Dot Hill Provides Virtual RAID Adapter for Upcoming AMD Chipsets

Dot Hill Systems Corporation announced its Virtual RAID Adapter (AssuredVRA) software has been selected by Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. in support of the AMD A-Series APU chipset in 2013.

The new VRA-for-motherboard solution is based on AssuredVRA technology for software RAID requirements across a variety of potential platforms. VRAs replace traditional RAID-on-motherboard (ROMB) solutions with a data protection solution for internal storage that rivals more expensive add-in card-based RAID controllers. Eliminating the need for such controllers along with the associated power, cooling and support costs, VRAs enable businesses to lower storage costs while providing data protection and management for compute-intensive applications.

Dot Hill will offer a basic AssuredVRA driver and web-based management solution for Windows and Linux as part of its storage reference designs to OEMs, ODMs and motherboard manufacturers that use supported AMD core logic chipsets. This will enable support for high-performance RAID protection for disk drives inside AMD-based embedded, notebook, desktop and server solutions.

"As our new platforms become available through numerous infrastructure partners, small businesses and enterprises now have a viable and savvy alternative to traditional hardware-based RAID solutions," said Leslie Sobon, corporate VP, Desktop Product Line, AMD. "We believe Dot Hill is an outstanding go-to-market partner for motherboard-based RAID solutions due to its extensive expertise in designing RAID solutions for industry storage and server OEMs."

"By offering a basic AssuredVRA version for AMD’s upcoming platforms, we are enabling their customers to bundle a new class of software RAID with unique after-market upgrade options," said Garrett Wein, VP of OEM Sales, Dot Hill. "VRAs provide a robust and scalable storage solution for today’s entry- to mid-level servers, providing enterprise level features traditionally associated with higher cost systems."

Better Alternative to Hardware and Software Based RAID
AssuredVRA enables client, server, storage and motherboard vendors to integrate RAID technology into their products by leveraging the power of today’s multi-core CPUs instead of a dedicated and ROC-based RAID add-in board, helping to reduce hardware, power, cooling and support costs. Basic AssuredVRA and enhanced AssuredVRA products directly support the built-in core logic SATA ports that come as part of these systems, enabling vendors to easily add RAID-0, -1, -5, -10 capability to these otherwise unused built-in SATA controllers, without the need for a more expensive ROC based solution.

AssuredVRA leverages a sophisticated RAID software stack, enabling today’s computer systems with both SSD and HDD support to process RAID tasks without compromising performance needed for other operations. Its write-caching engine provides up to three times the performance of competing host software RAID stacks or ROC-based adapter cards. As VRAs are software based, they can incorporate other data protection services, such as the n-way mirroring schemes offered as part of the new products, to support simple, transparent and cost-effective system backup and recovery.

AssuredVRA technology key features/functionality include:

• Single, unified O/S driver and single-pane web-based management suite capable of managing RAID sets on both core logic SATA and SAS/SATA I/O controllers
• Native support for multiple motherboard vendors that use supported AMD chipsets
• OS support – Windows Vista, 7, and 8; Ubuntu Client, Red Hat 5 – 32 and 64 bit; SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 – 32 and 64 bit
• Support for basic RAID-0, -1, -10 features or higher featured RAID-0, -1, -5, -10 schemes
• Hidden arrays and split mirror
• Support for mixed capacity drives allowing 100% of usage of disk capacity available