3ware's advanced switched RAID architecture - StorSwitch unleashes the power of Serial ATA (SATA), delivering the highest hardware RAID performance in its class. The 3ware 9500S hardware RAID controllers deliver in excess of 400 MB per second (MB/sec) sustained RAID 5 reads and over 100 MB/sec RAID 5 sequential writes with less than 3% CPU utilization. The StorSwitch architecture can simultaneously handle commands to and from multiple drives. No single drive is penalized by another while executing read or write commands. The on-board processor ensures the host CPU is managing your applications - not the RAID controller functions. The result is superior overall performance compared to other Serial ATA controllers.

Applications that benefit most from these high performance controllers include NAS storage, web servers, cluster servers, supercomputing, near-line backup and archival, security systems as well as streaming applications for audio and video servers.