A disk array controller is a device which manages the physical disk drives and presents them to the computer as logical units. It almost always implements hardware RAID, thus it is sometimes referred to as RAID controller. It also often provides additional disk cache.
A disk array controller name is often improperly shortened to a disk controller. The two should not be confused as they provide very different functionality.
== A single controller may use different protocols for back-end and for front-end communication. Many enterprise controllers use FC on front-end and SATA on back-end.
References
- Storage Basics: Choosing a RAID Controller, May 7, 2004, By Ben Freeman[1]
This article is based on material taken from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing prior to 1 November 2008 and incorporated under the "relicensing" terms of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later.