PRESS RELEASE
May 2014 - Milpitas, CA - HighPoint Technologies, a pioneering force in the storage industry for the past 19 years, announces that their revolutionary 40-Port 6Gb/s SATA HBA has been integrated into Backblaze's Storage Pod 4.0 solution; a cost effective, high throughput mass storage solution designed for online backup services. The dual Rocket 750 HBA's unique HBA architecture provides a dedicated 6Gb/s SATA channel for each of the unit's 45 4TB hard disks, while quadrupling transfer performance over Storage Pod 3.0.
BackBlaze Storage Pod 4.0
The BackBlaze Storage Pod series are cost effective, opened-source, mass-storage solutions designed for online applications. Storage Pod 4.0, the latest iteration of this series, is powered by two HighPoint Rocket 750 HBA's.
The 20 independent Mini-SAS ports streamline build and maintenance requirements by eliminating the need for a third PCIe HBA and port multiplier backplanes. Each individual drive bay now has a dedicated 6Gb/s SATA channel - this combined with the Rocket750's PCIe 2.0 x8 host interface resulted in a 400% performance increase over the outgoing model!
Screaming Fast SATA Cards!
Backblaze's Storage Pod 4.0 uses two HighPoint Rocket 750 HBA's in place of the previous generation's 3 SATA cards. Each Rocket 750 provides a staggering 40 6Gb/s SATA channels via 10 internal Mini-SAS ports!
The Rocket 750's 40 independent device channels combined with the PCIe 2.0 x8 host interface delivers an impressive level of transfer bandwidth; Backblaze reports a performance increase of up to 5 times that of Storage Pod 3.0!
The performance boost delivered by the dual Rocket 750's dramatically reduces the time needed to synchronize RAID configurations. Previous builds required up to 6 days to complete the process using 4TB drives. Storage Pod 4.0 is up and running within 2!
Direct Wire Hard Drive Connections
The Rocket 750's unique HBA architecture dramatically reduces TOC, while simultaneously improving transfer performance and streamlining the build process! Previous generation Storage Pods utilized 9 separate SATA backplanes, each supporting 5 hard drives. The 3 SATA cards were connected to the backplanes through 9 SATA cables before being multiplexed to 5 separate drives.
Storage Pod 4.0's adoption of the Rocket 750 means each of the 45 drives benefits from a dedicated 6Gb/s SATA port and direct cable connection via Mini-SAS to SATA cables.
According to Backblaze, the direct wire connectors have multiple benefits:
- They are fundamentally simpler in design than the 5-drive backplanes.
- By replacing the 5-drive backplanes, all of the set up and management of the 45 drives are done on the motherboard or in the SATA cards.
- The direct wire connectors are less likely to break or burn out than the previous backplanes.
- When a 5-drive backplane went down, we had 5 drives go offline. Now if a connector goes down, only 1 drive will go offline.
Major Operating System Platform Ready
HighPoint has developed a series of software suites that allow professional solution providers to quickly and easily integrate the Rocket 750 into all major PC operating system platforms including Windows 2012, 2008, 2007, and 8, Linux Distributions, and FreeBSD.
Why Choose HighPoint?
For the past 19 years, HighPoint Technologies has been a pioneering force in the storage industry, delivering a wide range of storage controllers for all levels of production; from Chipsets & RAID HBA to today's external Storage & Adapter Device Solutions. Our hardware and FW engineering teams have been at the forefront of the storage industry for the better part of two decades. We specialize in performance oriented user-application focused design, development and manufacture, and continuously work to improve our products based on direct feedback from our valued customers. Over the years, we have forged strong alliances and technology partnerships with industry-leading storage providers, which enable us to quickly deliver the latest in storage technology to the global marketplace.
Product Design Philosophy: Taking the Complexity and High Cost out of today's Cutting Edge Storage Technology
HighPoint understand the importance and appeal of high performance in today's marketplace. HighPoint's mission is to deliver quality, cutting storage performance at affordable price points - from business and professional media applications, to personalized solutions for the home enthusiast and power user.
