Just caught this huge review of the controller at GamePC.
Those who follow the storage industry know that 3Ware is one of the most respected and well-liked companies in the industry. They have gained quite a large and devoted following of RAID users thanks to their Ultra ATA-based "Escalade" controller cards. The Escalade has been credited with giving users the best overall disk performance of any cards in their class, and doing so at a fairly decent price point. 3Ware controller cards are known to have very few compatibility issues; are easy to setup and maintain, and simply perform great. So, with all these things going on for them, why isn"t 3Ware a better known company?
Size, for one. 3Ware is fairly small company out of Mountain View, California, and is dwarfed in size by some of the larger players in the market like Adaptec. The company has gone through some major corporate restructuring throughout the last year, which unfortunately ended up in 3Ware pulling out of the ATA controller market, than returning a little more than two weeks later. While the company was split on either to focus on their network-attached storage produces or their ATA RAID controllers, a messy battle ensued where many members of the company were let go, and the future of 3Ware even existing was up in the air. Now that 3Ware is back to focusing on what they do best, top-notch ATA RAID controllers, they look to be back on track.