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Supermicro Qualifies Fujitsu Hard Disk Drives For Server Storage

Fujitsu Computer Products of America Inc announced that Supermicro Computer Inc has completed a thorough qualification of the Fujitsu 300GB and 147GB SCSI enterprise hard disk drives for inclusion in high-end server storage systems. This is the first time Supermicro is offering hard disk drive integration and service to its customers. In addition, the Fujitsu Firmware and Compatibility Testing (FACT) Lab evaluated motherboards and server systems from Supermicro establishing a joint qualification process in support of each company's commitment to quality control and reliability.

"Customer satisfaction begins by selecting technology partners who share a commitment to product excellence. Following a thorough testing and qualification process, we are excited to include Fujitsu enterprise hard disk drives in our server systems," said Charles Liang, president, CEO and founder of Supermicro Computer Inc. "Working together, Supermicro and Fujitsu will raise the industry benchmark for product excellence."

The Supermicro rigorous qualification process included compatibility testing and operational stress testing under rigid and extreme environments with chassis and server board products. The goal of this testing provides users and customers the assurance their systems and data will be safe under any acceptable vibration or thermal operating circumstances. Fujitsu hard disk drives proved to have the most reliable index delivering excellent performance after the testing of several other competitive hard disk drive products.

Supermicro will incorporate all of the following hard disk drives into their high-end server storage systems:

• MAT3073/3147/3300NC hard disk drives offering 10,000 RPM spindle speed, feature capacities of 73, 147 and 300GB and maximum internal data-transfer rates of 128MB per second, a 22 percent performance improvement over previous generations.

• MAP3147/3735/3367NC hard disk drives are the industry's first 75Gb per square inch 4-platter enterprise design, delivering 147GB of storage capacity in a 15,000RPM 3.5-inch form factor and Fujitsu Fluid Dynamic Bearing (FDB) technology that assures remarkably quiet operation.

"Fujitsu and Supermicro share a commitment to innovation and product excellence -- the fundamental requirements for a successful partnership that benefits our mutual customers," said Kenny Nguyen, director of channel sales and marketing at Fujitsu Computer Products of America. "Fujitsu focuses on delivering high quality, innovative products to the storage industry and is honored to be chosen by Supermicro to be the first and only SCSI hard disk drive vendor integrated into their high end server storage solutions."

The Fujitsu FACT Lab performs the important task of interoperability testing to determine compatibility between Fujitsu enterprise and mobile hard drives, customers' systems and third party partners' products, such as host bus adapters, controller cards, enclosures and switch boxes. In addition to interoperability testing, the FACT Lab offers the following to solution providers and interoperability partners:

• Assist in performing hard disk drive joint qualification testing of customer-unique requirements.

• Perform problem duplication and resolution of hard disk drive related issues in complete systems.

• Develop, test and publish application-based solutions of hardware configurations containing Fujitsu hard disk drives.

• Test new firmware releases and work with customers on their qualification of the new firmware.