Adaptec has joined the power and cooling game with new RAID controllers, which the company claims can reduce power consumption by as much as 70%.

The company introduced a new Intelligent Power Management feature for its Series 5 and Series 2 Unified Serial RAID controllers, which support Serial ATA and Serial Attached SCSI drives. Intelligent Power Management capability is accessed via the Adaptec Storage Manager software and lets IT set three modes for drives:

-- Normal operation, in which drives operate at full power and full revolutions per minute (RPM).
-- Standby, in which disks are spun at a lower RPM during periods when they are idle.
-- Power off, in which disks are not spinning.

The IT administrator can also set blackout periods where power management is disabled for peak activity periods. Different drives can be configured with different power management modes for different use patterns. The RAID controller monitors drives that have been powered down for long periods of time to make sure they are still fully operational.

Adaptec’s Intelligent Power Management works with over 120 drives from five drive vendors. For instance, with Seagate Barracuda ES SATA drives, power was reduced by 70% in power off mode.

Intelligent Power Management is a standard feature of Series 5 and Series 2 Unified Serial RAID controllers. It is available now.

Deni Connor is principal analyst for Storage Strategies NOW.