Integrated, Accelerated RAID 6 Provides the Incentive to Change Platforms Areca moves all products to Intel XScale® microarchitecture - simplifies development
Abstract: Who is Areca* Corporation?
Areca Corporation designs and manufactures storage devices and RAID platform solutions for OEM and ODM customers. As one of the world's leading suppliers of RAID HBA solutions and base hardware platforms, Areca also develops its own software and firmware using advanced virtualization technology for disk management applications.
Areca has committed its entire research and development effort to disk array/RAID technologies that yield faster performance, better reliability, and lower costs than competitive solutions. To this end, Areca chooses the best available components - previously a combination of third-party storage processors and proprietary ASICs. While this strategy yields Areca's industry-leading solutions, it takes a lot of time and effort to port the firmware to each vendor's platform - adding R&D and service cost and slowing the time to market for new products. During development of a new line of RAID 6 controllers, Areca decided it was time to standardize on a single processing platform. It was the decision point that led Areca to Intel XScale® microarchitecture.
Why Intel?
"We can get the same level of performance from the Intel XScale I/O processors as we can with a third-party storage processor and our proprietary ASIC combined," explains Frank Guan, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Areca Corporation. "Using Intel saves us the effort of building our own chips and porting our firmware, shortening our design cycle and reducing our costs. Because Intel uses a common architecture across its product lines, our developers can capitalize on their existing code base to deliver multiple solutions with a single design effort."
The Solution:
The first products launched with Intel XScale-based I/O processors were two SATA RAID 6 controllers for the high-speed PCI-X and PCI Express market segments. By harnessing the integrated hardware acceleration for RAID 6 on the Intel® IOP333 and IOP331 I/O processors, development work was minimized to keep costs low. Additional engineering work on other Areca RAID solutions is eliminated by adopting Intel XScale microarchitecture-based I/O processors - one set of code can be used across all products. The high-performance Intel XScale core, along with specific, built-in hardware acceleration for the RAID 6 calculations, delivers highly reliable RAID 6. Using the PCI Express and PCI-X interfaces further enhances throughput. The two controllers come in 8, 12, 16 and 24-port configurations to support arrays of varying size. Guan explains: "The Intel IOP333 and IOP331 I/O processors enable Areca to construct cost-effective, high performance, full-featured RAID 6 functionality in one integrated solution. RAID 6 integration on the Intel IOPs reduces our engineering, development and component costs."
Areca* Case Study
