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OCZ's Z-Drive PCI-Express SSD gets exhaustively reviewed

by Darren Murph posted Oct 19th 2009 at 3:03PM

Man, talk about a letdown. It's hard to put into mere words just how excited we were about the OCZ Z-Drive when we saw an early prototype shell way back at CeBIT, and now that it's shipping out to affluent users, we've got a remarkably thorough review explaining that it's probably not the dream device we were all hoping for. The good folks over at Hot Hardware managed to slam the Z-Drive m84 into their PCIe slot and run it through a battery of tests, and aside from larger file transfers, there just wasn't a mind-blowing amount of awesomeness to speak of. Critics expected this thing to rival at least an SSD RAID solution driven by a software RAID controller, but for whatever reason, that simply wasn't the case. Hit the read link for more benchmarks than you'd ever care to see on a weekend, and feel free to pocket that plastic.

Super Talent's 2TB RAIDDrive shipping next month to the rich and silly

by Darren Murph posted Sep 16th 2009 at 12:21PM

Remember that 2TB PCIe RAIDDrive we peeked earlier this year? Yeah, that was no April Fool's joke. Super Talent's answer to OCZ Technology's Z-Drive is on track to ship next month, shortly after it makes a quick stop by IDF next week. The device slots into one's PCIe bus and utilizes a RAID architecture specifically tailored to work with NAND flash memory. In fact, the outfit has actually boosted the transfer speeds from the 1.3GBps estimate to a 1.4GBps promise. The aluminum enclosure houses four discrete SATA SSDs, with the RAIDDrive GS being the model that tops out at 2TB. For those able to deal with "just" 1TB, there's the RAIDDrive ES and RAIDDrive WS, both of which are detailed further in the read link. No exact pricing has been nailed down yet for the flagship unit, but considering that the 1TB RAIDDrive GS is pegged at $4,999 for OEMs, we'll let your imagination do the rest.

Buffalo intros 4TB TeraStation NAS

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Sep 2nd 2009 at 6:31PM

It's been a while since we've seen a TeraStation from Buffalo, and in the meantime the company has been really going wild with the lilliputian memory devices, so it's nice to see something substantial in this space for a change. The latest TeraStation NAS integrates with Windows Storage Server 2003 R2 for up to 4TB storage. Of course, this particular Windows release has been available since late 2006, so we're not too terribly impressed -- but the company seems to think that it's important for you to know all about it. In addition, this bad boy has support for Raid 5/0/1 and VSS, and rocks four hot-swappable drive bays. The WS-Q2.0TL/R5 (2TB) is available for ¥158,000 ($1,658), while the WS-Q4.0TL/R5 (4TB) will set you back ¥198,000 ($2,077). And no, it won't fit in your pocket.

[Via Akihabara News]

QNAP's SS-839 Pro Tubo NAS keeps it real with 8 bays and 4TB RAID storage

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Jun 22nd 2009 at 4:23PM

It looks like QNAP's insane desire to present the market with bigger and better network storage continues unabated. The SS-839 Pro Turbo NAS is being billed as the world's smallest 8-bay Intel Atom NAS, featuring a 1.6GHz N270 processor, 2GB memory, up to eight 2.5-inch hard drives or solid state disks, up to 4TB storage capacity, 2 eSATA and 5 USB ports. Power consumption with eight hard drives installed is about 34W. Software features include the usual: thin provisioning, online RAID capacity expansion and level migration, AES 256-bit volume-based encryption, Wake on LAN, SMS and email alerts, network surveillance via IP cameras, and the like. So, what are you waiting for? Hit that read link for the full, unexpurgated story.

Gallery: QNAP's SS-839 Pro Tubo NAS keeps it real with 8 bays and 4TB RAID storage

Team Group shoves two 250GB SSDs into single enclosure

by Darren Murph posted Jun 3rd 2009 at 10:27AM

It looks like OCZ Technology did it first with the Colossus, but you won't hear us kvetching over competition in the SSD space. Over at Computex, Team Group Inc. was caught showing off a similar product, the Combo Pro SATA II 500GB. In essence, this device pairs up two 250GB SSDs in a RAID 0 configuration, providing maximum read / write rates of 230MBps and 160MBps, respectively. There's no word just yet on pricing or availability, but we definitely like where this is headed. Now, if only those MSRPs would head south too, we'd really have something to cheer about.

