FWB Announces PCI Versions of SledgeHammer-VS and SledgeHammer-FT

Offering the Ultimate Storage Solutions for the Power Macintosh with PCI

Menlo Park. May 4. 1995. FWB, Inc., manufacturer of the award winning
Hammer brand of mass storage products, today announced the SledgeHammer-VS
for PCI and SledgeHammer-FT for PCI families of high performance, high
fault tolerance disk arrays for Apple's newest Power Macintosh platform.
These leading edge storage solutions will be available for Apple's second
generation Power Macintosh with PCI Systems.

The SledgeHammer-VS for PCI

FWB's SledgeHammer-VS for PCI, the premier RAID 0 and 1 subsystem optimized
for Digital Video, Color Publishing, and Pre-press will be fully
compatible with Apple's upcoming Power Macintosh with PCI platform.
Composed of seven Fast and Wide SCSI-2 hard drives, FWB's PCI SCSI
JackHammer, and an integrated tape drive for system backup, the PCI
SledgeHammer-VS is designed to provide maximum system throughput. The PCI
SledgeHammer-VS is optimized for SCSI Manager 4.3 and fully QuickTime 2.0
compliant. Utilizing FWB's PCI SCSI JackHammer, users experience sustained
data transfer rates of up to 32MB/sec. Pre-press and graphic users will
experience dramatic increases in productivity with Photoshop files that
open and display in a flash. Video professionals can take advantage of
better than 4:1 compression rates for the finest video possible on a Power
Macintosh. The SledgeHammer-VS for PCI, with average seek times as fast as
2.25ms, comes in 14.3 and 28.7GB capacities and is available in both
rackmount and desktop versions. The VS subsystem carries FWB's
PremiumService warranty--five years for the drives in the array, and three
years for the entire subsystem.

The SledgeHammer-FT for PCI

FWB's SledgeHammer-FT for PCI RAID 5 fault tolerant subsystem is optimized
for networks and mission critical applications. Automatic data
reconstruction, hot swappable drives, fans and power supplies, and very
high MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) disks provide near-zero system
downtime. The FT's unique features such as the ability to perform
automatic sparing assure data integrity. The SledgeHammer-FT for PCI is
composed of six Fast and Wide SCSI-2 hard disk drives in a RAID 5
configuration--five drives as data drives and one as an automatic spare.
Should any drive in the array fail, the parity information and data from
the remaining drives is used to make the data fully accessible to the
network or user without any system downtime. Utilizing FWB's PCI SCSI
JackHammer your file server's I/O channel will run faster no matter how
many users are on line. The SledgeHammer-FT for PCI, with average seek
times as fast as 8.5ms, comes in 8 and 16GB capacities and is available in
both rackmount and desktop versions. The SledgeHammer-FT for PCI carries
FWB's PremiumService warranty--five years for the drives in the array, and
three years for the entire subsystem.

The SledgeHammer-FT For NuBus

FWB's SledgeHammer-FT For NuBus is now compatible with Apple's 8150 and
9150 Workgroup Server families and is fully compatible with any Macintosh
or Power Macintosh with a full-size NuBus slot.

The PCI SCSI JackHammer

The PCI SCSI JackHammer is FWB's new high performance Fast & Wide SCSI-2
coprocessing PCI accelerator for Apple's upcoming Power Macintosh with PCI
systems. This 40 MHz RISC based Fast & Wide SCSI-2 co-processor is fully
compatible with system 7.5 and optimized for SCSI Manager 4.3. The PCI
SCSI JackHammer will ship with both the SledgeHammer-FT for PCI and the
SledgeHammer-VS for PCI.

RAID ToolKit

FWB's industry acclaimed RAID ToolKit ships with every SledgeHammer VS and
SledgeHammer FT. This comprehensive disk array management software is
capable of performing data striping (RAID 0) for higher performance; disk
mirroring (RAID 1) for fault tolerance and drive spanning for increased
capacity. FWB's approach to RAID features the company's unique MatrixRAID
technology which allows users to configure a single SledgeHammer array to
perform both fault tolerant mirroring and high speed data striping on
different partitions on one array at the same time. RAID ToolKit is
completely compatible with the Power Macintosh with PCI, System 7.5 and
SCSI Manager 4.3.

Pricing and Availability

The SledgeHammer-VS for PCI and SledgeHammer-FT for PCI will ship upon
Apple Computer's initial release of Power Macintosh with PCI. Suggested
retail pricing of these units has been tentatively set and is subject to
change. The SledgeHammer-VS for PCI 14GB ($21,399 MSRP) and 28GB ($28,399
MSRP), represents state of the art digital video and color publishing
storage. The SledgeHammer-FT for PCI, 8GB ($24,999 MSRP) and 16GB ($32,299
MSRP), represents state of the art fault tolerant storage.

Since 1984, FWB, Inc. has been developing mass storage and backup products
specifically for the Macintosh platform, including the Apple PowerBook,
the Apple Workgroup Servers and the Power Macintosh. FWB products include
SledgeHammer RAID Arrays; Hammer@;, Hammer-PE, PocketHammer and HammerPB
hard drives; HammerDisk
optical and removable drives; HammerTape and HammerDAT tape backup systems;
and the Fast and Wide SCSI-2 JackHammer accelerator boards for PCI and
NuBus. FWB also publishes RAID ToolKit, Hard Disk ToolKit, Hard Disk
ToolKit-Personal Edition disk management software, and CD-ROM ToolKit
accelerator software for CDROM drives. FWB's products have been
consistently rated the best in their class by publications such as
MacWEEK, MacUser, Macworld, AV Video Magazine, PC Magazine, and BYTE.
FWB's PremiumService has won the "Best Technical Support" award from The
Macintosh Consultants Network. Inc. Magazine ranked FWB on the Inc. 500
list of fastest growing privately held companies in both 1993 and 1994.

FWB Inc
1555 Adams Dr
Menlo Park, CA 94025
415-325-4FWB,  fax 415-833-4657
AOL: FWBINC
AppleLink: FWB
CIS: 71320,1034
eWORLD: FWB.INC

 ============================================================
 From the  'New Product News'  Electronic News Service on....
 AOL (Keyword = New Products) & Delphi (GO COMPUTING PRODUCT)
 ============================================================
 This information was processed from data provided by the 
 company or author mentioned. For additional details, please 
 contact them directly at the address/phone number indicated.
 All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
 ============================================================
 All submissions for this service should be addressed to:
 BAKER ENTERPRISES,  20 Ferro Dr,  Sewell, NJ  08080  U.S.A.
 Email: RBakerPC (AOL/Delphi), rbakerpc@delphi.com (Internet)
 ============================================================
