FirewireDirect.com has released a new drive for video professionals looking for fast SCSI drives. The Vanguard Ultra is a 3 SCSI hard drive that features multiple level striping and designed for reliable media storage in event of disc failure. Though Firewire independent, beefy storage capacities offer an alluring appeal. According to FirewireDirect:
FirewireDirect.com, Inc., has announced their first non-FireWire RAID product, a high powered Ultra 3 SCSI solution. The new Vanguard Ultra is an evolution of their Vanguard Hardware RAID FireWire system and a response to the digital video and digital audio community’s experiences with FirewireDirect’s FireWire RAID solutions.
The Vanguard Ultra is a high speed Ultra 3 SCSI solution especially designed for digital media professionals needing the fastest available RAID solutions at a cost comparable to systems with much less to offer.
With the Vanguard Ultra the mission is to make a top flight Ultra 3 SCSI solution for the fastest transfer speeds, the same ease of use as FireWire systems, and backed by FirewireDirect’s RAID specialist support team.
With throughput speeds approaching 100MB/s, this solution is specifically designed for applications including non-linear video editing, 2D and 3D animation, game development and provides the data transfer speeds needed for demanding applications like HD playback and capture. It features a high speed RISC processor, and a hardware RAID controller with 256MB of cache. It supports RAID levels 0 (Striping), 1 (Mirroring), 0+1, 3 and 5, and in levels 3 and 5 can employ a hot spare drive available to automatically restore redundancy with no data loss in the event of a disc failure. It is available in capacities of 600GB, 800GB, 960GB and as an Enclosure Kit.
You can find more information about the Vanguard Ulta at the FirewireDirect.com Web site. The Vanguard Ulta Series of drives are available starting at US$6,665.50.