Digi-Data and QLogic Cooperate to Implement New Fibre Sabre RAID Controllers That Deliver More Than 100 MB/second Sustained Disk Performance.JESSUP, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 23, 1999-- QLogic Corporation (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on :QLGC), an industry leading designer of advanced, high-performance I/O (Input/Output) The transfer of data between the CPU and a peripheral device. Every transfer is an output from one device and an input to another. See PC input/output. I/O - Input/Output controllers for direct connect and storage area network (SAN) products, announced today that its ISP (1) See in-system programmable. (2) (Internet Service Provider) An organization that provides access to the Internet. Connection to the user is provided via dial-up, ISDN, cable, DSL and T1/T3 lines. 2200 intelligent Fibre Channel processors and FAS466 Fast Architecture SCSI SCSI in full Small Computer System Interface Once common standard for connecting peripheral devices (disks, modems, printers, etc.) to small and medium-sized computers. SCSI has given way to faster standards, such as Firewire and USB. Processors have been implemented in the Digi-Data Fibre Sabre Family of RAID Controllers. The advanced features and high performance of QLogic's chips enable the Digi-Data Fibre Sabre RAID Controllers to address the high performance segment of the computer mass storage market. The QLogic ISP2200 Fibre Channel controller is a single-chip, highly integrated, bus master Fibre Channel processor that connects a 64-bit PCI bus PCI bus - Peripheral Component Interconnect in the RAID controller to a Fibre Channel port, supporting switched fabric, arbitrated loop A ring topology used in Fibre Channel. Up to 127 devices may be attached in the loop, but only two can communicate at the same time, reflecting the channel nature of Fibre Channel technology. , and point-to-point topologies. To maximize I/O throughput, the ISP2200 incorporates a high-speed I/O processor Circuitry specialized for I/O operations. See front end processor. to support full-duplex data transfer rates up to 200 MB/second. The Digi-Data Fibre Sabre RAID Controllers utilize one or two ISP2200 chips (depending on the model) to provide host data transfer rates up to 400 MB/second in full-duplex. The QLogic FAS466 Fast Architecture SCSI Processor provides the interface between the data memory bus in the Fibre Sabre RAID Controller and an LVD See LVDS. LVD - Low Voltage Differential SCSI bus, which connects to external disks in a RAID system. To provide disk transfer speeds up to 80 MB/second, the FAS466 incorporates a versatile 40 million instructions-per-second embedded microcontroller and on-chip LVD drivers. The Digi-Data Fibre Sabre RAID Controllers utilize six FAS466 chips to provide disk transfer rates up to 480 MB/second. Digi-Data complements the QLogic chip technology with advanced RAID design features, including: -- A 64 bit, 66 MHz (MegaHertZ) One million cycles per second. It is used to measure the transmission speed of electronic devices, including channels, buses and the computer's internal clock. A one-megahertz clock (1 MHz) means some number of bits (16, 32, 64, etc. internal memory bus -- Zero-overhead real-time hardware parity generation -- Multiple RAID levels, including a true RAID 3 architecture -- Advanced Duchesnian caching algorithms This combination of features yields very high performance benefits: -- Sustained data transfers to disks over 95 MB/second (on one Fibre Channel host connection) in an entry level RAID configuration of five disks (including parity) -- Sustained data transfers from cache over 190 MB/second Digi-Data uses the FAS466 chips in a unique design to provide data integrity benefits required in high availability Also called "RAS" (reliability, availability, serviceability) or "fault resilient," it refers to a multiprocessing system that can quickly recover from a failure. There may be a minute or two of downtime while one system switches over to another, but processing will continue. applications, including: continuous RAID operation after a disk fails (without performance degradation), and continuous RAID operation should a disk channel fail (without performance degradation). In addition, the FAS466 chips enable the Digi-Data Fibre Sabre RAID Controllers to support up to 90 Ultra 2 SCSI LVD disks on cables up to 12 meters in length. With this feature, a Digi-Data Fibre Sabre Family RAID Controller supports usable disk storage as large as 4.3 terabytes, using 72 GB disks, and provides Dynamic OnLine LUN expansion to add disks without interrupting RAID operations. The Digi-Data Fibre Sabre Family RAID Controllers offer high performance, reliability, and capacity to satisfy requirements for demanding storage applications, including: -- Digital prepress and printing -- Video editing See nonlinear video editing and video editor. , video broadcast, video on demand -- Image and document storage and management -- Continuous data recording, geophysical data processing data processing or information processing, operations (e.g., handling, merging, sorting, and