PROVIGO 610 SATA RAID

Features of the PROVIGO 610 SATA RAID series

Security - Numerous functions safeguard the data integrity and prevent avoidable data loss. This can include the verification of write processes (verify-on-write), periodic checking of the hard-drive parameters with automatic removal of endangered sectors, battery-protected RAID cache with a hard-drive cache that can be deactivated, active USV monitoring or automated policies when critical events occur. You can always rely on a PROVIGO 600 system.

Performance - The high performance level of the PROVIGO 610 series is based on the deployment of IBM PowerPC RISC processors, high-performance ASICs for the parity calculation and intelligent, dynamic cache algorithms. As a result, the customer receives, when compared with RAID-5, a practically identical RAID-6 performance of up to over 700 MB/s, a stable application performance, only reduced by approx. 20% even during a rebuild, as well as perfect No-Drop-Frame video streams.

MAID functionality - MAID (Massive Array of Idle Disks) provides an additional use when deploying the storage system as an archive or backup target. Hard drives are reduced in power (spin down) according to defined phases of inactivity until the next I/O access or consistency check, so that the power supply decreases and the service life of the hard drive is increased.

Wide selection - A multitude of models cover all requirements in respect of capacity, availability and power capacity. Choose from a small tower to the highly available, redundant 24-drive SAN storage system, RAID-5 or RAID-6, and host connection per SCSI or 2 Gbit or 4 Gbit fibre channel.

Management á la carte - Choose between location-specific remote management via a web browser with SSL Secure Link, Telnet or local administration via VT100 terminal emulation or on the 4-key LCD front display. Integration into a central SNMP network monitoring system is possible. The efficient, Java-based RAIDConn management software also enables the management of multiple PROVIGO 600 systems from one central console, the export and import of complete configuration per press of a button, and differentiated administration access levels.

Proven quality - No product is completely perfect coming off the production line. We test all storage systems intensively in our own laboratories over several weeks and under the severest conditions. In close cooperation with the manufacturers of the components, possible interoperability and stability problems are found and rectified before the system is delivered to the customer. It is only through this type of circumspection that transtec can offer PROVIGO 600 RAID systems at a tested and high degree of reliability and quality.

Transparent roadmap - Most customers have already experienced the feeling when new and interesting devices would have been available on the market shortly after investing in IT hardware. transtec is revealing a product roadmap for respective 3-monthly periods and is providing an option for pre-ordering new models in good time. The dispatch begins after completion of all test work.

Limitations and dangers of Serial ATA

The debate about being inclined or disinclined towards ATA-based storage systems has been, despite the initial opposition of global market leaders, long since decided in favour of SATA. transtec has already been offering (S)ATA-based RAID systems for over 10 years, and with very positive experiences. But there are still several features to be observed in the take-up of this hard-drive technology. Here a few tips for your orientation:

Reliability - All SATA hard drives used by transtec are specified for 24x7 continuous operation. There are, however, when compared to Enterprise hard drives, disadvantages in respect of the duty cycle, temperature and vibration tolerance. SATA hard drives are normally designed solely for active accesses during 10-20% of the operating time. The rate of failure increases significantly if I/O accesses are constantly taking place. The operating temperature should also not exceed 25°C. Our Service and Support can certainly protect your hardware against defects and provides replacements as soon as possible. At the same time, we recommend the choice of Western Digitals RAID Edition hard drives for more extensive installations. These approach the specifications for coping with workloads that normally require the standard of quality seen in Enterprise SCSI hard drives.

Capacity vs security - The very high disk capacities enable up to 18TB in a 24-drive RAID system. However, for those who reach the entire capacity through a single RAID-5 RAID set, there is a probability of over 70% that a data overrun will occur during a rebuild. This is due to the bit error rate in the hard drives. With 10TB, the risk is still over 50%, with 5TB, approx. 33%. This is why we urgently recommend, for large capacities, that you either use RAID-6 or set-up several RAID-5 sets not exceeding 5TB. These can then be striped with RAID-50 for more performance. You can find more information in the RAID-6 whitepaper.

Performance - SATA hard disk drives are the ideal choice for transferring large files (>100KB). Databases such as Exchange, Oracle or SQL, however, mostly operate with data packages of 512 bytes to 8KB. SATA is subject to considerable power limitations here, which is why we only recommend operating databases with a maximum of 100 users on a SATA RAID. Otherwise, SCSI, SAS or fibre channel are the better choice. The reason is partially due to the lower revolution count of SATA, through which accesses are carried out more slowly. The other reason is that commands cannot be pre-sorted strongly enough to be able to process numerous small accesses more quickly. SATA-2 has a maximum sorting depth of 32 (NCQ, Native Command Queuing), while SCSI, SAS and FC are at 256.