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Tempo SATA E4P
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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 E4P, you get the best of both worlds! This card offer 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 40 Terabytes of storage!

Tempo SATA E4P delivers performance previously unattainable with mainstream technologies. The PCI Express x4 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 them out as needed.(3) 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 E4P—it'll give you room to grow and blazing performance for the most demanding applications.

Key Benefits

Affordable solution for adding four high performance eSATA ports to your computer

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

FIS-based port multiplier-aware to support up to 20 disk drives(1)

Native PCI Express (PCIe) x4 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

Mac Pro

Xserve Late 2006 or higher (with PCIe Express slot)(5)

Power Mac G5 (with PCI Express slots)

Mac OS® X Version 10.3+

Snow Leopard compatible

Mac OS X Server Version 10.3+

Windows Compatibility

PC (with PCI Express slot)

Windows Vista

Windows Server 2003

Windows XP

Technical Specifications

Part No.

TSATAII-E4P

Hardware

Warranty

2-year limited warranty

RoHS Compliant

Yes

Bus Interface

PCI Express x4

External Connectors

Four eSATA

Drives Supported

Up to 20(1)

Data Transfer Rate

Up to 250 MB per second per port

ATAPI Support

No

Drives Type Supported

Serial ATA I & II

Firmware

Flash-ROM upgradeable to latest firmware version

Bootability

Not Supported

Package Contents

Tempo SATA E4P host controller card, quick start guide, Software CD

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 Logo
eSATA LogoRoHS Compliant Logo

Compatibility

Reviews & Case Studies


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

Tempo SATA E4P connects Fusion D500Ps

Technical Notes:
(1) S
upport for up to 20 drives requires the use of drive enclosures employing either an FIS-based port multiplier (like Sonnet's Fusion D500P) or a hardware RAID controller (like Sonnet's Fusion D400QR5 or R400QR5).

(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)
Sonnet Tempo cards are compatible with most external SATA storage. However, external hard drives with USB 2.0/eSATA dual interface based on the Oxford Semiconductor OXU931DS storage controller chip may not be compatible with Mac OS X when connected via SATA. Known issues are kernel panics occurring when the drive is connected, or the drive not being recognized by the operating system.

Summary of external SATA storage
• Storage with eSATA alone
Compatible
• Storage with triple interfaces
Compatible
• Storage with quad interfaces
Compatible
• Storage with eSATA plus Firewire 400 and/or 800
Compatible
• Storage with port multiplier support (multiple drives)
Compatible
• Storage with RAID 0, 1, or 5 (multiple drives)
Compatible
• Storage with eSATA plus USB (based on JMicron 20366)
Compatible
These compatible drives include, but are not limited to:
- OWC Mercury On-the-Go USB 2.0/eSATA 2.5" portable
• Storage with eSATA plus USB (based on Oxford OXU931DS)
Not compatible
These incompatible drives include, but are not limited to:
- Western Digital My Book™ Premium ES Edition™
- Seagate Technology FreeAgent™ Pro
(5) Xserve not compatible with Sonnet SATA cable locking feature.


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