FOR RELEASE APRIL 19, 1999

NEW STORAGE CONTROLLER ARCHITECTURE GETS SCSI-LEVEL PERFORMANCE FROM ATA DRIVES

3ware's 'DiskSwitch' Architecture Applies Switched Networking Concepts to I/O Design, Dedicating Bandwidth to Each Drive

PALO ALTO, Calif., April 19, 1999 -- A new family of storage controllers that allows workstations and servers to use low-cost ultraATA disk drives, yet still achieve the high performance levels associated with more expensive SCSI drives, has been introduced by 3ware, Inc.

3ware's DiskSwitch controller architecture for the first time applies the principles of switched networking to I/O subsystem design, dedicating a channel to each drive and aggregating the drives' performance through its packet-switching controller to the PCI bus or host computer. This boosts performance by eliminating the latencies (delays) typical of the shared-bus architectures used in existing controller designs.

The 3ware product family includes three PCI bus controllers. The DiskSwitch 4 Storage Controller supports four drives for high-end desktop systems in applications dealing with large amounts of data (e.g., mechanical design, rendering, animation, medical imaging). The DiskSwitch 4S Storage Controller supports four drive interfaces for small servers (e.g., web servers used in small businesses, departments or remote offices). The DiskSwitch 8S Storage Controller supports eight drive interfaces for mid-range corporate servers.

DiskSwitch Lets PC Vendors Reduce Costs Through Use of ultraATA Drives
Peter Herz, 3ware president and CEO, said, "For years high-end workstations and servers had to use SCSI [Small Computer System Interface] drives to get sufficient I/O performance, while mass-market desktop PCs could use ultraATA drives costing as much as 50 percent less. 3ware has changed this scenario by taking a technology that is commonplace in today's LAN switches and applying it to the storage world. This is comparable to the way shared Ethernet evolved to switched Ethernet.

"Shared-bus I/O systems -- that is, all existing I/O systems -- are limited in scalability and performance because only one drive at a time can read or write on the SCSI bus," Herz said. "The DiskSwitch architecture dedicates bandwidth to each drive, doing away with the bus-arbitration delays that constitute the chief bottleneck in I/O performance. With the ability to substitute ultraATA drives for SCSI drives, vendors can lower the cost of 'power desktops' where users manipulate massive amounts of data, and server vendors can establish new price points for RAID-based systems."

Key Packet-Switching Concepts Applied to I/O Design
The DiskSwitch architecture applies to storage controller architectures key concepts of packet switching that were first developed to improve the throughput of voice and data networking equipment.

In the DiskSwitch architecture, a dedicated "AccelerATA" data channel is connected to each drive. All AccelerATA channels in turn are connected into a high-speed packet-switching controller that permits the rapid transport of targeted data from individual drives to the host computer through 3ware's high-speed bus. Each data transfer is treated by the controller as a transaction, with the on-board processor (a Siemens 163 microcontroller) serving only as arbitrator and monitor; this offloads the PC's main CPU and the PCI bus, leaving the former free to run applications and the latter to accommodate network traffic.

The use of a packet-switched data path to handle storage transactions boosts speed, increases bandwidth on demand and shortens latency; no drive is penalized by another because of bus arbitration. A packet-switched bus also is ideal for implementing the most popular RAID configurations for servers: striping (RAID 0), mirroring (RAID 1) and parity (RAID 5).

The combination of low-latency individual data channels and a packet-switching bus allows DiskSwitch controllers to offer unprecedented performance scaling. As more drives are added, net throughput actually increases, enabling the OEM or user to match the storage system's throughput to the needs of the application.

DiskSwitch Management Made Easy
Every DiskSwitch controller comes with the DiskSwitch Manager utility, which permits both local and remote configuration and monitoring via any standard web browser. If any drive in the array fails, a simple graphical user interface shows where a problem is located and suggests an easy solution. Optional customization via the DiskSwitch Manager allows more granular configuration control.

Pricing/Availability
The DiskSwitch 4 Storage Controller, available immediately, is priced at $349. The DiskSwitch 4S Storage Controller, available in third quarter 1999, is priced at $595. The DiskSwitch 8S Storage controller, also available in third quarter, is priced at $895. All prices are for quantities of 1000 or more.

3ware, Inc., was formed in February 1997 to develop a new I/O architecture that would raise the performance and lower the cost of storage subsystems in servers, workstations and high-end desktop systems. The privately held company has raised funding from New Enterprise Associates and Selby Venture Partners, and from individual investors.