FirewireDirect.com has, as the name implies, focused itself on bringing to market various products designed to support the IEEE1394 standard, or FireWire as it’s known to Mac users. It may seem a bit counter-intuitive, then, but the company has introduced its first non-FireWire-based product. It’s called the Vanguard Ultra 3 SCSI Hardware RAID system.
The Ultra 3 SCSI version of the company’s Vanguard RAID array can achieve even higher speeds than its FireWire-based counterparts, according to the company, and can perform at RAID level 0, 1, 0+1, 3, 5, and 3 & 5 with spares. Available with up to 960GB of storage capacity, FirewireDirect claimed that the new system can achieve throughput of up to 100MB/sec.
FirewireDirect.com said that the new system has been developed for digital media pros needing the fastest RAID solution possible. The throughput speed of the drive makes it suitable for non-linear digital video editing, 2D and 3D animation, game development, and HD playback and capture.
The enclosure sports a RISC processor with a hardware RAID controller equipped with 256MB of cache. It’s available in 600, 800, and 960GB capacities, as well as a do-it-yourself “Enclosure Kit.” The company’s Chief Technical Officer Daniel Jackson said that the Vanguard Ultra 3 SCSI Hardware RAID System will work with any operating system that supports SCSI storage devices — including Windows, Mac OS, SGI, Novell, Solaris, and Linux.
The Vanguard system can either be set on a desktop as a tower storage system or in a 19 inch rackmount system; rack mounted, the Vanguard occupies 4U of space. It sports removable drive trays and redundant power supplies, and features a suspended drive tray structure that FirewireDirect.com said reduces vibration, enhances performance and increases lifespan of the unit.
Prices range from US$4,495 for the basic enclosure kit to $7,735 to the fully populated 960GB RAID system.