ATTO Technology and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced interoperability of their respective 6Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) products designed for use in high-performance server and storage applications. The combination of ATTO ExpressSAS Host Bus Adapters with Hitachi Ultrastar C10K300 hard drives deliver fast 6 Gb/s data transfers for high I/O enterprise environments. The new 6 Gb/s SAS interface delivers 100 percent faster data throughput than previously available using a 3 Gb/s SAS interconnect. The companies began working together early in the development of 6 Gb/s SAS to share design implementations and debug information, as well as conduct extensive testing to ensure an interoperable solution that delivers compatibility and overall system performance.

ATTO 6 Gb/s ExpressSAS host adapters are available in five models, in both 8- and 16-port configurations, providing 600 MB/s connectivity per port with support for up to 512 physical devices; and, are a perfect compliment to the dual-ported Hitachi Ultrastar C10K300 hard drives offered in 147 GB and 300 GB capacities. Both ATTO and Hitachi designed their products with advanced technology that addresses the need for low latency environments, enabling customers to access data more quickly and efficiently.

The established relationship between ATTO and Hitachi GST ensures a solid foundation for stable and consistent interoperability across product offerings. This interoperable solution offers connectivity for a wide range of enterprise-class applications, including data warehousing, data-intensive content-on-demand, multi-stream video, and disk-based backup. The impressive transfer rate of the new SAS interface operating at 6 Gb/s is ideal for meeting these challenges.

The new serial interface also offers backward compatibility with existing 3 Gb/s products to provide customers with exceptional configuration flexibility, investment protection, and a simplified path for users to migrate to 6 Gb/s platforms. ATTO ExpressSAS HBAs and Hitachi hard drives are now shipping to OEM and distribution customers worldwide.

"ATTO and Hitachi GST have industry-proven experience in developing high-performance solutions for the digital media and IT markets. This introduction of 6 Gb/s technology, combining ATTO ExpressSAS with Hitachi Ultrastar drives, provides customers with an ideal solution for high-bandwidth storage applications," said Timothy Klein, President and CEO at ATTO Technology. "Together, Hitachi and ATTO have delivered a fast and robust SAS storage solution."

"We are pleased to collaborate with ATTO Technology to demonstrate interoperability between our respective products and underscore the numerous benefits of the new serial interconnect," said Brendan Collins, vice president, Product Marketing, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. "The 6 Gb/s SAS interface delivers outstanding performance that is well-suited to meet the requirements of today's most demanding enterprise server and storage applications. Our first 6 Gb/s SAS product, the Hitachi Ultrastar C10K300, is delivering impressive performance benchmarks and receiving an extremely favorable response from customers."