Tempo SATAII PCI-X Card - X4P

DESCRIPTION
When it comes to data storage capabilities, which do you prefer, raw storage capacity or scorching performance? With Sonnet Technologies' Tempo SATA X4P, you get the best of both worlds! This card offers unprecedented scalability through its support of port multipliers—it can handle up to twenty drives*! Used with high-performance drive enclosures like Sonnet's Fusion 500P, port multipliers manage the data flow of up to five drives in one enclosure through a single cable. Using today's highest-capacity drives, you can connect an astounding 20 Terabytes (20,000 Gigabytes!) of storage!

Tempo SATA X4P delivers performance previously unattainable with mainstream technologies. The PCI-X interface offers huge bandwidth for data throughput, so the card never slows you down. For the utmost performance, you can create multiple RAID sets to capture and process uncompressed high definition video, or conquer other high-bandwidth applications. For fantastic flexibility, you can work with 20 drives individually and hot-swap** them out as needed. You can even work with a combination of RAID sets and individual drives—your choices aren't limited. When your storage needs have outgrown standard solutions, get a Tempo SATA X4P—it'll give you room to grow and blazing performance for the most demanding applications.

Sonnet's Simply Fast design philosophy makes this installation a snap; you'll complete the process in a few easy steps. With no software to install†, just insert the Tempo SATA X4P into an available PCI-X or PCI slot, connect and format your drives, and get to work!

Features:

• Four eSATA ports
• SATA II compliant, 1.5 Gb/s and 3 Gb/s auto-negotiation
• FIS-based Port Multiplier-aware to support up to 20 disk drives
• PCI-X host bus interface for high-performance applications
• Spread Spectrum Clocking (SSC) support for compatibility with all SATA drives
• Supports Mac OS® X, Windows® XP Pro, and Windows Vista RAID features
• Hot-swap drive support*
• Mac and Windows

*Support for 20 drives requires the use of drive enclosures employing port multipliers (like Sonnet's Fusion 500P). When using an enclosure without a port multiplier (such as Sonnet's Fusion 400), Tempo SATA X4P will support up to 4 drives.

** SATA drive hot swapping is not supported in a desktop or server PC running Windows XP, Server 2003 or Vista. A SATA drive appears to the system as a not-removable hard drive and there is no mechanism in Windows to prepare the drive for removal.

Specifications:

• Bus Type:
  • PCI-X, 64-bit 133MHz
  • 32-bit PCI bus 2.2 Compliant, works in any PCI or PCI-X slot
• External Connectors: Four eSATA
• Drives Supported: Up to 20
• Data Transfer Rate: Up to 300 MB per second per port
• ATAPI Support: No
• Drive Types Supported: Serial ATA I and II
• Advanced Features:
  • Port Multiplier aware
  • FIS-based switching controller
  • True plug and play, no device drivers to install†
  • Spread Spectrum Clocking for compatibility with all SATA drives and lower EMI emissions
  • Bus Mastering frees CPU from data I/O handling
  • 48-bit LBA support for drives larger than 137 GB
• Warranty: 1-year limited warranty
• Flash-ROM upgradeable to latest firmware version
• Quick Start Guide

Important Notes:
Western Digital manufactures Desktop edition (WD Caviar, Caviar SE, Caviar SE16, and Raptor X) hard drives and Enterprise (RAID) Edition (WD RE, RE2, and Raptor) hard drives. Each type of hard drive is designed to work specifically in either a desktop computer environment, or connected to a RAID controller (hardware or software-based). If you intend to configure Western Digital drives in a RAID set, Sonnet and WD recommend using only their Enterprise edition hard drives. For more information, see this Western Digital FAQ.

Sonnet has determined that some port multiplier-equipped drive enclosures will not work properly when connected to the Tempo SATA card, due to the fact the port multiplier has the wrong firmware installed. This issue does not affect Sonnet's Fusion 500P. For more information on this issue and how to resolve it, click here.

Tempo SATA X4P requires eSATA data cables. Click here to see Sonnet's offerings.

† Mac OS driver is built-in. Windows drivers are now shipping with the product and are also available on Sonnet website.

Requirements:

• Mac
  • Power Mac G4 (all models except Cube and PCI Graphics)
  • Power Mac G5 (with PCI or PCI-X slots only)††
    • †† Performance will be substandard in PCI-only G5 machines.
  • Xserve G5
  • Mac OS X Version 10.3 or later
• PC
  • PC with PCI-X or PCI slot
  • Windows XP SP2
  • Windows Vista