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New custom designs to run NV2 - the Windows/Multiuser version. High performance, high capacity and full data integrity and redundancy.

*IAA - What it is and what it does for NV2 and Windows
The Intel Application Accelerator is a software package that replaces the ATA drivers that come with Windows with drivers optimized for desktop PCs using select Intel chipsets. This software package is not a requirement for your operating system to work properly.

Currently the CPU, the central processor unit is the fastest component of a computer system. The Pentium 4 runs up to 20 times faster than memory (RAM). This causes the Pentium 4 to waste a lot of time waiting for new data to appear from memory. The result is causing catastrophic idling. When data, that the CPU is looking for is not in memory, the slowest thing of all happens, the CPU has to fetch the next instruction from the hard drive. A hard drive is about a thousand times slower than RAM.

The Pentium III (Tualatin) is one of the most efficient processors ever built per clock cycle. A Pentium III 1.4GHz performs about the same as a Pentium 4 at 2.0GHz. When Intel started the design of the P4, they sacrificed allmost everything to get higher clock speeds. To compensate for relatively slow RAM they put in a higher prefetch cue/pipeline to keep the P4 loaded and busy. This all works in theory as long as the complete process exists in memory, or can be moved from the hard drive to memory in a predictable fashion.

When reading a sequential file from a hard drive to RAM the process is effecient and the P4 runs fast. However when doing database or random disk access work the P4 runs very slow waiting for data to be fetched from the hard drive to RAM and then to the CPU. Intel discovered that without some help, the P4 would not live up to its claimed performance and created the IAA driver to optimize the interfaces between the hard drive and memory to keep the prefetch cue full and loaded.

The pentium III has a 10 stage pipeline. The P4 Northwood has a 20 stage pipeline, while the newest P4 Prescott has a 31 stage pipeline. At present, all things equal, the older Northwood is 15% faster than the newer Prescott chip. So much for advancement.

Think of a 20-step ladder to the roof of a house and people carrying bricks up the ladder. In the pipelined CPU world, there would at any time, be 20 people on the ladder each carrying a brick. As long as all the bricks are the same (red) and needed in that order it would be very efficient. However if the bricklayer needs a (blue) brick, 19 people need to go back down the ladder and change the (red) for a (blue) brick. A real world computer example is the instruction 9 + 2 x 3, the system must multiply the 2 x 3 before adding the 9.

DOS is a single tasking system, Windows is running a minimum of 20 threads at the same time. Just take a look at the Task Manager. When NV2 runs on a machine that does not have the IAA software driver installed, the CPU hums along at 6-10% and peaks at about 25%. When the IAA is active on the same system, the CPU load hums along at 60-80% and peaks out at a 100% This make NV2 run 300% faster.

Windows XP loads from a cold boot in 58% of the time vs having no IAA driver. All program benefit from the IAA driver. On average your system will run 34% faster. The catch is that only a hand full Intel chip sets 810, 815, 820, 845, 850, and 860 support the IAA driver. The newest chip sets 865, 875 only support IAA if RAID is on the motherboard. This has nothing to do with the PIII or various P4 or Celeron chips. None of the lower priced motherboard have these Intel chip sets. By lower priced I mean under $120.00 A quality motherboard goes for about $150.00 and has Gigebit Ethernet, supports 800 Mhz RAM, RAID 0-1, multiple USB channels and sometimes even Firewire. So at the end of the day an extra $50 to $75 will give a system the ability to run IAA and get proper performance from the CPU.

From Intel's web site:
" The Intel Application Accelerator as well as the Intel Application Accelerator RAID Edition do not support the ICH5 I/O Controller Hub. The Intel Application Accelerator RAID Edition only supports the RAID controller in ICH5R and will not work with an ICH5 I/O Controller Hub. If you have an ICH5 I/O Controller Hub, please use the Microsoft native storage driver built into Windows. The Microsoft native storage driver supports both Serial ATA and Parallel ATA hard drives. It is important to know that there are two different ICH5 I/O Controller Hubs: ICH5R and ICH5. The letter 'R' in ICH5R identifies that the I/O Controller Hub has Intel RAID Technology. ICH5 (without the letter 'R') identifies that the I/O Controller Hub does not have Intel RAID Technology. Intel 865 and 875 chipset-based platforms may use the ICH5R or ICH5 I/O Controller Hub and which one you have is dependent upon your specific motherboard. Focusing the latest version of the Intel Application Accelerator on RAID features using the newest Serial ATA technology was deemed as the best value add for desktop customers as RAID 0 enables higher performance gains for the platform than was possible with previous versions of the Intel Application Accelerator. "

It does not have to be an Intel IAA driver. Many high performance systems are running RAID chips with drivers from Intel, Promise, Silicon Image or other manufacturers. Most important, by RAID, we mean RAID 1, two (2) drives running parallel for safety and redundancy, not RAID 0. Raid 0 is two striped disks without fault tolerance, which would be faster but have no redundancy. We do not recommend RAID 0 for accounting applications, with a drive failure in RAID 0 all data is lost.