RAID 5
Latest
TiVo proves that 'size matters' with absurd 26,000-hour DVR
TiVo has taken the TV-watching to a new, insane dimension with the Mega, a rack-mountable, 24TB DVR that will cost around $5,000. That trumps its current flagship Roamio Pro's 4TB storage by sixfold and makes it look quaint in comparison. Like that box, the Mega supports six channels of simultaneous recording, built-in transcoding, multi-room capability and live streaming to smartphones or tablets. In addition, it uses RAID 5 and hot-swappable drives, so that you won't lose your Shark Week marathon in case of a hard disk failure.
LaCie 2big, 4big Quadra drives hop the USB 3.0 bandwagon, give Macs 12TB of speedy storage
LaCie has been sprucing up its smaller drives to handle a new crop of Macs that support USB 3.0. It's now turn for the big boys to play. Updated versions of the 2big Quadra and 4big Quadra (not yet shown here) use the faster port to reach the potential of their high-capacity RAID arrays, peaking at either 210MB/s for the dual-drive 2big and 245MB/s for its quad-drive cousin. We're not seeing a fundamental shakeup of the design apart from the higher speeds, although that's not necessarily a problem given the FireWire 800 to catch legacy users and hot-swappable bays for future upgrades. Video editors and other storage mavens should just prepare themselves to pony up. The upgraded Quadra models will start at respective $499 (4TB) and $1,099 (8TB) prices when they ship in October, and they're only poised to get more expensive when LaCie sets the costs for the higher-end 6TB and 12TB models.
Synology DS1511+ does the 3TB-per-drive dance, backs up most of your neighborhood
Once one network attached storage manufacturer upgraded to 3TB hard drives, it was only a matter of time before the rest followed suit, and this time it's Synology's turn with the DiskStation DS1511+. In case you haven't done the math already, this particular unit can store up to 15 terabytes of your juiciest secrets across five 3TB hot-swappable drives, and its 1.8GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of memory handles a RAID 5 array capable of speeding that data across a local area network at up to 197 MB / sec read speeds and 165 MB / sec writes. If that capacity isn't enough to house your plan for world domination and monitor all the IP cameras in your underground volcano lair, the unit can scale up to 45TB with a couple of secondary expansion units, each with five more 3TB drives of their own. Yours for roughly $900 -- sans storage -- wherever NAS are sold. PR after the break.
Homemade 16TB NAS dwarfs the competition with insane build quality (video)
From the man that brought you the OS Xbox Pro and the Cinematograph HD comes... a cockpit canopy filled with hard drives? Not quite. Meet the Black Dwarf, a custom network-attached-storage device from the mind of video editor Will Urbina, packing 16TB of RAID 5 magnetic media and a 1.66GHz Atom N270 CPU into a completely hand-built Lexan, aluminum and steel enclosure. Urbina says the Dwarf writes at 88MB per second and reads at a fantastic 266MB per second, making the shuttlecraft-shaped 12.7TB array nearly as speedy as an SSD but with massive capacity and some redundancy to boot. As usual, the DIY guru shot a professional time-lapse video of his entire build process, and this one's not to be missed -- it showcases some pretty spiffy camerawork as well as the man's welding skills. See sparks fly after the break.
Three WD VelociRaptors get setup in RAID 5 array, testing ensues
Western Digital's hasty VelociRaptor already got reviewed by its lonesome, but for those thinking of getting a RAID system into their rig, HotHardware has taken a trio of 'em, setup a RAID 5 array and put the drives through their collaborative paces. The configuration was made possible thanks to an Areca PCIe X8 hardware RAID card, and the results were rather impressive -- to no one's surprise, might we add. Across the entire volume, performance was generally linear save for a few small valleys along the way, burst speed was 598MB/sec and average read speed was 209.4MB/sec, which pretty much blew the doors off of everything that came before it. Number lovers, there's more where this came from in the read link below.
Buffalo intros TS-HTGL/R5 TeraStation Pro NAS series
Keeping things fresh in its TeraStation lineup, Buffalo is dropping three new NAS units touting up to two terabytes of capacity and faster access speeds than previous models. Besides sporting the obligatory RAID 0/1/5 functionality (and looking exactly like its predecessor), the TeraStation Pro TS-HTGL/R5 series holds four hard drives behind a lockable door, gigabit Ethernet, and a snazzy LCD panel to show internal temperature and worrisome alerts. Slated to be available in 1.0, 1.6, and 2.0TB flavors, the units will also support "ActiveDirectory domain," which apparently pulls double duty as a security gate to ward off curious intruders and a data divisor based on group / role login preferences. Although pricing deets are currently unavailable, the trio will be getting NASty (read: shipping) in early December.[Via Impress]
Toshiba updates Z2000, H2000 & C2000 REGZA LCD lineup
Toshiba just unleashed a volley of new LCDs at the Japanese crowd today, including an updated lineup of 1080p Z2000 sets that are sure to make their little LCD brothers green with envy; highlights here include 1,920 x 1,080 resolutions and an extensive array of inputs, most notably three HDMI, two IEEE 1394 and three Ethernet jacks. The 47-incher in the Z2000 series is going to be available come late October for ¥600,000 ($5,187) while the smaller 42-, 37- and lower resolution 32-inch (1,366 x 768) sets are going to be available in the middle of September for a more modest ¥500,000 ($4,132), ¥420,000 ($3,631), and ¥300,000 ($2,593), respectively. Not everyone is going to be willing to drop the fat cash on the Z2000 line, though, so Toshiba is trying to hit the lower price brackets with the 1,366 x 768-outfitted H2000 and C2000 series. These two lineups are nearly identical, except the H2000s have a built-in 300GB HDD and an Internet powered EPG that probably won't do you any good here in the States, anyway; but if that is your type of thing, expect to pick up this line in late October, too, with the 42-incher starting at ¥450,000 ($3,890), the 37-incher going for ¥370,000 ($3,198), and the 32-incher sporting a ¥300,000 ($2,593) pricetag. The C2000 lineup is basically composed of your run-of-the-mill Best Buy-type displays, with just one HDMI port each, but rather affordable prices: ¥180,000 ($1,547) for the 23-incher, ¥200,000 ($1,719) for the 26-incher, ¥320,000 ($2,751) for the 37-incher, and lastly, ¥400,000 ($3,458) for the 42-inch model. Besides those 1080p LCDs, the highlight of this release event had to be the new I-O Data/Toshiba DLNA certified RAID-5 media servers that utilize those Ethernet ports on the back of the Z2000 line to not only stream media but also record remotely with just the push of a button. The one terabyte server is going to retail for ¥111,615 ($959) come late September, while the two terabyte flavor will hit shelves simultaneously with a heftier ¥221,445 ($1904 USD) sticker. Keep reading for more pics of the new sets, as well as some hot server pr0n...Read: Z2000, H2000 & C2000 LCDs [Via Impress]Read: Media Server [Via Impress]
Buffalo spices up spacious NAS line
We can always count on Buffalo to keep the updates rolling for their NAS products, and thanks to cheap and expansive hard drives, we're liking where things are going. Their new 2TB TeraStation holds four drives -- we'll leave the math to you here -- and sports Gigabit Ethernet and RAID 5 compatibility. The LinkStation merely houses a single drive, up to 750GB in capacity, but keeps the Gigabit connectivity for high-speed fun. Both devices also support DLNA to keep the media flowing, but we're not so sure on price or availability. Luckily these are the "consumer" line, so the damage shouldn't be too great.