LaCie hurdles the 10TB barrier, upgrades its 2big and 5big RAID drives

by Joseph L. Flatley posted May 11th 2009 at 5:06PM

The kids at LaCie are clearly out of control. Every time we turn around they're unveiling another big, bad storage solution aimed at a world hungry for... well, more storage. If the old 8TB model was a little slight for your liking, the company has announced product upgrades for both the 2big Network and 5big Network devices, featuring Apple Time Machine and in the case of the 5big device, iTunes server support. While the latter rocks five hot-swappable drive bays for up to 10TB storage with models starting at $799.99, the 2big device sports a 'mere' 4TB of RAID action starting at $319.99. These are devices that speak calmly, in an eerie monotone, pronouncing that they still have the "utmost enthusiasm and confidence" in your mission. They clearly "want to help you." Available soon on the company's website.

Continue reading LaCie hurdles the 10TB barrier, upgrades its 2big and 5big RAID drives

PhotoFast G-Monster-Promise PCIe SSD does 1000MB/s read and writes

by Nilay Patel posted May 5th 2009 at 4:02PM

Just a month after dropping the 750MB/s G-Monster PCIe SSD RAID card on us, PhotoFast is back with the G-Monster Promise, which jacks read / write speeds to 1000MB/s. Not the fastest we've ever seen, but we'll take it. It'll be available sometime this month in Japan in sizes from 128GB to 1TB -- just make sure you've save a lot of pennies, cause it ain't gonna be cheap.

Update: Our friends at Engadget Japan have chimed in to tell us they're on sale in the Akihabara district to the tune of USD $1,600 for 128GB, $2,000 for 512GB, and a whopping $4,500 for the 1TB model.

[Via PCLaunches]

LaCie debuts 8TB 4big Quadra, new RAID bundles at NAB

by Darren Murph posted Apr 20th 2009 at 2:35PM

Not sure if you've noticed, but NAB is in full swing over in Las Vegas. Not one to let a spotlight pass it by, LaCie has today introduced a new 8TB model of its 4big Quadra alongside a trio of new storage bundles for professionals who need gobs of free space and loads of speed. The 4big Quadra is a 4-bay RAID solution that handles hot-swappable disks and seven RAID modes, and by hitting up one the outfit's new combos (8TB, 16TB and 32TB), you also get a 4-port eSATA II PCI Express Card 3Gb/s card. Check 'em this May starting at $1,999.

Gallery: LaCie debuts 8TB 4big Quadra, new RAID bundles at NAB

OWC ships 4-bay Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 RAID box

by Darren Murph posted Apr 14th 2009 at 7:47PM

You won't find an Ethernet port here, but you will find everlasting peace, love and a grand total of four direct connection options alongside four hot swappable bays for up to 8TB of local storage. OWC's latest is the quad-interface Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 RAID box, which sports FireWire 400, FireWire 800, eSATA and USB 2.0 sockets 'round back. Users are graced with a number of selectable RAID settings -- 0, 1, 5, 10 or Span (NRAID) -- and the front-panel LEDs keep you informed at a glance. The box is shipping right now in a variety of configurations ranging from $679.99 (500GB x 4) to $1,149.99 (1TB x 4), and despite the unmistakable cheesegrater design, these actually won't zero out your data if plugged into a PC.

Data Robotics goes large with 8-bay DroboPro

by Darren Murph posted Apr 7th 2009 at 8:30AM

Not sure if you've been keeping tabs, but it's been just shy of a full year since we've seen a new piece of hardware from the labs of Data Robotics. 60,000 Drobos later, we're being formally introduced to the bigger, stronger and more capacious DroboPro. As the name implies, this 8-bay beast is truly aimed at small businesses and creative professionals, but there's nothing here that the average consumer can't fall in love with. Generally speaking, everything here has remained the same as the second-gen Drobo: it looks similar, it uses the same genius BeyondRAID intelligent data storage technology and it's not really meant to be used on networks. Interested to hear more? Hop on past the break for all the dirt.

