Promise First to Market Enhanced SATA Product Line Supporting Advanced New SATA 1.5G Drives Non-RAID and RAID 0/1 Solutions Offer Improved Performance With Command Queuing Support and More Enhanced SATA Features MILPITAS, Calif., Sept. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Promise Technology, Inc., originator and leading supplier of ATA RAID solutions, today announced the availability of a complete line of Enhanced Serial ATA (SATA) host-bus adapters (HBAs) for SATA 1.5G drives. As the next step in the evolution of SATA-based products, these new Enhanced SATA controllers incorporate some new features and add support for the latest drive improvements like command queuing for increased I/O performance. These first-to-market Enhanced SATA adapters offer desktop, workstation, and small server users the leading edge in ATA storage technology. While Serial ATA storage products are widely available, the Serial ATA standard has a defined roadmap for product improvements. The next step in the evolution of Serial ATA is defined by the Serial ATA II, Extensions to SATA 1.0 specification, and Promise's new Enhanced SATA solutions are designed to meet this advance with updates to the company's proven, industry-leading controllers. Promise's Enhanced SATA offering includes two non-RAID controllers, the SATAII150 TX2plus and the SATAII150 TX4, and two RAID controllers, the FastTrak TX2200 and the FastTrak TX4200. "Serial ATA continues to evolve, offering users increasing performance and advanced features that can improve their storage system. As the first to market HBA solutions that address these technology improvements, Promise's line of Enhanced SATA adapters reinforces the company's commitment to improving ATA technology," said Albert Mu, vice president of network server and storage group, Promise Technology, Inc. "Promise's line of Enhanced SATA adapters provides desktop, workstation, and small server users with leading edge ATA storage technology and the confidence of proven interface adapter solutions from the industry leader." For customers that want to add RAID functionality to their storage system, the FastTrak TX2200 and FastTrak TX4200 offer users solutions for improved performance and data protection. The FastTrak TX2200 provides an ideal entry-level solution with support for two drives and RAID 0 for improved performance or RAID 1 for data protection. With four Serial ATA ports, the FastTrak TX4200 provides a cost-effective full-featured RAID solution with support for RAID 0, RAID 1, or RAID 10. The SATAII150 TX2plus and the SATAII150 TX4 are non-RAID controllers. For consumers who want to migrate their existing ATA components to a serial platform, the SATAII150 TX2plus provides a hybrid solution that combines two independent SATA ports and one Parallel ATA channel for support of up to two Serial and two Ultra ATA drives. For an all-serial upgrade, the Promise SATAII150 TX4 offers four independent SATA ports for up to four Serial ATA 1.5G drives. Promise's Enhanced SATA solutions support advanced features including SATA Tagged Command Queuing, Native Command Queuing and Disk Activity LED headers. With drives that can take advantage of this capability, Command Queuing increases I/O performance by intelligently reordering data requests so that the data can be more quickly accessed than if the commands weren't ordered. "Combined with Promise Technology's FastTrak TX4200 controller, WD Raptor hard drives have demonstrated cost-effective high performance, beating SCSI solutions in recently published independent test results," said Hubbert Smith, director of marketing for enterprise products at Western Digital. "In its four-drive RAID 0 testing setup, StorageReview.com found that the FastTrak TX4200 opened a significant gap between itself and other controllers. Together, the FastTrak TX4200 and WD Raptor provide one of the fastest hard drive/controller solutions available." Promise's Enhanced SATA PCI adapter solutions include advanced HBA features for ultimate application flexibility. The line of HBAs features a low-profile form factor that is compact enough to fit into small rackmount servers. All of the cards support a 66MHz PCI bus for up to 266MB/sec burst data transfer rate. And all of Promise's Enhanced SATA adapters use a Promise ASIC with large LBA support for drives above 137GB and an onboard BIOS that automatically identifies and configures drive type. The SATAII150 TX2plus controller lists for $41 (MSRP). The SATAII150 TX4 controller lists for $59 (MSRP). The FastTrak TX2200 controller lists for $60 (MSRP). The FastTrak TX4200 controller lists for $106 (MSRP). These products are available now through Promise's excellent coverage of worldwide distributors. Visit (http://www.promise.com/) for additional product information. About Promise Technology, Inc. Promise Technology is the originator and global leader of SATA / ATA RAID, using cost-effective ATA technology to design and manufacture fast, reliable data protection and storage alternatives to SCSI RAID systems. With its history of ATA product and technology development, Promise Technology is the recognized world leader in ATA controllers, ATA RAID cards and ATA RAID subsystems. Promise Technology maintains ongoing product development relationships with leading ATA hard drive manufacturers and server and storage OEMs. Headquartered in Milpitas, CA, the company maintains offices in Europe, Taiwan, and China. For more information, visit Promise Technology's website at http://www.promise.com/. DATASOURCE: Promise Technology, Inc. CONTACT: Michael Chang of Promise Technology, Inc., +1-408-228-6339, Web site: http://www.promise.com/

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