WiebeTech LLC on Wednesday announced its new TrayDock Extreme TrayDock eSATA, two new external RAID-based storage systems with 2 or 4-bay reloadable drive trays. The TrayDock Extreme is a FireWire-based RAID system, while the eSATA supports external Serial ATA (eSATA)-based interfaces. The 2-bay systems start at US$349.95 for a bare enclosure, the 4-bay systems start at $449.95. Both will begin shipping next week, according to WiebeTech.
The TrayDock Extreme 2-bay systems work with either SATA or IDE-based drives; the 4-bay version is IDE only. They have two FireWire 800 and one FireWire 400 interfaces, and use a hardware RAID controller to stripe the drives together as one single logical volume.
The TrayDock eSATA has an individual eSATA back panel port for each drive. Users can either use RAID software to create larger logical volumes or use the drives as a JBOD (Just a Bunch Of Disks). WiebeTech makes available a PCI expansion card with external SATA ports as well. Prices top off at $2,199.95 for a fully-loaded eSATA 4-bay system with 4 400GB hard disk drive mechanisms and an 8-port PCI SATA card.