Closer Look

So, that’s what the Promise FastTrak TX4200 controller looks like:

The controller’s PCB has a low profile, but it comes with a bracket for full-size system cases by default. The low-profile bracket is included into the retail version of the controller.

You can see a few connectors to the left of the flash memory chip. The controller can output the operational mode of the disks to these connectors or monitor the temperatures of the drives and the speeds of the fans in the racks if working with the SuperSwap 1100/4100 hot-swap racks.

Four SATA connectors can be found on the right, next to the PDC40519 chip.

Testbed and Methods

Testbed configuration:

• Intel SC5200 system case
• Intel SHG2 mainboard
• Two Intel Xeon 2.8GHz/400FSB CPUs
• 2x512MB PC2100 ECC Registered DDR SDRAM
• IBM DTLA 307015
• Onboard ATI Rage XL graphics
• Windows 2000 Pro SP4
• Raptor WD740GD as the drives in the arrays

We used the following benchmarking software:

• Intel IOMeter 2003.02.15
• FC-Test v.1.0 build 11

We used Sequential Read, Sequential Write, Database, Workstation, File Server and Web Server patterns for the IOMeter tests. You can refer to our previous reviews for details about the patterns.

We created two logical partitions, 32GB each, on the array for FC-Test.

We controlled the TCQ mode by means of the Promise Array Management utility. Deferred writing was always permitted for the drives.