ADXT Powers ATA to New Levels
The original notion of RAID was to build high |
| Interface Engines (AIE) organize data streams for | ||||||||||
capacity, reliable storage subsystems using large | storage or retrieval. |
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numbers of inexpensive disk drives. Thus its |
| Virtual Drive Manager Data is accessed through | ||||||||||
original definition: Redundant Array of |
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| Virtual Drives using an implementation of the | |||||||||
Inexpensive Drives. Over time that definition |
| standard SCSI protocol controlled by the Virtual | ||||||||||
became Redundant Array of Independent Drives | Device Manager. The VDM adds capabilities | |||||||||||
and the inherent cost advantage in a RAID system | such as RAID, data management services, | |||||||||||
was lost. The Diamond Series provides a high |
| enclosure management services, serverless | ||||||||||
capacity, high performance and highly reliable |
| backup, data replication using SCSI Extended | ||||||||||
disk array that uses the merged power of many |
| Copy and LUN mapping. | ||||||||||
inexpensive ATA disk drives. |
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| Data Routing Fabric Incoming or outgoing data is | |||||||
Intelligent Midplane The heart of the Diamond |
| routed between the ATA Interface Engines (AIE) | ||||||||||
Series storage array is the intelligent midplane |
| and the Fibre Channel or SCSI interface by the | ||||||||||
with ADXT to sum or aggregate the data rates of | custom Data Routing Fabric ASIC, a high speed, | |||||||||||
individual ATA disk drives to create high data |
| low latency transfer fabric with more than 2 | ||||||||||
transfer rates. This technology enables features | GB/sec. of bandwidth supported by up to 512 | |||||||||||
such as serverless backup, advanced error |
| Megabytes of memory. | ||||||||||
protection, metadata storage techniques, |
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| ATA Interface Engine (AIE) The interface to each | |||||||||
virtualization software, thermal management and | pair of drives is through a custom ATA Interface | |||||||||||
advanced enclosure services. |
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| Engine ASIC. The AIE implements the typically | |||||||
The midplane contains a combination of custom | ||||||||||||
Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), | silicon. Each AIE contains a dedicated ATA | |||||||||||
processors and proprietary embedded software. It | protocol processor to completely automate | |||||||||||
is divided into three main processing sections |
| command and protocol processing. Automated | ||||||||||
which handle the data being read or written to the | command overlapping and queuing maximizes | |||||||||||
ATA disk drives from the Fibre Channel or SCSI | the performance of | |||||||||||
host interfaces. The Virtual Device Manager |
| transfers data using | ||||||||||
(VDM), Data Routing Fabric (DRF) and ATA |
| at 66 megabytes per second. The | ||||||||||
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| megabytes per second. In |
Disk 2 | Disk 2 | Disk 2 | Disk 2 | Disk 2 | Disk 2 | Disk 2 | Disk 2 | Disk 2 | Disk 2 | Disk 2 | Disk 2 | addition to guaranteeing |
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Disk 1 | Disk 1 | Disk 1 | Disk 1 | Disk 1 | Disk 1 | Disk 1 | Disk 1 | Disk 1 | Disk 1 | Disk 1 | Disk 1 | data transfer integrity with |
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AIE 1 | AIE 2 | AIE 3 | AIE 4 | AIE 5 | AIE 6 | AIE 7 | AIE 8 | AIE 9 | AIE 10 | AIE 11 | AIE 12 | automatic CRC checking, |
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| the command and status |
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| DATA ROUTING FABRIC |
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| transfers are validated | |||
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| using a patent pending |
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| technology unique to the |
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| AIE. |
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| VIRTUAL DEVICE MANAGER |
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FIBRECHANNEL INTERFACE 1
FIBRECHANNEL INTERFACE 2
4 Technical overview
