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MillimeterRorke Data Enhances Data Integrity/Capacity for Serial ATA-Based Galaxyi RAID Product Line
Sep 25, 2003 12:00 PM
Amsterdam, Netherlands---At the International Broadcaster’s Consortium (IBC) 2003, Rorke Data together with its sister company Bell Microproducts Europe BV (both subsidiaries of San Jose-based Bell Microproducts, Inc.), announced the addition of a new firmware suite of RAID storage management features, called RAID Watch featuring Media Scan. The new suite is designed to enhance data integrity, broaden RAID expansion and access, as well as increase the performance and manageability capabilities of Galaxyi RAID storage arrays.
Major features include access to as much as 64 terabytes (TB) per array, intelligent drive management and enhanced responsiveness to critical conditions. “Rising performance expectations of storage subsystems and the popularity of lower-cost SATA-based RAID arrays, present increased challenges to data integrity,” said Joe Rorke, Vice President of Marketing for Rorke Data. “Intelligent drive handling with Media Scan enables storage users to protect their data at a much lower cost, while adding significantly higher data integrity than was previously possible.”
The Java-based RAIDWatch management software will be added to the Galaxyi product line, to include support for Rorke’s new Serial ATA (SATA) RAID controllers and subsystems, including the Galaxy 16i & 12i subsystems.
“Media Scan examines the drives on the RAID to detect the presence of damaged sectors and bad blocks,” explained Pam Moeller Director Technical Support for Rorke Data. “If any are found, that data is automatically stored to undamaged sectors. If bad blocks are encountered on yet another drive during the rebuild process, those blocks or sectors are earmarked to prevent further use. The rebuild process of the unaffected sectors will carry on,” continued Moeller, “thus enabling users to extract data from degraded or damaged disks. Its ability to work in both degraded mode and during rebuild operations to re-construct the array demonstrates the versatility of bad block management in minimizing the potential of data loss.”
In addition to offering support for up to 64TB per array or logical drive (LD), Rorke Data’s new firmware suite allows access up to 1024 host logical unit numbers (LUNs) and 64 partitions per LD. Flexible configurations are possible down to the individual array level through variable striping size from 4KB to 256KB and flexible write cache policy.
“In ATA-based disk arrays, there is an increased probability that bad blocks may simultaneously occur on two member drives in a single array, jeopardizing data integrity,” stated Thomas Bayens, Director of Marketing for Infortrend, OEM RAID component supplier partner for Rorke Data. “Intelligent drive handling and automatic cache switching are particularly important for protection of inexpensive SATA and ATA hard drives, which can be more susceptible to disk failure than enterprise-class, lower capacity Fibre and SCSI disk drives. Incorporated into Rorke Data’s Galaxyi, the new firmware suite gives organizations an added safety net.”
Visit Rorke Data’s Booth at IBC, September 12 th -16 th 2003, RAI Convention Center, Amsterdam and see how the Rorke Galaxy RAID products enable end-to-end storage workflow, from ingest and edit, to broadcast and archive.
About Rorke Data
Rorke Data is a full digital storage solutions provider with expertise
in Fibre-Channel RAID, SAN, DVD, tape and optical libraries, Unix, NT
and Mac environments, high bandwidth networks, and related professional
services. Founded in 1985, Rorke Data, is a subsidiary of Bell
Microproducts, San Jose, Calif., and is composed of four divisions:
Medical Diagnostic Imaging, Digital Video & Broadcast, Digital
Prepress & Publishing, as well as a Technical Services division.
More information about Rorke Data can be found at www.rorke.com. Rorke Data is a
wholly-owned subsidiary of Bell Microproducts, Inc. (Nasdaq: BELM).
About Bell Microproducts
Bell Microproducts is an international value added provider of a wide
range of high technology products, solutions, and services to the
industrial and commercial marketplace. The company’s offering
includes semiconductors, computer platforms, peripherals, and storage
products of various types including desktop, high-end computer and
storage subsystems, Fibre-Channel connectivity products, RAID, NAS and
SAN storage systems and back-up products. Bell Microproducts is an
industry-recognized specialist in storage products and is one of the
world’s largest storage-centric value-added distributors.
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