6TB RAID 5 Storage for $750

[TheDingo]

I finally decided to buy a RAID 5 box for my editing set-up, and took the plunge with a unit from OWC as it looked like it offered good value in the low price category.

It took about 5 minutes to assemble, and performs much better than I expected for a RAID 5 set-up on low-temp GREEN WD drives:

ATTO Speed Benchmark ( see attached JPEG for details )

WRITE SPEED : 130 - 140 MB/Sec

READ SPEED : 180 - 195 MB/Sec

Running under Windows VISTA, RAID 5 created as one 4.5 TB GPT partition.

OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Qx2 RAID Box ( $ 320 )
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEQX2KIT0GB/

HighPoint Rocket 622 eSATA 3.0 Card ( $ 30 )
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115073&Tpk=rocket 622

4 x 1.5 TB WD Green SATA Drives ( 4 x $100 = $400 )
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136513&Tpk=WD 1.5 TB Green

 

[frosh]

sounds delicious, but i don't see the attached jpeg.

 

[TheDingo]

...Sorry, I messed up on the JPEG attachment. It's attached to this message.

BTW the OWC RAID5 box is completely hardware driven, so if one drive goes bad you just pop in a new drive to replace the faulty one, turn on the RAID and it will automatically rebuild itself. ( no computer required )

This also means that this RAID can be used with multiple computers, as long as they can work with the format of the RAID partition.