Adaptec Unveils 'Intelligent Power Management'

Storage vendor Adaptec on Wednesday introduced RAID controller-based power management technology that enables IT managers to custom-configure storage systems to reduce power consumption.

The "intelligent power management" capability can reduce power consumption by up to 70% while maintaining performance, according to Adaptec. The technology has been integrated into the company's Series 5 and Series 2 Unified Serial RAID controllers.

The power-saving capability is accessed through Adaptec's storage manager software and supports both SATA and SAS drives. The technology is particularly effective for applications with large blocks of idle time, such as disk-to-disk backup, e-mail archiving, and file and printer servers, Adaptec said.

The software gives users three power-state options: normal operation, standby, and power off. Normal is full power with full revolutions per minute, standby is a low-power mode that spins disks at lower RPMs during idle periods, and power off means disks stop spinning.

IT managers can configure banks of disk drives in different power states at varying times according to usage patterns, Adaptec said. If a drive is accessed during a pre-configured spin-down time or standby, the Adaptec technology automatically powers up the drive to prevent a performance problem.

In addition, the controller monitors drives that have been powered down for extended periods of time to ensure systems are still operational.

"Disk drives consume about 33% of all the storage in an IT environment and are one of the most energy-intensive components in any computing system," Suresh Panikar, director of worldwide marketing for Adaptec, said in a statement. "With intelligent power management, we are expanding the capabilities of our RAID controllers to address this issue. The cost and energy savings achieved with Intelligent Power Management are enormous -- potentially several hundred thousand dollars per year."

The new technology, which is available now in Adaptec controllers, is compatible with 122 disk drives across the leading vendors, such as Seagate Technology, Hitachi, and Western Digital.