Sans Digital Intros Tower Storage System

Sans Digital MobileRAID MR8X6

Sans Digital has introduced an eight-bay storage system within a compact tower case for smaller businesses.

The MobileRAID MR8X6 comes standard with a 6 Gb SAS interface through an SFF-8088 external multilane connector. The directed attached storage (DAS) supports 6 Gb/s SAS or SATA hard drives.

The MR8X6 has a data transfer rate of more than 800 MB per second, making the product suitable for video editing or server database applications, according to Sans Digital. The system provides storage expansion of up to seven more MS8X6s, each with a maximum of 24 TB, using the hardware RAID controller in the systems.

"The MobileRAID MR8X6 is a versatile RAID storage product that could be utilized in a large variety of data storage applications," Stanley Chan, director of business development for Sans Digital, said in a statement.

Sans Digital has included features more common to enterprise rack-mount storage systems. They include storage expansion through a built-in expansion port and online RAID expansion without system downtimes.

Other enterprise features include remote storage management and email notification for critical events. All these features come standard.

The MR8X6 provides hardware RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50 and 60 data protection against hard drive failure and supports clustering applications and storage failover through dual-channel SAS interfaces. The system has a built-in processor for handling RAID algorithmic calculations, offloading the workload from the CPU in the host computers or servers.

Use of a RAID processor also eliminates operating system compatibility problems, which are common with RAID controller device drivers, Sans Digital says. The system supports Windows, including Windows Server 2008, Mac OS X and Linux. Virtualization applications are also supported, including VMware ESX/ESXi Vshpere, Critix XGen Server, and Microsoft Hyper-V.

The MobileRAID MR8X6, introduced Wednesday, has a starting price of $3,750.

Sans Digital also provides rack-mount RAID storage. The company launched last month the AccuSTOR AS108XP, a 1U eight bay system that supports 2.5-inch SATA or SAS hard drives or solid-state drives. The system has a data transfer speed of more than 650 MB per second and is suitable for video editing, server database, or data backup applications. The starting price is $939.