Promise Technology
Promise Technology, Inc. is one of the oldest manufacturers of ATA RAID controllers. They produce several dual-channel controllers aimed at end users and small businesses (FastTrak), as well as a high-end six-channel controller (SuperTrak).
The low-end controllers are, in essence, software RAID controllers because they rely on the operating system to handle RAID operations and because they store array configuration information on individual component disks. The real value of the controller is in the extra ATA channels. If you purchased a controller that supports a better ATA protocol than your motherboard’s built-in ATA controller, you will get improved disk bus performance.
I evaluated the Promise FastTrak 100, a dual-channel Ultra ATA/100 card. The information that I have provided in this section is relevant for any of the FastTrak series RAID controllers. You might also find the Linux ATA RAID HOWTO a useful complement to the material in this section. Download a copy from http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/ATA-RAID-HOWTO/index.html or from any Linux Documentation Project mirror.
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