Fast, cheaper, better: G-Tech vs. CalDigit

[Dan Blanchett]

My G-Speed XL is dual 4G fibre

Hi Mark, what brand fibre cards are you using? I see that G-tech recommends Atto, but they can be pricey for Quad Channel 4GB fibre ($2995) and Dual ($1500).

[Paul Lee]

Rivai,
I think ours is 4TB on paper but that formats out (RAID 5) to just over 3TB. Don't know current price as they have updated. You should go to their site and talk to them directly or find a dealer.

[RivaiC]

Does Caldigit supports RAID 3 ?

[Paul Lee]

Not sure. I highly reccomend you give them a call and ask for John.

[RivaiC]

Not sure, they haven't reply for my last mail. I will see when the times come.

[Adam Jeal]

Check this out. 8TB eSATA RAID with insane performance/price ratio - 570MB/s sustained. $8399.00..

http://www.dulcesystems.com/html/pro_dq.html

adam

[Sven Seynaeve]

Looks even more promissing then the caldigit indeed. But will there be a way to use it on multiple workstations while streaming same files to them, as far as i can see it doesn't right now?

[Mike McCarthy]

No sharing without networking, with its inefficiencies for high speed work. Keep in mind the numbers they advertise are high because they used the new 1TB disks, which transfer 80-90MB/s by themselves. The only thing they add, is obviously a very efficient RAID engine that doesn't slow down the system at all. The loss for RAID 0 to 5 is one disk of speed PLUS XOR engine inefficiency. In this case 8x80=640MB/s; 1/8 less is 560MB/s for Raid five, close to what they quote. 640MB/s at RAID 0 is no big deal, almost any controller can get that with eight new 1TB drives. It just needs a PCI-X or PCIe x4 connection to the motherboard to keep up.

The big decision is, do you want your raid controller in your drive enclosure or in your workstation?

[Dan Blanchett]

Another option might be MacRAID. You can get 12TB (10.5 usable in raid 5) for just over $10K. Has anyone tried it?

http://www.macraid.com/mr838rfc.htm