Disk array controller, and components thereof, for use with ATA disk drives

摘要: A high performance RAID system for a PC comprises controller card which controls an array of ATA disk drives. The includes automated drive controllers, each one respective drive. controllers are connected to microcontroller by control bus and coprocessor packet-switched bus. accesses memory local buffer. In operation, the respond commands from accessing their drives, sending packets over carry I/O data (in both directions, with filling-in packet payloads on writes), transfer target addresses that used access buffer memory. also special completion values (generated microcontroller) request identifiers processed logic circuit detect processing request. grants using round robin arbitration protocol guarantees minimum bandwidth This is preferably greater than sustained rate drive, so all drives can operate at without formation bottleneck.