Adaptec MaxIQ(TM) SSD Cache Performance Solution Increases Performance for Japan's Largest Server Farm

A.T. WORKS Gains Significant Performance Increases for Web Applications

MILPITAS, Calif., March 30, 2010 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ --Adaptec, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADPT), the global leader in I/O innovation, today announced that its MaxIQ SSD Cache Performance Solution has been implemented by A.T. WORKS, Inc., Japan's premier Internet services provider and manager of the country's largest server farm.

A.T. WORKS turned to Adaptec's MaxIQ SSD Cache Performance Solution after searching for an affordable solid state disk-based (SSD) Web and database server solution for those customers dissatisfied with performance offered by SATA or SAS-based hard disk drive (HDD) arrays. Ideal for data centers running applications with high "read" operations such as Web serving, file serving, and databases, the A.T. WORKS solution uses customized Intel(R) SSDs used as cache with Adaptec MaxIQ SSD Caching Software, plus Adaptec RAID 2405 and Adaptec RAID 5405 Unified Serial(R) controllers to create high-performance hybrid arrays made of SSDs and HDDs. The implementation of the Adaptec MaxIQ solution at A.T. Works doubled the performance of SATA HDD RAID 1 configurations with static Web pages, and significantly outperformed SAS HDD-only configurations with dynamic Web pages.

"We had been looking for a cost effective way to add SSD components to our servers for quite awhile, but SSD capacity is less than that of an HDD and the relative cost per gigabyte is much higher," said Takuji Ikeda of A. T. WORKS' Engineering Division. "With Adaptec MaxIQ, we've been able to create a hybrid solution of SSDs and HDDs to meet growing customer demands for large capacity, high-performance storage solutions at an affordable price."

After seeing the results, A.T. WORKS now encourages its customers currently using Adaptec Series 5 and Series 2 Unified Serial(R) storage controllers to upgrade with Adaptec MaxIQ. With 9,000 hosted specialized servers, A.T. WORKS relies on Adaptec MaxIQ, and the included Adaptec Storage Manager(TM), a centralized interface to enable, disable, and configure cache levels, to provide the best performance possible for its customers.

About Adaptec MaxIQ SSD Cache Performance Solution

The Adaptec MaxIQ SSD Cache Performance Solution addresses the needs of I/O intensive data centers by creating high-performance hybrid arrays - storage arrays that use both SSDs and HDDs - to deliver up to five times the I/O performance of HDD-only arrays and up to 50 percent savings in capital and operating costs.

The Adaptec MaxIQ solution features SSDs used as cache, plus MaxIQ SSD Caching Software. The software introduces a patent-pending Learned-Path algorithm that alleviates the bottleneck that can occur between server processors and hard drives by copying frequently-read data directly into an optimized SSD cache pool for faster retrieval in future requests. MaxIQ also updates "hot" cached data on subsequent writes to the same blocks to maximize storage efficiency.

About Adaptec

Adaptec, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADPT) provides innovative data center I/O solutions that protect, accelerate, optimize, and condition data in today's most demanding data center environments. Adaptec products are used in IT environments ranging from traditional enterprise environments to fast growing, on-demand cloud computing data centers. The company's products enable data center managers, channel partners and OEMs to deploy best-in-class storage solutions to meet their customers' evolving IT and business requirements. Around the world, leading corporations, government organizations, and medium and small businesses trust Adaptec technology. More information is available at http://www.adaptec.com, on its blog, storageadvisors.adaptec.com, and at adaptec.com/facebook and twitter.com/Adaptec_Inc.