Sonnet rolls out 8-drive SATA RAID array

Sonnet Technologies today rolled out its Sonnet Fusion R800RAID 8-drive storage system designed for film and video editing professionals. The Fusion R800RAID system features a PCI Express RAID host adapter that supports RAID 0, 1, 4 (DVRAID), 5, 10, 50, and JBOD configurations. The device itself is a 2U rackmount enclosure that contains hot-swappable drive modules with Enterprise/RAID edition SATA drives as well as robust locking cables, according to Sonnet. With drives formatted as a RAID 0 group, the R800RAID is capable of single-stream 2048x1556 LOG RGB capture and playback. Configured as a protected RAID 5 group the device achieves 557MB/sec transfer speeds -- fast enough to handle uncompressed 10-bit 1080 4:4:4 high-definition video or multiple streams of DV, HDV, and DVCPRO content. Sonnet's Fusion R800RAID 8-drive storage systems are compatible with Mac OS X 10.3 or later, are slated for shipment next month, and are priced from $5,400 (4TB) to $8,900 (8TB) with extra 1TB drives available for $800 each. [updated photos]

The Fusion R800RAID offers visual notification int he event of a drive failure, and users can rebuild the entire system in as little as two hours (4TB) after swapping out a faulty drive.

Sonnet's new storage system is based on the latest-generation Intel IOP348 RAID processor, and features 256MB of on-board ECC-protected memory to handle throughput from every connected drive with overhead. Included software utilities provide user control of the Fusion RAID system's configuration, while connections between host and enclosure are simplified via two reliable four-lane cables.

Fusion RAID systems employ Enterprise/RAID Edition hard drives that are subjected to hours of additional testing to check for soft errors, vibration, and other reliability predictors.

"Only the sturdiest drives pass these tests, and then are prepared with special RAID-optimized firmware, and become the building blocks of a super-reliable Fusion RAID system," says Sonnet.

For added security, Fusion RAID swappable drive modules are compatible across Sonnet's Fusion line.

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