G-SPEED Studio Looks Like a Mac Pro & Acts Like a 24TB 4-Bay Thunderbolt RAID Array
If you were worried that the new Mac Pro might start feeling a little lonely as the only shiny trashcan-like piece of hardware on your desk, fear not. G-Technology, makers of video editing-ready external hard drives such as G-RAID, recently announced a 4-bay external RAID enclosure with Thunderbolt 2 dubbed G-SPEED Studio. Sporting up to 24TB in enterprise-class 7200RPM hard drives, G-SPEED Studio also bears a rather uncanny resemblance to the Mac Pro.
Somehow I doubt the benefits of the Mac Pro's design extend to similarly styled external RAID enclosures -- but hey, why not? The two certainly look nice sitting together, the G-SPEED taking the design concept of the G-RAID Studio and literally expanding on it:
With each 7200RPM HDD hooked into the enclosure with 6GB/s SATA III, G-SPEED Studio is capable of sustained transfer rates up to 700MB/s over Thunderbolt 2, probably depending on the RAID setup you choose. It also allows daisy-chaining with its dual Thunderbolt ports. The unit is configurable to RAID 0 (striped), RAID 1 (mirrored), RAID 5 (striped with parity), & RAID 10 (striped set of mirrored pairs).
G-SPEED Studio is available from G-Tech in three configurations: 12TB for $2200 (or, uhh -- $2000 on Amazon?), 16TB for $2700, or 24TB for $3600. For comparison, see the fairly similar OWC's ThunderBay IV RAID 5 edition with 12TB for $1080, 16TB for $1430, or 20TB for $1830 Alternatively, see the Promise Pegasus2 with 12TB for $2230, 18TB for $3000, or 24TB for $3600 -- although it seems these storage configurations require either the 6-bay or 8-bay models of the unit. The Pegasus appears to be the only contender among these three that gives you the option for RAID 6 (striped with double-parity).
G-SPEED Studio is backed by a 3-year warranty and unlimited tech support. The 12TB and 16TB models are in stock, with an expected shipping wait of one week for the 24TB model.
Link: G-SPEED Studio Hardware RAID -- G-Technology
