This news bits roundup covers several exciting product announcements: OWC announced its Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual mini portable RAID solution supporting 2.5" drives; Transcend announced low-profile and half-slim SSDs for small form factor applications; lastly, HighPoint announced its RocketRAID 2700 now supports SATA port multipliers.
OWC Announces Portable RAID Storage Device
Other World Computing (OWC) has announced its Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual mini bus powered portable hardware RAID storage solution. 14 pre-configured models are available with hardware RAID 1 mirror or RAID 0 stripe configurations. The devices support up to 2TB of space via two 2.5-inch drive bays.
They feature a "quad interface" with FireWire 800/400, USB 2.0, and e-SATA connections. It measures 5.6" (D) x 6.1" (W) x 1.1" (H) and weighs less than two pounds. Since it is bus-powered, no AC adapter is needed. It is also fanless.
The Mercury Elite-AL Pro Dual mini is available now in 14 preconfigured models starting at $179.99.
Transcend Announced Low-Profile mSATA SSDs
Transcend has announced a new series of low-profile mSATA and half-slim SSDs to its industrial product line. They are designed for use in small form-factor devices such as ultraportable notebooks, tablets, and GPS devices.
The mSATA models are only 1/12 the volume of normal 2.5-inch SSDs and 1/7 the weight. They measure 29.85mm x 50.8mm x 3.5mm. The half-slim models are 54mm x 39mm x 4mm, slightly larger than the mSATA models but still 1/7 the volume of normal 2.5-inch SSDs.
The mSATA SSDs are available in 32GB and 64GB capacities and the half-slim models are available in capacities ranging from 4GB to 64GB.
HighPoint Technologies Announces PCI-e 2.0 x16 SATA Port Multiplier
HighPoint Technologies has announced an update to its RocketRAID 2700 SATA Host Adapter Series with support for Port Multiplier (PM) storage enclosure. The company says this is the first PCI-e x16 SATA Host Adapter to support PM enclosures. It is an alternative to SAS expanders for those who require large amounts of storage; SATA PM can scale storage much more economically.
The RocketRAID 2700 SATA PM series can scale storage capacities up to a maximum of 64 devices or 192TB. The company says total cost of ownership will be 67% less compared to an SAS expander solution.
The RocketRAID 2700 PM series is available with 4, 8, and 16 ports; the 4- and 8-port models support PCI-e 2.0 x8 while the 16-port model supports PCI-e 2.0 at x16.
HighPoint RocketRAID Product Page
