There is a storage solution that can drive PC performance Intel® chipsets with Intel® RAID Technology bridge the gap between storage capacity and performance. The Storage Performance Gap Led by the Intel® Pentium® 4 processor, new memory technology, and faster front-side bus frequencies, desktop platform performance has scaled dramatically in recent years.
At the same time, desktop storage has not kept pace—limited primarily by the physics of mechanical hard disk drives. This can significantly limit system performance when accessing large chunks of data on the hard drive—an increasingly common occurrence with today’s media-rich applications and games. Performance Scaling with RAID The solution lies in a core technology from the enterprise server arena known as Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID). Originally developed by a research team at the
University of California, Berkeley, RAID harnesses the power of multiple hard drives working in unison. While a single drive system has storage performance that is only as fast as the physical limits of the single drive, a RAID array can read and write data in parallel from multiple drives. This configuration, known as RAID 0, delivers exceptional storage performance and is specifically designed to optimize data transfer rates for disk-intensive applications. The Desktop RAID Solution: Intel® Chipsets with Intel® RAID Technology nIntel is making RAID capabilities a reality for desktop platforms by offering Intel® RAID Technology as a
value-add feature on Intel’s new line of desktop chipsets. Intel RAID Technology, based on tools from Intel’s enterprise RAID products, is the industry’s first RAID capability in the chipset and utilizes the latest Serial ATA disk interfaces for maximum performance headroom1. Intel RAID Technology can be found on select platforms based on the following chipsets: • Intel® 875P chipset
• Intel® 865PE chipset
• Intel® 865G chipset
• Intel® 865P chipset
Intel® chipsets with Intel® RAID Technology bridge the gap between storage capacity and performance. Benchmark Configuration Source: Intel® Configuration: Parallel ATA Drive—IBM* 80GB 120GXP IC35L080AVVA07-0 ATA-100 Hard Drive; Microsoft* Default UDMA-5,Serial ATA Drive Raid Ready and Raid-0—Seagate SATA ST3120023AS 120GB; Intel Application Accelerator 3.0.0.2387 All Platforms: Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor with HT Technology 3 GHz and Intel 875P Chipset—Intel® 875P Desktop Board, 512 MB DDR400;BIOS: BZ87510A.86A.0017.P0, ATI* Radeon* 9700 Pro AGP 8X, Graphics Driver 6166, Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility 5.00.1012, Intel C & Fortran compilers 7.0 for SPEC, DirectX* 8.1, Windows* XP Build 2600 SP1, 100 Mbps Intel Pro/100+ Management PCI LAN Card. Performance tests and ratings are measured using specific computer systems and/or components and reflect the approximate performance of Intel products as measured by those tests. Any difference in system hardware or software design or configuration may affect actual performance. 1 Supports RAID Level 0 “Striping.” 2 System must be configured as “RAID Ready” to take advantage of Intel® RAID Migration Technology which includes enabling the RAID controller in the chipset and installing the Intel® Application Accelerator RAID Edition software drivers. 3 Hyper-Threading Technology requires a computer system with an Intel® Pentium® 4 πrocessor with Hyper-Threading Technology, a chipset and BIOS that utilize this technology, and an operating system that includes optimizations for this technology. Performance will vary depending on the specific hardware and software you use. See www.intel.com/info/hyperthreading for information. What Can a PC with Intel® RAID Technology Do For You? Whether you want to quickly load huge files into Photoshop* faster, create large CD/DVD images with Nero* in record time, or want to be the first player on the map in a Quake* frag tournament, Intel RAID Technology is the perfect solution for these and many other diskintensive applications. Video content, digital photos, music libraries, realistic 3 D gaming environments, and even TV programs recorded live from satellite are finding a new home on today’s desktop PC. With megabytes, or even gigabytes, of data being transferred to and from the hard drive, storage performance counts and Intel RAID Technology delivers in today’s media-rich computing environment. Easy Upgradeability with Intel® RAID Technology Building or buying a PC with a single Serial ATA hard drive, then upgrading to RAID at a later date is typically not a simple task, as it requires the reinstallation of the OS and applications. However, platforms supporting Serial ATA and using an Intel® chipset with Intel RAID Technology are easily upgraded to RAID with the addition of a second Serial ATA hard drive in your system. The included Intel® Application Accelerator RAID Edition2 companion utility completes the migration painlessly, capable of running in the background while you surf the Web or read e-mail. Once the migration is complete, you can immediately experience dramatic increases in storage performance. Your Next Platform with Intel® RAID Technology When looking for a desktop PC system designed to make your multi-media experience as rich as it can be, be sure to look for a platform supporting Serial ATA (SATA) and an Intel chipset with Intel® RAID Technology. HDD0 HDD1 A
B
C
D
A
C
B
D
A C D B
RAID 0 IN ACTION
SYSmark* 2002 CC Winstone* 2003 Business Disk Winmark* 99
2.00
1.50
1.00
0.50
0.00
Performance Relative to a Parallel ATA Hard Drive
RAID 0 PERFORMANCE
PARALLEL ATA DRIVE
Data taken on Pentium® 4 processor with HT Technology 3 GHz on Intel 875P Chipset
SERIAL ATA DRIVE—RAID READY 2X SERIAL ATA DRIVES—RAID 0
1.00 0.99 1.02 1.00 1.00 1.04 1.00
1.51
1.76
1 HDD
RAID Ready
2 HDD
RAID 0 Array
RAID MIGRATION
Data is arranged into blocks that are interleaved
among the disks so that reads and writes can
be performed in parallel for optimized disk
performance.
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The Intel® Pentium® 4 processor and Intel® 875P chipset may contain design defects or errors known as errata which may cause the product to deviate from published specifications. 0Current characterized errata are available on request. Intel Corporation assumes no responsibility for the use of any circuitry other than circuitry embodied in an Intel® product. Information contained herein supersedes previously published specifications on these devices from Intel. Intel, Pentium, Intel SingleDriver and the Intel logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. *Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. Copyright © 2003 Intel Corporation Printed in USA/0303/5K/MS/LB Order Number: 252803-001 F E A T U R E S B E N E F I T S Intel® 82801ER I/O Controller Hub Industry’s first desktop RAID controller integrated directly into the chipset Dual Serial ATA Controllers with Exceptional storage performance utilizing the next-generation hard disk RAID 0 Support interface technology. RAID BIOS ROM Integrated into system BIOS, enables pre-OS RAID creation, naming, and deletion. RAID Migration Capability Seamless migration from a single hard drive to a RAID 0 array with no OS reinstallation required. Intel Application Accelerator RAID Driver with full management and status reporting of your RAID array Edition including detailed reporting of storage devices.