Rack-mount chassis claims user-friendly edge

A Portwell Technology product story

Edited by the Electronicstalk editorial team Jul 17, 2007

Industrial-grade 19in 4U rack-mount chassis is aimed at system integrators and OEMs, and has been designed to ease operation and service in the field

New from American Portwell Technologies, the Aremo-4196 is a 19in 4U industrial rack-mount chassis that includes a flexible 14-slot backplane.

The Aremo-4196 joins Portwell's existing family of Aremo rack-mount and node chassis products, and features four front access ports for USB, three 5.25in drive bays for RAID or optical drives, two internal 3.5in drives for HDDs and an optional redundant power supply.

The new Aremo-4196 is aimed at system integrators and OEMs and has been designed to ease operation and service in the field - its washable air filter is easy to detach for maintenance and/or replacement.

Dual 120mm ball-bearing cooling fans (with built-in failure detection) ensure improved ventilation, an addon card retainer minimises vibration failure and the flexible chassis accommodates either backplanes or ATX motherboards.

Available now, Portwell's new Aremo-4196 19in 4U industrial rack-mount chassis is the ideal solution for applications such as industrial control, Internet security server, communications server, data centre server, radio broadcasting server or digital surveillance server.

New features for the chassis include PCI-based RAID kits that support up to three SATA HDDs with RAID 0, 1, 5 selections.

The disk bus is E-IDE with Ultra DMA support and the RAID kits themselves provide a GUI manager for installation and maintenance.

They also support hot-swap and hot-spare capabilities.

The front panel of the Aremo-4196 chassis now incorporates power and reset switches, four ports for USB, and HDD/power/fan-fail/LAN LEDs.

The Aremo-4196 adopts the newly designed card retainer to provide more secure seating for the PCI and ISA type cards.

Transportation, installation and de-installation of the new Aremo-4196 19in 4U industrial rack-mount chassis are made much easier with the addition of user-friendly handles.

"The new Aremo-4196 was designed for SIs and OEMs, so cost and flexibility are key", says Jack Lam, American Portwell Technology's Senior Product Marketing Manager.

"The Aremo-4196 has an excellent cost/performance ratio and can be configured from simple PC to RAID server or from ATX to 14-slot backplane with SHB (slot host board)".

"The modularised design can easily handle a variety of different systems and future upgrades", adds Lam: "and the lockable front access protects the user and provides our customers with an extra level of security".

According to Frank Shen, American Portwell Technology's Product Marketing Director, Portwell's Aremo-4196 represents the next generation of 4U rack-mount computer chassis in its technology and its ability to provide a superior cost/performance ratio.

"It not only incorporates the latest industrial design", explains Shen, "but it is also field service and user friendly, and incorporates a flexible configuration and future upgradeability".

Shen also points to the addition of carrying handles and washable air filters as an example of Portwell's meticulous user-friendly approach to the new Aremo-4196.

"Portwell thinks consistently about the needs of its customers and end users when designing new products or enhancements to an existing product line", says Shen.

"This attention to detail has been instrumental to our success as a leading provider of IPC systems, embedded computer boards and communication appliances for SIs, OEMs and ODMs worldwide".