Storage

Network-Attached Storage Media Server Reference Design Kit
SOHO/Consumer NAS is currently designed using a file-centric storage medium to store and back up data files as documents, photos, video, and digital content. Market trends suggest that NAS solutions will migrate to a multimedia home entertainment storage medium capable of streaming HD video and high quality audio, in addition to providing for storage and back up needs of digital media. With the increasing storage density of current hard drives, customers have the opportunity to increase their storage capacity at fairly low cost. Also, advanced backup/redundancy technologies result in reduced failures and better productivity. The growing penetration of VoD and off-line movie-download services provides a tangible need for simple, yet reliable and sophisticated, storage devices.

Features and Benefits
The NetLogic Microsystems NAS Media Server reference design is a production ready platform addressing the low-to-mid-range SMB NAS and Home NAS media server market segments. With outstanding networking performance, rich feature set, and variety of interfaces, the NetLogic Microsystems NAS Media Server Design Kit allows customers to quickly adopt a multithreaded solution for today's storage demands and beyond.

The solution includes:

• SATA disk interfaces, allowing up to two disks that support a variety of
  RAID configurations such as RAID0, 1 and 10
• USB interface to connect to an additional external RAID5
  disk and other peripheral devices
• GbE networking interface
• On-board DDR2
• A mini-PCIe slot that offers a wide range of add-on features such as WiFi,
  eSATA, wireless modem, graphics coder, and Bluetooth
• XLS®-based Multi-Core, Multi-Threaded XLS108 Processor™
  offering best-in-class performance
• Small and cost-effective mini-Tx form factor

XLS® Processor
The XLS Processor® features state-of-the-art Multi-Core, Multi-Threading technology that includes a Fast Messaging Network™ (FMN) for efficient on-chip communication. A security engine (Autonomous Security Engine®) and compression engine offload work from the CPU to perform critical application tasks. XLS Processors are pin-compatible, with single-core to quad-core designs that support four virtual CPU's (vCPU’s™) per core. An optimal cache subsystem incorporates separate L1 caches per-core, and a large shared L2 cache for increased application performance. In summary, the XLS Processor offers a cost-effective single-chip solution, with outstanding network performance and rich feature set, for the next generation of scalable multi-service applications.