Promise Ultra 66 - Ultra ATA/66 Controller

It's always interesting to see how things can be manipulated to appear a certain way at the blink of an eye. A dark and ominous room can be transformed into a tranquil palace by implementing the proper lighting, and the brightest of days can be the darkest of terrors with the proper shade of red in the sky. While psychologists have spent ages attempting to discover how the human mind works, as a manufacturer, the best way to interpret how the market will respond to your product being positioned in a certain light would be to approach your product, not as a manufacturer, but as a consumer; and ask yourself the questions a consumer would be thinking of upon seeing your product. It seems as if there are a few manufacturers out there that aren't the most in touch with how a consumer would approach their product, and luckily, for the sake of competition, those manufacturers don't always boast the greatest in sales. At the same time, because of the fact that there are masters of the way the mind works out there, there are some manufacturers that produce mediocre products and tint their advertising scheme to sometimes fool the consumers that may not have the ability to research their products.

We see the trend on a day to day basis, with the goal in the market being profit, and customer satisfaction second (how many companies out there would produce a product without making a profit?) it is difficult to judge whether a company is being legitimate in their claims. Case in point would be the Promise Ultra 66 controller card, the back of the box claims performance superior to that of virtually every other hard disk controller standard on the market today, including the much more expensive Ultra SCSI standards. Assuming that the advertising is truthful, how is it that a $70 card with a $200 hard drive could outperform everything else on the market by such a large margin? Could it be that Promise is putting to use some of the classic tricks of the trade? Or could a $70 investment really be the answer to every budget user's dreams? First of all, an introduction to the standard which Promise boasts the first controller card in supporting, let's try and understand the "need" for Ultra ATA/66. For those of you that have already read AnandTech's Ultra ATA/66 Technology Review, you'll want to skip to page 4, otherwise, sit back and enjoy the ride.