HighPoint debuts 4-channel SAS RAID card

HighPoint has released the RocketRAID 2640X4, a four-channel PCI-Express x4 SAS RAID controller that supports RAID levels (0, 1, 5, 10 and JBOD). The company claims the new SAS RAID controller offers a new level of flexibility, performance and reliability at an affordable price. The RocketRAID 2640X4 PCI-Express x4 bus speed delivers "true SAS performance" that is 2X the throughput speed of SATA bypassing performance bottlenecks that occur with PCI-Express x1 bus speeds limiting SAS performance throughput to SATA speeds, Highpoint claims.

The RocketRAID 2640X4 supports support either 15,000 rpm SAS hard drives for performance or low-cost SATA hard drives for higher capacity storage, offering the ability to deploy either type of drives to optimize the system for specific application and cost requirements.

"Disks with SAS interfaces are designed to meet the performance and reliability characteristics required for enterprise-class server arrays and RAID systems," the company notes. "SAS drives retain all of the reliability and performance advantages of traditional SCSI and while eliminating the weaknesses of the parallel interface."

The card supports BIOS-based booting support, online array roaming, automatic drive (insert / remove) detection, automatic RAID rebuild, and 64-bit LBA support for volumes greater than 2TB, S.M.A.R.T (Early Warning System), and bad sector repair and remapping to reduce dropped drives.

The PCI-Express RocketRAID 2640X4 card is $170 and ships with a three-year warranty.