computing) performed upon data in accordance with strictly defined procedures, such as recording and summarizing the financial transactions of a -- File server and network attached storage in LAN/SAN environments -- Data base, data warehousing, and data mining -- On-Line Transaction Processing (database) On-Line Transaction Processing - (OLTP) The processing of transactions by computers in real time. -- Financial information systems "We have been impressed with the capabilities of the QLogic chips, the speed with which they brought these new chips to market, and the support QLogic has given us in incorporating them into our sophisticated RAID designs, " said Dr. Tomlinson Rauscher, President of Digi-Data. "The I/O performance of these chips enables our Digi-Data Fibre Sabre RAID Controllers to achieve the very high speeds." "We're pleased that Digi-Data selected QLogic to deliver the critical components necessary for its high-performance RAID controllers," said David Tovey, vice president and general manager of QLogic's Peripheral Products group for QLogic. "Digi-Data's Fibre Sabre RAID Controller Family provides high performance to the growing RAID market, and the use of the QLogic ISP2200 and FAS466 chips significantly enhances throughput for high-performance environments." About QLogic QLogic Corporation is a leading designer and supplier of semiconductor and board-level I/O and enclosure management products. The company's products provide high-performance interface connections for computer systems and their attached data storage peripherals, such as hard disk drives, tape drives, and RAID subsystems. In addition, QLogic provides enclosure management products that monitor and communicate management information related to components that are critical to computer system and storage subsystem reliability and availability. QLogic's highly integrated, fully featured solutions are targeted at the computer system, storage device, and storage subsystem marketplaces. QLogic offers the widest array of Fibre Channel interface products in the marketplace today. QLogic Fibre Channel controllers can be found in products from industry leading manufacturers of hard disk drives, tape drives, RAID controllers, tape libraries to UNIX UNIX Operating system for digital computers, developed by Ken Thompson of Bell Laboratories in 1969. It was initially designed for a single user (the name was a pun on the earlier operating system Multics). and NT systems and workstations. For more information about QLogic and its product lines, contact QLogic Corporation, 3545 Harbor Blvd., Costa Mesa, CA 92626; telephone: 800/662-4471 (sales); 714/438-2200 (corporate); fax: 714/668-5008; web: www.qlc.com About Digi-Data Digi-Data Corporation is a privately owned manufacturer with headquarters at its 75 acre site in Jessup, Maryland. Established in 1960, the company has been providing mass storage solutions to the market for more than 35 years. Since establishing itself as a leader in disk array technology in 1992, Digi-Data has delivered thousands of RAID systems to customers worldwide. For further information about Digi-Data and its products, contact Tom Rauscher or Kent Morris, Digi-Data Corporation, 8580 Dorsey Run Road, Jessup, MD 20794; Phone: 301/498-0200; Fax: 301/498-0771; URL URL in full Uniform Resource Locator Address of a resource on the Internet. The resource can be any type of file stored on a server, such as a Web page, a text file, a graphics file, or an application program. : www.digidata.com With the exception of historical information, the statements set forth above include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. The Company wishes to advise readers that a number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Those factors include new and changing technologies and customer acceptance of those technologies; a change in semiconductor foundry capacity or conditions; fluctuations in the growth of I/O markets; fluctuations or cancellations in orders from OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) The rebranding of equipment and selling it. The term initially referred to the company that made the products (the "original" manufacturer), but eventually became widely used to refer to the organization that buys the products and customers; the Company's ability to compete effectively with other companies; cancellation of OEM products associated with design wins; and reductions in the need for space and increased costs of operations due to facility relocation. Carrying additional expansion space may increase costs and adversely impact future earnings. These and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially are also discussed in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its recent filings on Form S-3, Form 10-K Form 10-K A report required by the SEC from exchange-listed companies that provides for annual disclosure of certain financial information. Form 10-K See 10-K. , and Form 10-Q Form 10-Q See 10-Q. . Trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of the companies with which they are associated. |
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