Gallery: Data Robotics goes large with 8-bay DroboPro

Continue reading Data Robotics goes large with 8-bay DroboPro

Super Talent's 2TB PCIe RAIDDrive promises 1.3GBps sequential writes, 1.2GBps reads

by Thomas Ricker posted Apr 1st 2009 at 5:31AM

These PCIe SSD drives can't arrive fast enough for our needs... ok, wants considering the thousands they cost. The latest announcement comes by way of Super Talent Technology with its new 2TB RAIDDrive. The card slips into a PCIe x8 slot and ships in Enterprise (battery backed), Workstation, and Gamer (!) configurations with MLC (cheap, fast) or SLC (expensive, faster) NAND and optional RAID 5 capability. Super Talent claims that its RAIDDrives "are capable of delivering sequential Read speeds of up to 1.2GB/s, sequential Write speeds of up to 1.3GB/s." Unfortunately, no ship date or price was announced, only that we'll get more "performance details" in June. Presumably that means something useful like random IOPS benchmarks.

[Via Impress]

24 Samsung SSDs get strung together for supercomputer fun

by Donald Melanson posted Mar 9th 2009 at 12:42PM

It wasn't all that long ago when a mere nine SSD drives in a RAID array was enough to cause most folks' jaws to drop, but the world of ridiculous technology exercises moves quickly, and we can only be thankful that a select few continually feel the need to one-up each other and share their results with all of us. This latest effort comes from a group enlisted by Samsung (in a not too thinly disguised marketing exercise), who paired up 24 SSDs in a RAID array totaling 6TB in size. Even more impressive than that, however, is the 2GB per second throughput speed they managed to achieve, which they naturally spared no expense in demonstrating -- as you can see in the video after the break.

[Via Reddit]

Continue reading 24 Samsung SSDs get strung together for supercomputer fun

OCZ's Z Drive puts 1TB of blazing SSD capacity in your PCIe slot: eyes-on

by Darren Murph posted Mar 5th 2009 at 2:42PM

Here's a little something OCZ Technology cooked up just for CeBIT: a PCIe enclosure that'll contain 1TB worth of SSD storage with maximum read rates of up to 600MB/sec and maximum write speeds of up to 500MB/sec. Oh, and the sustained write speeds are right around 400MB/sec. Essentially, this device will contain four 256GB MLC-based OCZ SSDs along with 256MB of ECC DDR2 RAM; when slapped in one's desktop, they can choose to set it up as the boot disk or a slave. OCZ is also hoping to offer a 4TB edition by the end of the year, which is totally plausible given that 1TB SSDs are already a reality. The on-hand demo was just a mockup shell, but the finalized version shouldn't look much different than what's pictured in the gallery below. As for pricing and availability? It should hit the US of A in around six weeks for somewhere between $1,500 and $2,000. It's high-end, y'all.

Gallery: OCZ's Z Drive puts 1TB of blazing SSD capacity in your PCIe slot: eyes-on

QNAP's new 4-bay Atom-based TS-439 Pro Turbo NAS

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Feb 4th 2009 at 1:51PM

It's already been an exciting year for QNAP fanboys... not only has the company graced the world (and our pages) with a new 6-bay NAS, but it's already back for more. Billed as "the world's first 4-bay Intel Atom-based NAS," the TS-439 Pro Turbo NAS sports an Intel 1.6GHz CPU, 1GB memory, support for RAID 0/1/5/6/5+spare configurations, up to 6TB capacity (that's before you start adding external drives) and a whole host of server functions, including all the FTPing, DDNS, MySQL and XDove mail servin' your little heart desires. And if that weren't enough, the Surveillance Station feature supports video monitoring and recording from up to four IP-based cameras. No price listed, but we do have plenty of glamor shots for you in the gallery below.

Gallery: QNAP 4-bay TS-439 Pro Turbo NAS

QNAP unveils stately 6-bay TS-639 Pro Turbo NAS device

by Darren Murph posted Jan 10th 2009 at 10:26PM

It's been a hot minute since we saw anything fly from QNAP, but today the outfit is unveiling a NAS so intimidating, so beastly that it practically has to be locked away in a data closet. The TS-639 Pro Turbo checks in with six bays, a 1.6GHz Intel CPU, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, gigabit Ethernet and support for RAID 0/1/5/6/5+spare configurations along with built-in iSCSI target service with Thin Provisioning. There's no mention of a price, but that's likely because you just aren't ready to handle the truth.