Implementation of EIDE disk array system for mass data backup

摘要

Today, EIDE hard disk drives have become the mainstream products in low-end storage applications. An inexpensive disk array system based on EIDE hard disk drives is proposed, which has not only much higher speed than a tape library but also much lower price than a general SCSI or fibre channel disk array. Each string controller in a disk array can support up to 16 hard disk drives (4TB) and multiple RAID levels (RAID 0,1,0+1,3, 5, NRAID or JBOD). It also provides multiform interfaces for the host computer, including SCSI, USB, FireWire, EIDE, Serial ATA, etc. Since this kind of disk array has excellent price performance ratio, it is worth using in a mass data backup area instead of tape equipments and other low-end secondary storage applications.