On Tuesday, WiebeTech kicked off the post-keynote news deluge at Macworld Conference & Expo with the announcement of three new products in their ever-growing storage solutions line.
The ComboDock is the latest in a series of docking devices from the company. It allows you to connect IDE drives to a bridge that offers dual daisy-chainable FireWire 800 ports — compatible with FireWire 400 — and a single USB2 port. Its self-aligning connector allows for easy hook-ups of 3.5-inch drives and its AC adapter is compatible with outlets anywhere in the world.
ComboDock will be available January 14 for US$169.95. A version without an AC adapter and FireWire 800/400 cable will be US$149.95.
Next up from the company is the QuadFire, which includes four hot swappable FireWire 800 bays in a 1U rack mount enclosure. WiebeTech says it was designed specifically for multimedia developers as a back-up addition to Xserve environments, but the company notes that it meets IT department requirements too.
QuadFire offers daisy-chainable FireWire 800 or USB2 access to each bay and includes an OXUF922 bridge for high-performance transfers that can reach up to 200MB per second. It will be available January 26 in two configurations: a 640GB model for US$2,199.95 and a 1 Terabyte model for US$3,199.95. Extra 250GB and 160GB trays are $599.95 and $379.95, respectively.
Finally, WiebeTech has targeted Power Mac G5 owners with the G5Jam, which allows them to increase their computers’ internal storage to four drives and even RAID their set-up with Mac OS X’s Soft RAID utility. The company notes that the resulting performance exceeds 200MB per second, which makes it ideal for editing of uncompressed digital video in Final Cut Pro.
“We’re thrilled that this product allows true high definition editing on a stock G5,” said Lowell Kay president of Dr Rawstock, a distributor of digital editing systems to the entertainment industry. “It’s phenomenal that a G5 can now support 1080i 10bit high definition editing with the storage system contained inside the box.”
G5Jam includes a new cooling baffle plate that provides a larger heat sink for the two additional drives while preserving the G5’s original air flow, a serial ATA adapter card that can be installed in any open PCI slot, the necessary cables, and four drives. It will be available January 19 in two configurations: a 640GB model for US$1,499.95 and a 1 Terabyte model for US$2,499.95.
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