Emulex LightPulse PCI Fibre Channel Adapter

The centerpiece of the LightPulse PCI Fibre Channel Adapter is a setof three highly integrated custom chips. These chips provide a simple interfaceto high-level command block fibre channel protocols. By using a built-inprotocol engine and an integrated 32-bit RISC protocol accelerator, these chipslet the adapter support fibre channel data rates of 266 Megabits per second(Mbps), 531Mbps, and 1.062 Gigabits per second.

The LightPulse PCI Fibre Channel Adapter supports all fibre channeltopologies: point-to-point, arbitrated loop, and switched fabric. The externalconnection for the adapter can be either optical fiber or copper cables; you caneasily change from one to the other. The adapter also supports network andstorage protocols. You can concurrently run up to four independent data pathsand protocols on this adapter.

Overall, the LightPulse PCI Fibre Channel Adapter's design and operationwas impressive. This clean-looking board was simple to deploy. I simplyinstalled it into a PCI card slot, connected it to the fibre channel drivearray, booted the system, and installed the drivers. More important, thiseasy-to-use adapter worked well during all my tests and reviews.

But the LightPulse PCI Fibre Channel Adapter has a downside. It doesn'tprovide any RAID capabilities. You can, however, use the adapter with WindowNT's built-in software RAID feature. If you need fibre channel abilities, theprice is worth paying, especially if you use the adapter with the RaidtecFibreArray disk subsystem.