ExpressSAS

The ExpressSAS line from ATTO Technology are low profile PCI Express cards that provide standard Host and RAID capabilities to attached drives. ExpressSAS drives collections of SAS or SATA drives (I or II), with support for up to 4 internal/4 external, 16 internal, or 8 external ports (depending on the card model, see below).

Each of the cards boast an x8 PCIe host interface enabling transfer rates of up to 3 Gb/sec per port, RoHS compliance, and the vendor's Advanced Data Streaming (ADS) technology.

Each of the RAID cards support connectivity to up to 64 SAS/SATA target drives, and support for up to 128 virtual SAS/SATA drives. The vendor states that any combination of the two drives can be utilized. Supported RAID levels include 0, 1, 4, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60 and JBOD.

For the Host (non-RAID) cards, connectivity to up to 256 endpoint devices (any combination of disks, JBODs, tape libaries, and RAID arrays) is supported via the use of SAS expanders.

The cards are managed via an included GUI (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X), which provides configuration, management, and monitoring capabilities. Driver support for the cards is listed as Windows (XP/2003/2008/Vista), Linux, and Mac OS X. 256MB of ECC-protected DDR2 DRAM is included on each of the first two RAID cards (upgradeable to 512 MB) with the newest card boasting 512 MB standard; as is support for E-mail, pop-up, and log-file based event notifications.

Six cards are currently offered in the product line.

For the Host (non-RAID) flavors of the cards, the vendor offers the H308, H380, and H30F cards, with the primary difference being that the H308 offers 8 internal ports, the H380 offers 8 external ports, and the H30F offers 16 internal ports.

For the RAID cards, the R348 provides the user a choice of configurations; either 4 internal and 4 external ports, or 8 internal ports (the card includes dual x4 internal Mini SAS connectors and a single x4 external Mini SAS connector). The R380, on the other hand, supports only 8 external ports (it includes two x4 external Mini SAS connectors); while the newest entry (the R30F) supports 16 internal ports (four x4 internal Mini SAS connectors).

Pricing starts at $395 (H308, H380) and $995 (R348). Contact ATTO Technology for further information.