Date: October 22nd, 2003.
Article by: Roger (Hardware Reviewer)
Product was donated by: Highpoint
Technologies & AC Ryan
CORPORATE PROFILE
In response to the needs of our market, new products in
development of the near future include RISC based Ultra DMA/ ATA133
RAID controllers. In addition to our existing product line, we have
plans to introduce follow-on or next generation products including NAS
(Network Attached Storage), and serial ATA controller.
HighPoint Technologies, Inc.'s target market includes
motherboards, add-on cards, storage subsystems, PC systems, set-top
boxes, NAS (Network Attached Storage), and personal digital VCRs.
PRODUCT INTRODUCTION
Several weeks ago, I picked up two 120GB Western Digital
HDDs… the 8MB cache specials. My plan was to span them and use them
for storage. My wife remarked that there is such a thing as too much
storage space.
I laughed at her.
Apparently I shouldn't have. Luckily our couch is comfortable.
The point that I tried to impart upon her was that there
is no such thing as too much storage space. In this age, game installs
can easily reach one to two gigabytes. MP3 jukeboxes seem to grow exponentially
in size. And let's not mention the family VHS tapes which you are slowly
converting to DVD format. The point is that this space fills up quickly.
It is not uncommon to see computers housing more than one hard drive.
Why throw out a perfectly good 40 GB drive in favor of a 120GB… especially
when you have the means to use both.
The problem arises when you've used up all of the PATA
(Parallel ATA) channels on your motherboard. Inevitably, a sale comes
along that's just too good to pass up (and just as impossible to explain
to the wife). However, with no channels left on your motherboard, you're
out of luck. Sure, those SATA (Serial ATA) channels are ready and waiting,
but the drive which you've just purchased (behind the wife's back) is
PATA. Not everyone is willing to fork up the extra cash for SATA drives
yet, considering the speed differential. Certainly the prices are coming
down… but that's not going to help you with this new PATA drive.
We've got the solution to your technical problem. You're
on your own with the wife though.
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