Intel's upcoming ICH9 South Bridge family, due to ship in Q2 2007 with the 'Bearlake' chipset series, will support what the chip company calls "Rapid Recover Technology" to get users up and running quickly if their primary hard drive fails, it has been claimed.

According to a Chinese-language report on HKEPC, the system requires at least two hard drives, one primary, the other to contain back-up data. If the main drive breaks, the system will automatically boot from the secondary unit.

It's also claimed the chipset will support Serial ATA port multiplication - essentially allowing a single SATA port to host a number of drives, up to 15, the report reckons. Data access commands sent to one drive are processed before commands can be issued to other drives. ®