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(Editor's Note: Last issue, Computer Technology Review discussed products enabling the newest development in RAID technology: RAID on the motherboard. This month, CTR explores the logical consequences of the technology as it impacts the existing RAID controller market.)
The implications of offering RAID on the motherboard could be significant. It is arguable that making RAID more of a utility would popularize the technology even more. It is also worthy of speculation that the impact of the technology is exaggerated, and may represent an interesting marketing strategy on the part of Intel to increase demand for their i960 line of processors.
Disk technology analyst Jim Porter at Disk/Trend (Mountain View, CA) has observed that a class of array controller board, specifically for the network and midrange system arrays, will hit a wall about 1998 (see Fig). It hits that wall, Porter says, because of motherboard applications. "At the end of 1996, some surveys suggest that 70 of network file servers were shipped as RAID-capable. And that figure is increasing." Since RAID on the motherboard would reduce the overall cost to the system maker, the implication is that the array controller segment for network/midrange systems arrays is heading for that wall.
Steve Goldman at controller company DPT (Maitland, FL) points out that there are in-bred limitations to RAID on the motherboard. He observes, "It's a problem with anything on the motherboard. The kinds of things you want to put on motherboard are things that are so cut and dried, so generalized-a commodity. For instance, SCSI chips are pretty much a commodity at this point. Whether you buy an Adaptec one, the one from Symbios or NCR or anything else, you're going to get the same kind of functionality out of each of them no matter which one you buy. So screwing it down to the motherboard doesn't really hurt...