FirewireDirect has released a new FireWire/ATA/RAID combo card, allowing users to take advantage of the best technologies while only needing to use one precious PCI slot. The new UltraFIRE Plus offers the solution many power users are looking for. While there is currently no Mac version of this card, FirewireDirect promises a Mac version in "early 2001." According to FirewireDirect:
FirewireDirect.com, Inc., a company specializing in IEEE 1394, FireWire and iLINK peripherals and accessories for Windows, Macintosh and Linux based computers today announced the newest addition to their award winning PCI FireWire upgrade card line, the UltraFIRE Plus, a FireWire and ATA Ultra-100 RAID PCI Combo Host adapter.
The UltraFIRE Plus PCI combo card comes in a time of explosive growth of FireWire peripherals and electronic devices, with large numbers of users ready to add FireWire capability to their PCs. The new card from FirewireDirect is unique among FireWire upgrade solutions in that it adds a 2 Channel ATA Ultra-100 internal RAID connection.
With its built-in PCI to PCI bridge the UltraFIRE Plus card integrates 400Mbps IEEE 1394-FireWire and ATA/IDE RAID levels 0, 1 and 0+1 functions on the same board.
The UltraFIRE Plus includes FireWire bus power support and offers three external and one internal fully OHCI compliant 1394a/FireWire ports, capable of hosting up to 63 FireWire devices including hard drives, digital video equipment, internet appliances and other consumer electronics.
The UltraFIRE Plus ATA Ultra-100 offers RAID 0 striping, RAID 1 mirroring, and RAID 0+1 stripping plus mirroring support for up to four off-the-shelf ATA Ultra-100 hard drives, and also supports ATA-33 and ATA-66 drives.
The upgrade currently works for Windows machines, and FirewireDirect promises a solution in the same line for Mac users in the first quarter of next year.
You can find more information about the UltraFIRE Plus card at the FirewireDirect web site.