The Areca 24TB 8-Disk Thunderbolt RAID Enclosure and Drive Kit from B&H is a compact tower with 8 swappable drive bays for 3.5" 6Gb/s SAS or SATA drives and includes eight 3TB hard drives. To ensure the host computer receives all the speed advantages of a high speed RAID array, the ARC-8050 uses Thunderbolt to interface with the host computer which supports up to 10 Gb/s data throughput. 10 Gb/s is fast enough that multiple RAID arrays can be daisy chained without a performance bottleneck, which is why the ARC-8050 features two Thunderbolt ports. The array also has an Ethernet port for simple device management through a connected computers web browser.
Thanks to the ARC-8050's dual-core 800 Mhz processor and 1 GB of DDR3 RAM, no external RAID controller is needed on the host computer, this makes set-up easier and allows the ARC-8050 to work with computers without PCIE slots like workstation laptops and all-in-one desktops. The ARC-8050 also works with PC and Mac computers with Thunderbolt Ports.
With the eight 3.5" 3TB hard drives installed the ARC-8050 can be configured in virtually any RAID level, including RAID 0, 1, 1E, 3, 5, 6, 10, 30, 50, 60, Single Disk, or JBOD. Depending on what level is used, the maximum speed and formatted capacity of the RAID array will vary. Multiple RAID level options allow the user to select the best balance of data protection and speed that the task requires. Two brushless cooling fans also help protect against drive failure by keeping everything cool.