Hitachi and Agilent Technologies establish new Fibre channel performance benchmark.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) and Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) has announced the results of a successful 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FCAL) interoperability test. Demonstrating interoperability between critical system components and test tools keeps Hitachi on track to deliver 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel hard drives early in 2005. Advancing the 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel interface standard is expected to benefit enterprise server and storage customers who require the fastest, most reliable systems for storage area network, file sharing, workgroup and scientific/engineering environments.

Design engineers established a 4 Gb/s FCAL connection between Agilent's Tachyon 4 Gb/s DX4+ PCI-X and Tachyon QX4 PCI Express Fibre Channel controllers and a Hitachi 4Gb/s hard disk drive prototype. Commands and data were successfully transmitted between the devices through Agilent's 4 Gb/s SFP fiber optic transceivers and 22-port, 4 Gb/s FCAL switch. During the process, it was verified that Agilent's 4 Gb/s SAN tester successfully coexists with the Hitachi drive in the FC arbitrated loop. The companies will continue to exchange hardware and jointly test products to gain additional technology insights and set new performance benchmarks.

"The Hitachi-Agilent demonstration will have a significant industry impact and will help to accelerate the delivery of systems that incorporate the new interface standard," said Fumio Kugiya, general manager, Server Business Unit, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. "Being first with this development milestone underscores Hitachi's commitment to being a technology innovator and performance leader."

"We are pleased to demonstrate with Hitachi the industry's first interoperability of 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel system components," said Martin Scott, vice president and general manager of Agilent's Input/Output Solutions Division. "Our broad portfolio of Fibre Channel building blocks and test solutions is helping OEMs usher in the next generation of storage networking systems."

The 4 Gb/s FCAL specification is designed to allow for a data transfer of up to 400 MB/s half-duplex and up to 800 MB/s full-duplex per port. This performance has been validated on the Agilent FCAL switch with a multiport Agilent SAN Test platform simulating 126 4 Gb/s devices generating full-speed traffic.

This announcement follows Hitachi's January 2004 demonstration of a 4 Gb/s FCAL data transfer between two fully integrated hard drive controllers. The performance breakthrough effectively doubled the current industry-standard FCAL interface speed of 2 Gb/s.

Agilent is a leading supplier of 4 Gb/s Fibre Channel component, board and test solutions. No other vendor offers protocol, physical layer, and fiber-optic components combined with leading-edge signal and protocol testing. More than half of all storage-networked arrays use Agilent components.