ATA100 Raid Shootout

Well, the tests have clearly shown that Promise FastTrak66 performs quite well and allows squeezing high data transfer rates out of your Ultra ATA/100 devices. In case of several ATA/100 hard disk drives, FastTrak66 will double the transfer rates compared to the single HDD. We consider this choice to be the best for those who work with graphics, music and video editing, as well as large presentations. As for business applications and games, you will be able to speed up their loading with FastTrak66 controller. Speaking about the today's cost of this controller, we should stress that the price-to-performance ratio is pretty attractive. Are you looking for a storage device of large capacity? Create your own virtual disk of 64GB (Win98) or 128GB (WinNT) and you will forget about lost frames and other problems.

Frankly speaking, we were a bit disappointed with the relatively low performance gain provided by Promise FastTrak100 controller compared to its predecessor (in case of 2 HDDs). However, on the other hand, we were very happy to find out that the price difference between these two controller cards makes only a few bucks. Moreover, we have to admit that FastTrak100 should be undoubtedly praised for the performance in mirror mode, which will ensure its application in file servers and workstations. As for the RAID array linear read problems, we really hope for the better here.