HighPoint Announcing Industry’s 1st SATA 6Gb/s RAID Capable Host Adapter

[btarunr]

HighPoint Technologies - an innovative host-based RAID controller manufacturer is introducing the RocketRAID 620 Series- the industry’s first SATA 3.0 host adapters with RAID 5 capability. The 620 series will double the data rate from 3Gb/s to 6Gb/s for high bandwidth PC applications, gaming, digital video and audio, video streaming and graphics applications.

The two members of the RocketRAID 620 Series – RocketRAID 620 (MSRP $69.99) and RocketRAID 622 (MSRP $79.99) will ship mid January 2010. These premier RAID host adapters are based on PCI-Express Gen 2 host interface technology and are designed to optimize storage performance and redundancy with RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 and JBOD. User friendly features include hot plug and hot unplug to add or remove storage devices; and OCE/ORLM to expand storage capacities or migrate to different RAID levels.

High Performance Companion for SATA 6Gb and SSD
The dedicated bandwidth provided by the RocketRAID 620 Series point-to-point connectivity is ideal for SSDs and SATA 6Gb interface storage - each 600MB/s lane is tuned for maximum performance. By supporting backward compatibility to SATA 3Gb/s and 1.5Gb/s interface users can seamlessly migrate their existing SATA cables/connectors and hard disks, to the RocketRAID 620 Series controllers.

Port Multiplier – Cost Performance Ratio
The RocketRAID 620 Series offers the most economical way to optimize performance to capacity ratio by supporting port multiplier devices. Smart fan-connectivity enables drive scalability up to 5 SATA drives through a single 600MB/s eSATA channel.

Smart and Robust RocketRAID Management Suite for Major OSes
The RocketRAID Manage Suite provides a user-friendly web-based management interface to maintain storage devices. It incorporates HighPoint’s SHI (Storage Health Inspector) technology to provide active and early-warning features to maintain the integrity of the storage environment. The RocketRAID management suite supports every major operating system including Windows 7, Linux and FreeBSD.

Availability:
The RocketRAID 620 Series are available exclusively through channel distribution partners (Bell Micro, D and H, MaLabs, and ASI).

[Jizzler]

620:


622:

(not 2 internal, 2 external like the model name originally lead me to believe).

Expanding on specs... PCIe 2.0 x1 connector. Uses Marvell 88SE91xx series controller. Same one we're finding on Gigabyte and other boards I think?

[newtekie1]

Going to be hard to do RAID 5 on a 2 port card...

I think I'll stick with my Highpoint RR 2300 until we start to see some 4-port cards.

[Mussels]

i'm glad they mention port multiplier support, its something still missing from a lot of SATA controllers (cough, intel, cough)

[Static~Charge]

Originally Posted by newtekie1

Going to be hard to do RAID 5 on a 2 port card...

I take it you missed the part about "optimize performance to capacity ratio by supporting port multiplier devices". This lets you attach multiple SATA drives using one cable. It's a common feature on many external drive chassis, and it supports RAID configurations.

[Jizzler]

Originally Posted by Mussels

i'm glad they mention port multiplier support, its something still missing from a lot of SATA controllers (cough, intel, cough)

I thought the PCH (P55) supported FIS on two ports. Though after some searching I can't find any thing any where to verify it besides old PR slides. Intel dropped support maybe?


Also while I was thinking about it, looked at the new Atoms and the NM10 chipset. Intel gives a very clear "no" about PM support unfortunately.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by Jizzler

I thought the PCH (P55) supported FIS on two ports. Though after some searching I can't find any thing any where to verify it besides old PR slides. Intel dropped support maybe?


Also while I was thinking about it, looked at the new Atoms and the NM10 chipset. Intel gives a very clear "no" about PM support unfortunately.

no intel chipsets support port multipliers.


AMD chipsets do (780G and up, that i've tested) as long as they're in AHCI mode with the right drivers installed.

Jmicron controllers do (hence why they're so common as the bonus two ports/esata ports on intel chipset boards from asus and gigabyte)

Nvidia chipsets i havent tested

Sil Image chipsets pretty much all do, even some SATA I controllers

[Jizzler]

Why do you hurt me with your broken promises Intel!

[Mussels]

that "port multiplier support on 2 sata ports" likely means they throw in another companies controller into the reference design (Jmicron, is my guess) - or one of the new SATA III chips

[EarlZ]

How does this give us performance boost when the best of the SSD drives dont even come close to 300MB/s per drive ??

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by EarlZ

How does this give us performance boost when the best of the SSD drives dont even come close to 300MB/s per drive ??

because SSD's are going to get faster?

Also, please look up port multipliers. it'll make more sense once you realise what they do.

[Jizzler]

Or.... (from the Intel 5 Series/3400 Datasheet):



Too bad, would have been a nice feature. Any hoo, enough of that. On to waiting for 6Gb/s compatible multipliers!

[F5BJR]

use this driver ( rename zip to rar extension !! )

look in PM folder and use this driver

no problem i see my 4 drives in my 2 Turret enclosures with chipset Exar XRS10L140

and ASROCK little PCI-e SATA 3 6gb/s ( very low cost )

if i use normal driver i see only one drive

PC

i search solution for use Marvell MRU for mounting drives in Raid !!!