Sonnet 16TB (8 x 2TB) FUS-DX8SRT2-16TB Fusion DX800RAID Thunderbolt 2 Edition

The Thunderbolt 2 adapter chassis houses a SAS/SATA RAID controller card that uses a Marvell 88RC9580 RAID-on-Chip (ROC) processor, which handles the throughput from all the drives with plenty of overhead. The RAID controller is configured with 512MB of ECC-protected cache memory, especially important to maintain data stream writes as the disk array nears capacity. Constructed of aluminum, the adapter's outer shell helps transfer heat away from the RAID controller card and securely protects it inside. The enclosure is ventilated front and back, and its quiet, temperature-controlled, variable-speed fan (with no switches or jumpers to configure) automatically cools the adapter; when not needed, the fan slows down to a whisper so you can work without a lot of noise in the background. Dual Thunderbolt 2 ports support daisy chain connections. The adapter is enviro-friendly, powering on and off with your computer.

This Thunderbolt storage system is designed for work environments where high performance and fault tolerance are critical, and simple expandability a must. It is fast enough to easily handle uncompressed HD video while protecting the data at the same time, yet flexible enough to be configured for any workflow. Under real world use (drives 85% filled and fragmented) with its drives formatted as a RAID 5 group (eight drives striped with parity across all group members), a Fusion DX800RAID Thunderbolt 2 Edition storage system is capable of single-stream 2K (2048 x 1556) LOG RGB capture and playback. It can achieve up to 725 MB/sec read, 640 MB/sec write (AJA Kona 1080HD test), fast enough to handle a single stream of uncompressed 10-bit 1080 4:4:4 HD, or multiple streams of ProRes 422, uncompressed 8-bit 1080 HD, DV, HDV, and DVCPRO video.
SpeedometerRaw data transfer rates are just one measure of a storage system's abilities, but they don't tell the whole story. How many video streams can be transferred at the same time without dropping frames is another measure critical in determining overall performance, and one that can greatly impact your workflow. The Fusion DX800RAID Thunderbolt 2 Edition storage system achieves high stream counts because of its ability to consistently and efficiently sustain data throughput, a result of incorporating ATTO Technologies' exclusive Advanced Data Streaming (ADS) Technology in the included Thunderbolt adapter. ADS provides controlled acceleration of data transfers, compensating for transfer speed peaks and drops to maintain a consistent data flow, allowing more streams without dropped frames for the bandwidth available.

The Fusion DX800RAID Thunderbolt 2 Edition employs Enterprise/RAID Edition hard drives that have been selected for their high performance, error handling, and reliability characteristics, especially when used in RAID groups. These drives are subjected to hours of additional, stringent testing to check for soft errors, vibration, and other reliability predictors. Just the sturdiest drives pass these tests and are prepared with special RAID-optimized firmware to become the building blocks of a reliable Fusion storage system.

This system supports RAID 4, DVRAID, 5, 6, and 10 formatting for balanced performance and protection, RAID 1 for redundancy, and RAID 0 for speed; JBOD support is available, too. This storage solution even support hot spares - you can set up your RAID group so that one or more designated hot spare drives wait unused in the background to automatically replace a failed drive without you having to lift a finger. All this flexibility is accomplished without switches - a simple to use configuration utility enables you to optimize your setup for specific workflow requirements.

Fusion DX800RAID storage systems integrate a quiet Vantec Stealth fan. This fan is 80% quieter than a standard case fan, making this system well suited for use in noise-sensitive environments.

Fusion DX800RAID storage systems link to the Sonnet RAID Thunderbolt 2 adapter chassis with robust mini-SAS to mini-SAS connector cables that lock securely at both ends.

The reliability of the Fusion DX800RAID Thunderbolt 2 Edition is further enhanced through SES (SCSI Enclosure Services) 2.0 compliance, a feature more commonly found on enterprise storage systems, and enhanced S.M.A.R.T (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) data reporting for each hard drive installed in the system. Built into the drive enclosure, SES functionality provides enhanced real-time monitoring and reporting of drive, power supply, and temperature status, with real time results displayed in utility application screens and the illumination of conveniently placed LEDs on the enclosure. S.M.A.R.T. data criteria can be used to notify you of an impending drive failure and enable you to minimize downtime as a result.

Each DX800RAID features an internal SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) expander that enables you to connect additional DX800RAID enclosures in a daisy chain, no additional RAID controller needed. This simplifies installation and significantly reduces your cost to expand capacity. Of course, if your needs are simpler, each system includes user-swappable drive modules so you can easily change sets of drives as you go.

With drives formatted as a RAID 4, 5, 6, or DVRAID protected group, the Fusion DX800RAID Thunderbolt 2 Edition storage system provides data protection in the event of a drive failure (two drives when formatted as a RAID 6 group). You can configure your system to provide visual and audible alerts, including e-mail notification in the event of a drive failure. A drive can be swapped out and the RAID group rebuilt in hours, or you can tune the rebuild priority to deliver full read performance during the process to keep you working while the RAID group rebuilds in the background.
Its Thunderbolt 2 adapter employs ATTO Technologies' exclusive DriveAssure Technology, which monitors drives' I/O performance and performs periodic drive scans to map out and repair bad sectors and slow spots without failing the drive. This proactive maintenance enables the controller to compensate for instances when a RAID group does not respond to a command within a specified time, which could lead to degraded performance (e.g., dropped frames), or worse, the RAID group being failed.
What happens if a drive does fail? In most instances, a protected RAID group rebuilds using data on the remaining drives. Protected RAID groups using high capacity drives face a greater risk of a second or third drive failure during a RAID group rebuild. When this occurs, most storage systems fail the RAID group and take it offline, making the data inaccessible. DriveAssure can recover data when other methods have failed. Its data recovery modes enable access to data in offline RAID groups so you can copy it to a new RAID group or continue working with it in the case of a soft drive failure. This ability can potentially mean the difference between losing a single file versus all of your assets.