According to Fantom, the new FireWire RAID is free of the limitations of SCSI-based RAID systems — there are no drive IDs to set, no termination problems to troubleshoot, and no cable lengths to worry about. Fantom said the whole system can be set up in minutes, and like other FireWire peripherals, is capable of being hot-plugged without needing to power down the computer.
Fantom Drives general manager Rezza Zaimi said that the new Fantom FireWire RAID is well suited to prosumers and enterprise customers with demanding performance and capacity requirements. “What is exceptional is the ease of use: We’ve got 150GB of storage running at 7,200RPM, and nobody needs to mess with special cables, jumpers or termination. This is how RAID should be,” said Zaimi.
The Fantom FireWire RAID is a level 0 system, or a striped disk array. Fantom’s newly announced RAIDs use two individual drive mechanisms. In a striped array, each block of data is written to one of the two hard drives. By spreading the load across multiple drives and channels, a RAID 0 system can achieve better performance than a single drive. Fantom also plans on releasing a series of four-unit FireWire RAID drives (pictured here) with capacities up to 300MB.
Storage capacities in the new Fantom FireWire RAID configurations run 90GB (2x45GB) for US$1,599; 120GB (2x60GB) for $1,899, or 150GB (2x75GB) for $2,199. Pricing and availability on the forthcoming 4 drive RAID systems is yet to be announced.
Fantom said the new drives are available immediately from Fantom retailers worldwide, and through online mail-order companies. The drives ship with an IEEE-1394 cable and InTech’s Hard Disk Speed Tools software.