Positioning it as a “cost efficient alternative to Apple’s Xserve RAID,” the dr group (formerly Dr RawStock) on Monday announced its DRaid Serial ATA RAID storage system. Aimed at digital content creators and video editors, the new drive system offers RAID level 0 and RAID level 5 ( capabilities.
RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, and it’s a popular way to achieve higher performance or better stability for hard disk drive-based storage systems. RAID Level 0 provides striping capabilities — spreading out blocks of data between multiple hard disk drive mechanisms, which can be faster than reading and writing data to a single mechanism. RAID Level 5 combines striping with error correction, making the system both fast and fault-tolerant.
An external RAID solution, DRaid comes in four and eight-drive configurations and connects to a Mac or PC using a SATA PCI expansion card. The drives are housed in an aluminum chassis with rubber shock-mounted drive mounts. The systems feature an LCD display that reports individual drive activity time and temperature readout. The DRaid also includes lockable drive bays. DRaid systems cost US$1,320 to $5,200 depending on configuration.