AHA-F940 and AHA-F950

Need a nanny for your network? PCI-to-Fibre Channel host adapters provide storage interfaces for Windows NT

Companies often use data-intensive applications, such as client/serverapplications, online transaction processing, data mining and warehousing,special effects production, and Internet and intranet server applications. Thesedata-intensive applications require fast processors with large, fast storagesystems. Processor designers, such as Intel and Digital Equipment, are steppingup to the challenge by providing faster system solutions.

Storage system manufacturers are doing the same. To increase data transferspeeds, they often use Fibre Channel Arbitrated Loop (FC-AL) interfacetechnology. With FC-AL technology, you can attain data transfer speeds of100MBps.

Faster Speeds and Longer Connections
Faster speed is not the only benefit of FC-AL. With FC-AL, you can connectas many as 126 widely dispersed peripheral devices. You can use copper wiring toconnect peripheral devices that are up to 30 meters apart and fiber opticcabling to connect peripheral devices that are up to 10 kilometers apart. Thesedistances are notable improvements over differential SCSI technology, which hasa limit of 25 meters. (For more information about FC-AL, see "FibreChannel, SCSI, and You," September 1997.)

A New Player in the FC-AL Market
Adaptec, an industry leader in SCSI controllers and SCSI chipsets, isentering the Fibre Channel market by introducing two new adapters: AHA-F94032-bit PCI-to-Fibre Channel host adapter and the AHA-F950 64-bitPCI-to-Fibre Channel host adapter. The adapters use Adaptec's new AIC-1160PCI-to-Fibre Channel controller chipset. This single-chip controller provides afull-speed Fibre Channel interface. The AIC-1160 uses an integrated RISCmultitasking processor for its protocol engine.

You can configure the AIC-1160 for arbitrated loop, point-to-point, orswitched fabric links. It supports both 32-bit and 64-bit PCI data transfersover a full 64-bit PCI address range.

Update Microcode Using Software
One useful feature of the AIC-1160 chipset is that you can use software toupdate the microcode. You do not have to replace a chip on the controller orreplace the controller. Other AIC-1160 features include:

Adaptec's a Viable Contender
Adaptec sent me a preview version of the AHA-F940 host adapter for review.The controller card looks clean. Only a few components populate the board'ssurface, and the large AIC-1160 controller chip is in the middle.

I used an Amdahl FS Quad-Pentium Pro server with the Raidtec Fibre Channeldrive array to examine this adapter. Setting it up was very easy. I justinstalled the card, hooked it up to a drive array, booted the system, andinstalled the drivers.

Next, I formatted the drives in the Fibre Channel array and used themwithout any problems. I copied files and installed SQL server databases. I alsoperformed queries and accessed files on the Fibre Channel array. The AHA-F940worked as it was supposed to. Its performance was very good.

If you need the benefits of Fibre Channel technology, consider the AHA-F940and AHA-F950 adapters. Adaptec is fully using Fibre Channel's ability to providefaster speeds and longer links between peripheral devices.