Sonnet Logo
Tempo SATA X4P
Buy from Sonnet Buy from Distributor/Reseller
Products & Solutions

Pure Performance, Pure
SATAsfaction!
When it comes to data storage capabilities, which do you prefer, raw storage capacity or scorching performance? With Sonnet's Tempo™ SATA X4P, you get the best of both worlds! This card offers unprecedented scalability through its support of port multipliers—it can handle up to twenty drives!(1)(2) Used with high-performance drive enclosures like Sonnet's Fusion™ D500P, port multipliers manage the data flow of up to five drives in one enclosure through a single cable. Using today's highest-capacity drives, you can connect an astounding 20 Terabytes (20,000 Gigabytes!) of storage!

Tempo SATA X4P delivers performance previously unattainable with mainstream technologies. The PCI-X® interface offers huge bandwidth for data throughput, so the card never slows you down. For the utmost performance, you can create multiple RAID sets to capture and process uncompressed high definition video, or conquer other high-bandwidth applications. For fantastic flexibility, you can work with 20 drives individually and hot-swap(3) them out as needed. You can even work with a combination of RAID sets and individual drives—your choices aren't limited. When your storage needs have outgrown standard solutions, get a Tempo SATA X4P—it'll give you room to grow and blazing performance for the most demanding applications.

Technical Notes:
(1) Support for 20 drives requires the use of drive enclosures employing port multipliers (like Sonnet's Fusion D500P, Fusion D400Q, and Fusion R400Q). Otherwise, Tempo SATA X4P will support up to 4 drives.

(2) Western Digital manufactures Desktop edition (WD Caviar, Caviar SE, Caviar SE16, and Raptor X) hard drives and Enterprise (RAID) Edition (WD RE, RE2, and Raptor) hard drives. Each type of hard drive is designed to work specifically in either a desktop computer environment, or connected to a RAID controller (hardware or software-based). If you intend to configure Western Digital drives in a RAID set, Sonnet and WD recommend using only their Enterprise edition hard drives. For more information, see this Western Digital FAQ.

(3) SATA drive hot swapping is not supported in a desktop or server PC running Windows XP, Server 2003 or Vista. A SATA drive appears to the system as a not-removable hard drive and there is no mechanism in Windows to prepare the drive for removal.

(4) Performance will be lower in PCI-only machines.

(5) Mac OS X Version 10.5 compatibility requires firmware Version 2.1.3 or greater.

(6)
While some customers have successfully used external hard drives with USB 2.0/eSATA dual interface, these products (based on the Oxford Semiconductor OXU931DS storage controller chip) exhibit underlying errors that prevent them from being fully compatible with this Sonnet product under Mac OS X. Kernel panics occurring when the drive is connected, and the drive not being recognized by the operating system are known issues. These drives include, but are not limited to:

• Western Digital My Book™ Premium ES Edition™
• Seagate Technology FreeAgent™ Pro

External hard drives with USB 2.0/eSATA dual interface based on the JMicron 20336 are fully compatible. These drives include but are not limited to:

• OWC Mercury On-The-Go USB 2.0/eSATA
2.5" Portable

Sonnet's Fusion D400Q and R400Q quad-interface storage systems are not affected by these issues, and are fully supported.

Key Benefits

Affordable solution for adding four external SATA ports to your computer

SATA II compliant, 1.5 Gb/s and 3 Gb/s auto-negotiation

FIS-based Port Multiplier-aware to support up to 20 disk drives(1)

PCI-X host bus interface for high-performance applications

Spread Spectrum Clocking (SSC) support for compatibility with all SATA drives

Supports Mac OS® X, Windows Vista (Enterprise or Ultimate), Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP Pro RAID features

Hot-swap drive support(3)

Mac Compatibility

Power Mac G5 (with PCI slots(4) or PCI-X slots)

Power Mac G4 (with PCI slots)

Mac OS X(6) Version 10.5(5), 10.4, or 10.3

Windows Compatibility

PC (with PCI(4) or PCI-X slots)

Windows Vista

Windows Server 2003

Windows XP SP2

Technical Specifications

Part No.

Hardware

Warranty

1-year limited warranty

RoHS Compliant

Yes

Bus Interface

PCI-X, 64-bit 133 MHz; 32-bit PCI bus 2.2 Compliant, works in any PCI or PCI-X slot

External Connectors

Four eSATA

Drives Supported

Up to 20(1)

Data Transfer Rate

Up to 300 MB per second per port

ATAPI Support

No

Drive Type Supported

Serial ATA I & II

Firmware

Flash-ROM upgradeable to latest firmware version

Advanced Features

  • Port multiplier aware
  • FIS-based switching controller
  • Spread Spectrum Clocking for compatibility with all SATA drivers and lower EMI emissions
  • Bus Mastering frees CPU from data I/O handling
  • 48-bit LBA support for drives larger than 137 GB

Specifications subject to change without notice.

Mac OS LogoFor Windows LogoeSATA LogoRoHS Compliant Logo

Compatibility


For uncompromising storage needs, up to four Fusion D500Ps can be ganged on a Tempo SATA E4P or X4P for double, triple, or even quadruple the performance.




Copyright © 2007 Sonnet Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. English | Japanese | French