Pacific Digital's Talon Controller and Western Digital's WD Raptor(TM) 10,000 RPM SATA Drives Set Performance Speed Record for S
June 29 2004 - 8:56AM
PR Newswire (US)
Pacific Digital's Talon Controller and Western Digital's WD
Raptor(TM) 10,000 RPM SATA Drives Set Performance Speed Record for
SATA Queuing Available Now, Groundbreaking TCQ Performance of Talon
Provides Cost-effective Alternative to SCSI IRVINE, Calif., June 29
/PRNewswire/ -- Pacific Digital Corp. has announced outstanding
benchmark results using Western Digital's WD Raptor(TM)
enterprise-class 10,000 RPM Serial ATA (SATA) hard drives with
Pacific Digital's new Talon(TM) controller. Used in workstation and
server platforms, the combination of Pacific Digital Talon and WD
Raptor hard drives outperforms many 10,000 and 15,000 RPM SCSI
drives. Using the industry standard IOMeter benchmark, the
performance boost is 1.5 times the throughput of more expensive
10,000 RPM U160 SCSI configurations. The performance of SATA drives
increased dramatically with the introduction of a key
performance-enhancing feature, tagged command queuing (TCQ), the
overlapped and queued command set. Western Digital's WD Raptor 74
GB hard drives are the first 10,000 RPM drives commercially
available implementing TCQ. Designed to enhance TCQ performance,
Pacific Digital's Talon controller increases the throughput and
data integrity of systems that utilize WD Raptor hard drives and
dramatically improves system-level price/performance ratio. This
translates into higher performance for high-end system builders,
integrators and end users upgrading or installing new SATA devices.
Talon's automatic DMA (ADMA) technology excels in systems that
manage many outstanding disk I/O tasks, making it ideal for high
performance platforms. Talon provides relief to the system CPU
handling these tasks, effectively outperforming SCSI host adapters.
Using ADMA command chaining, the Talon host controller offloads
host-interrupt processing, improves bus utilization, and enhances
data transfer rates when used with WD Raptor hard drives. Designed
to excel in demanding server and workstation environments, as well
as emerging gaming applications, Talon provides a versatile,
high-performance storage component. Talon offers "zero lag" in
high-performance gaming environments. "With its zero lag TCQ, Talon
and WD Raptor -- in a RAID 0 configuration -- creates a huge pick
up in map load times with zero choke in high performance multi-user
game server environments," notes Jay Roberts, CEO of Art of War
Central, a leader in hosting game servers. "Now gaming servers
desiring the best performance no longer have to pay for overly
expensive Ultra SCSI to have the best system response." "The
ability to deliver SCSI-level performance at SATA price points
makes the combination of Talon with WD Raptor 10,000 RPM drives an
attractive alternative for system builders," said Robert Horton,
Pacific Digital marketing vice president. "High performance
platforms can now employ Pacific Digital Talon's groundbreaking TCQ
technology in conjunction with Western Digital's high performance
WD Raptor hard drives to provide enterprise-class SATA solutions."
"With Talon's TCQ support of WD Raptor hard drives, Western Digital
and Pacific Digital are providing high performance that rivals SCSI
solutions at cost-effective SATA price points," said Hubbert Smith,
director of marketing for Western Digital. "WD Raptor has an
enterprise-class mechanical platform and is the first and only
TCQ-enabled SATA drive to spin at 10,000 RPM. The combination with
Pacific Digital's Talon provides the fastest hard drive/controller
solution available, regardless of interface." About WD Raptor WD
Raptor 74 GB hard drives have been tested and verified compatible
by Western Digital's FITLab(TM) and Pacific Digital. WD Raptor
drives are designed to deliver enterprise-class specifications with
1.2 million hours MTTF (Mean Time To Failure), 10,000 RPM, 4.5
milliseconds (ms) average seek time, and a five-year warranty.
Combined with a SATA interface, the enterprise-class mechanical and
electronics platform of WD Raptor hard drives is designed to meet
the 24x7 demands of the enterprise environment. WD Raptor 74 GB
drives offer performance-boosting Ultra/150 Command Queuing
(Ultra/150 CQ) technology, as well as Rotary Accelerometer Feed
Forward (RAFF) technology to maintain hard drive performance in
high vibration environments through adaptive compensation of the
servo system. WD Raptor 74 GB hard drives utilize Fluid Dynamic
Bearings (FDB) to reduce noise and increase long-term reliability.
Additional information about WD Raptor may be found on the Web at
http://www.westerndigital.com/en/products/Products.asp?DriveID=65.
About Talon(TM) Talon is Pacific Digital Corporation's
industry-leading SATA controller implementation that uses a
combination of command-chaining and auto-polling techniques to
manage SATA hard drives that implement TCQ. These techniques ease
the CPU overhead and improve system performance. TCQ significantly
impacts networking and server application fields, allowing servers
and RAID array systems to sustain much higher data rates than
existing non-TCQ SATA controllers. Over and above faster data
rates, these techniques provide the real performance boost required
for today's fast SATA hard disk drives. Talon's groundbreaking use
of the unique command chaining and auto polling techniques lowers
bus utilization for data transfers while simultaneously lowering
interrupt usage in order to efficiently use the queuing
capabilities built into WD Raptor 10,000 RPM SATA drives. Talon
maximizes the ability of WD Raptor hard drives to transfer data
while minimizing host wait time to initiate commands. Available
now, the 2-Port Talon (U-302244) is available now at an MSRP of $79
with the 4-port model (U-30245) at an MSRP of $99. Talon can be
found at Buy.com, NewEgg.com, PC Mall, PC Nation, Dartek,
Amazon.com and other dealers listed on the Pacific Digital Web
site. About Pacific Digital Pacific Digital Corporation,
established in 1996, is a leading supplier of storage and
multimedia solutions. Its Advanced Product Division's family of
ADMA solutions range from IC solutions for motherboard and disk
controller OEMs to an array of SATA and Ultra-ATA host adapters.
These solutions enable Pacific Digital customers -- system builders
and manufacturers of computers featuring mass storage subsystems --
to reduce costs and provide the highest performance to their
customers. Pacific Digital's Consumer Product Division provides
complete solutions with a focus on DVD and CD-ReWritable optical
technology and distributes to resellers via Ingram Micro and
D&H, and direct to consumers through Staples, OfficeMax, Sam's
Club, Fry's Electronics, DataVision, Dell, HardDrive.com and other
fine resellers. For more information about Pacific Digital, Corp.,
visit our website at http://www.pacificdigital.com/ Pacific
Digital(R) is a registered trademark, and Talon(TM), Zero Lag(TM)
and the stylized Talon claw logo are trademarks of Pacific Digital
Corp. Western Digital(R) is a registered trademark and WD
Raptor(TM) and FITLab(TM) are trademarks of Western Digital
Technologies, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their
respective owners. DATASOURCE: Pacific Digital Corp. CONTACT:
Darryl Lloyd, +1-805-499-0562, , for Pacific Digital Corp.; or
Robert Horton of Pacific Digital Corp., +1-949-477-5724, Web site:
http://www.pacificdigital.com/
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