QLogic First To Support Mac OS X On 4Gb Fibre Channel

QLogic Corp. (NasdaqNM:QLGC - News), the leader in Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs), today introduced the first 4Gb Fibre Channel HBAs that support Mac OS X. SANblade® Pro QLA2460 Series HBAs deployed in conjunction with SANbox® 4Gb switches allows Mac power users in video and graphics environments to stream data at twice the speed of existing 2Gb storage networks.

"Anticipating the availability of Mac OS X servers with 4Gb host bus adapters, storage administrators are already deploying SANbox 4Gb switches," said Roger Klein, vice president of product marketing, QLogic Corporation. "QLogic 4Gb SANblade HBAs are now available to form storage networks with maximum performance for high bandwidth applications like video post production."

"A Better 4Gb" from QLogic
New 4Gb HBAs from QLogic offer a suite of technology advancements that help Mac OS X storage administrators maximize application performance, ensure complete business continuity, and cost-effectively scale their storage networks.

For Better 4Gb Performance:

• Intelligent Interleaved DMA -- Unlike competitive round-robin schemes for transmitting data in a mixed 1Gb / 2Gb / 4Gb environment, QLogic HBAs detect the link rate that each target can support and transmit simultaneously, and at maximum performance, to each storage device.
• Out Of Order Frame Reassembly -- Only HBAs from QLogic reassemble frames within an exchange in the correct order, even though they may have been received out of order. This improves performance by eliminating the need to retransmit the entire I/O block.

For Better 4Gb Reliability:

• Overlapping Protection Domains -- This QLogic exclusive ensures that data is not left unprotected, even for the smallest fraction of time, by generating a new check of parity or ECC before stripping out the old check. This offers a superior level of protection, well beyond traditional implementations.

Availability
Support for Mac OS X on QLogic's SANblade Pro 2400 Series is planned for the second quarter of 2006.

About QLogic
QLogic is the leading supplier of Fibre Channel host bus adapters (HBAs), blade server embedded Fibre Channel switches and Fibre Channel stackable switches for storage area networks. The company is also a leading supplier of iSCSI HBAs. QLogic products are delivered to small, medium and large enterprises around the world, powering solutions from leading companies like Cisco, Dell, EMC, HP, IBM, NEC, Network Appliance and Sun Microsystems. QLogic is a member of the S&P 500 Index. For more information visit www.qlogic.com.