This news bits roundup covers several new stories: OWC has announced its Mercury Rack Pro rackmount servers are available with up to 12TB of storage; Patriot announced its Supersonic USB 3.0 flash drive with up to 100MB/s read; lastly, the U.S. Military has released an order that bans removable media.
OWC Expands Rackmount Storage Up to 12TB
OWC has announced its Mercury Rack Pro rackmount storage solutions are now available with up to 12TB total storage capacity. The 1U rackmount designs have four bays that can accommodate up to 3TB hard drives in each bay. There are two models available: the "quad interface" model with FireWire 400/800, USB 2.0, eSATA, and hardware RAID 0/1/5/10/Span modes; and an eSATA port multiplier RAID ready model. The Mercury Rack Pro is compatible with Mac OS X 10.2 and higher and Windows XP and higher.
Different configurations are available now starting at $529.99 with a two-year warranty. Enterprise Editions designed for 24/7 operation are also available and come with a five-year warranty and data recovery service.
Patriot Announces USB 3.0 Flash Drive
Patriot Memory introduced its Supersonic USB 3.0 flash drive with a single-chip USB 3.0 controller. The integrated controller is designed to increase performance compared to standard bridge-based solutions. Patriot says the drives have up to 100MB/s sequential read and 70MB/s sequential write.
The Supersonic series drives feature aluminum housings and are shock-resistant. They are expected to be available in Q1 2011; pricing information has not been announced.
U.S. Military Orders Ban on Removable Media
After the recent security issues stemming from WikiLeaks, the U.S.Air Force released a "Cyber Control Order", ordering airmen to stop using any kind of removable media (CDs, DVDs, flash drives, external hard drives, and so on) or face a court martial. Removable media can lead to unauthorized data transfer.
The Pentagon is also considering the ability to write data to removable media on classified computers.
