The very chastened Houston-based Compaq Computer Corp says that the 70% performance improvement in its new Systempro (CI No 1,938) is achieved by use of its new Intelligent Drive Array Controller-2, an EISA bus master device that eliminates bottlenecks by using a faster processor – the NEC Corp V53 and 4Mb Array Accelerator Write Cache. The IDA-2 can also perform RAID 5, RAID 4, and RAID 1 functions. The company claims that the new controller delivers up to 6.4 times as many input-output operations per second as its original IDA controller. The Array Accelerator includes batteries that enable data to be held for eight to 10 days in the event of a power loss and the memory is mirrored, keeping a clean copy of the data in the event of a parity error. RAID 5, or distributed data guarding enables parity data to be spread across several drives in an array rather than to a dedicated parity drive, which in turn increases performance. The IDA-2 enables configuration of up to three logical volumes in the drive array – in a database environment, that might be one each for the operating system, the database, and transaction log files, so that the random input-output involved in accessing and updating a database can occur simultaneously with sequential logfile updates. New side-access drive installation gives more room for drive cabling and enables disk drives to be installed or removed without tools or screws. With a 33MHz 80486 processor, 8Mb, 11 slots and two 340Mb disk drives, it sells for $16,500. With 16Mb processor and four 510Mb disk drive, the new Systempro is $23,000; out now.
