Adaptec rolls out SATA, iSCSI for system builders

Adaptec is rolling out two storage bundles to the US channel to spark serial ATA (SATA) drive and iSCSI markets.

The US maker of storage host bus adapters and controller chips plans to start shipping a SATA kit to system builders. The SATA kit will have an adapter, cable and enclosure for four hot-swap SATA hard drives, said Doug Richardson, Adaptec's US channel marketing manager for host bus adapter and array products.

The kit, named 'Jag in a Box' after the code name for its SATA adapter, Jaguar, allows hot-swapping of SATA hard drives, said Richardson. 'The SATA specification wasoriginally slated to have hot-swap capability when it was finalised, but it didn't,' he said. 'SATA-2 will have it.'

He said the enclosure's four drive carriers each had an LED to show drive activity and indicate drive failure, because while a storage management software console might indicate drive failure, with RAID-5 the specific drive could not be pin-pointed.

Instead of accidentally pulling out a good drive to replace a failed one, a move which could destroy the data, the LED showed which drive to pull, Richardson said.

The entire kit was packed in a box with room for resellers to either pack up to four raw hard drives for local integration at the customer site or integrate the drives in the carriers and pack them securely next to the enclosure, he said.  

The kit, suitable for workstations or entry-level servers, was expected to ship late November via several major distributors with a list price of about US$600, Richardson said.

The other storage bundle from Adaptec featured two of the company's iSCSI controllers and a FAS250 NAS subsystem from Network Appliance, said Glenn Clowney, director of strategic marketing for the company's Storage Networking Group.

The bundle, put together specifically for US distribution by Arrow, started shipping last week. The bundle had 250 GB of capacity and a street price of around US$12,000, he said.

The initial version was aimed at Windows and Linux spaces, with a version for Solaris planned to ship early next year, Clowney said.

The bundled parts were certified to work together. Resellers would be given a single telephone number for technical support, said Clowney.