates AMI's exclusive FlexRAID technology. FlexRAID offers a powerful and flexible means of managing a RAID system. With this dynamic new technology, adding drives to an array no longer requires a system reboot. FlexRAID also enables the user to change RAID levels on-the-fly without having to reboot. This not only avoids costly down time, but also improves performance by allowing a change from degraded to optimal operation.
In addition to the features stated above, this controller provides a BIOS configuration utility, a Windows-based full management console, concurrent multiple stripe size support, on-line read/write and cache policy switching and adaptive read-ahead.
Based on in-house and major OEM customer testing, the MegaRAID 466 WS is the highest performing Ultra2 RAID controller currently available for workstations.
The MegaRAID 466WS controller is first to provide the following essential technologies, which ease the implementation of advanced RAID functionality into workstations:
-- Enhanced RAID initialization, present in the controller's
firmware, allows a new logical array to be initialized and
available in significantly less time. As an example, a 10 GB
array can now be initialized in less than one minute (as compared
to other RAID controllers, which take over an hour to perform the
same operation). -- Enhanced firmware for workstation load supporting RAID 0, 1 and 10 (3 and 5 will be available later this year). -- Offers better manageability, easily upgradeable from non-RAID to
RAID.
"The MegaRAID 466WS RAID controller is designed to provide the highest performance, increased bandwidth, data integrity and above all cost effectiveness to the workstation environment," said Siamak Iranpour, Senior RAID Program Manger at American Megatrends. "Furthermore, this controller is designed to meet demands of the RAID-for-Speed market, which is focused on RAID 0, 1 and 3, and the NT workstations market, which is growing much faster than the overall workstation market."
Founded in 1985, American Megatrends Inc. (AMI) has dedicated its resources to providing OEMs, resellers and systems integrators with leading edge computer technologies. This privately held company, best known for its Basic Input/Output Systems or BIOS, also supplies its state-of-the-art hardware, software, utilities and RAID controllers to over 55% of today's high-tech manufacturers. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, AMI has locations in the US and throughout the world including Munich, London, Taipei, Madras and Tokyo to better serve our customers. For more information on AMI, its products, services or reseller opportunities call 1-800-U-BUY-AMI or visit our website at www.ami.com. |
