This WEB page comes from the busTRACE 8.0 User's Manual. (Table of Contents)
Cost effectiveHardware bus analyzers typically cost ten to twenty times as much as busTRACE. For the cost of one hardware bus analyzer, you could provide each engineer in a department their own copy of busTRACE 8.0. Multiple bus architecture supportbusTRACE can capture I/O activity across a wide variety of bus architectures including USB, USB 2.0, ATA, SATA, ATAPI, Fibre Channel, SCSI, iSCSI, 1394 (storage I/O only), RAID, SAS, and more. Hardware analyzers typically support only one type of bus architecture. If they do support more than one, you usually need to purchase an additional hardware "pod" for the new architecture thereby increasing your cost even further. Easy to transportThe only hardware requirement with busTRACE is that you install our busTRACE Flash Drive on the system running busTRACE (requires a free USB port). If you are analyzing I/O activity, it is fast and simple to install busTRACE on any system whether it is in your lab, in your office, at a customer site, or anywhere. In fact, sine the busTRACE installer is pre-installed on the busTRACE Flash Drive, you will always have the software with you. Hardware analyzers are far more difficult to transport around, particularly if you want to move from system to system, or if you're visiting a customer site. Easy to usebusTRACE is far simpler to use than conventional hardware bus analyzers. When you run busTRACE, you simply place a checkmark on the devices you are interested in analyzing and then click on the Capture button. A detailed bus capture then occurs. The user friendly busTRACE interface, with powerful bus analysis features, is designed to be used by any engineer from junior level to the most senior level. Hardware analyzers, on the other hand, typically require a specialized skill that only the most senior engineers have. Detailed command/data analysisbusTRACE prides itself on not just showing you a dump of hex data that was sent or received from a device. busTRACE will look at the data and decode it into human readable terms. For example, we decode Command Descriptor Blocks (CDBs) in a format nearly identical to the format you would see in the device's command specification. This greatly speeds up your bus analysis efforts. Ability to view I/O activity from the OS perspectiveKeep in mind that busTRACE is capturing I/O activity from the operating system's perspective. This can be advantageous in a number of ways.
Complete Suite of Device Analysis ToolsbusTRACE 8.0 is MUCH more than just a bus analyzer. It is a complete suite of bus and device analysis tools. You can capture I/O activity, send any command, automatically look for any firmware bugs, simulate hardware faults, build simple CDB scripts, and so much more.
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