Great Choice for Automatic Backups
SilverSATA II SR, a very popular dual bay unit, has a special surprise
- it treats both drives as one volume. Through a hardware RAID
(Redundant Array of Independent Disks) the Dual bay enclosure can
perform either of these tasks:
- RAID 0 (striping). Make both disks look like one large disk. One
volume mounts on your computer with a volume the size of both disks
added together*. The trays are no longer independently portable (as
both disks are required for the RAID) but you can get huge volumes,
such as a one 1.5 terabyte volume with two 750 gigabyte disks, as well
as faster read and write speeds.**
- RAID 1 (mirroring for Automatic Backup!). 100% backup. Every time
you write to the Dual bay under RAID 1, it will put all of the new data
onto both disks. If one drive goes bad, the SilverSATA will keep
working with the other drive, so there is no down time. When a
replacement drive is inserted, it will copy all the data to the new
backup drive on its own. You can even pull a drive and insert a spare
drive and let it perform a backup. Take the new backup offsite for even
more secure backups. If you need to view a backup disk on another
computer, a mirrored tray will work on another SilverSATA enclosure.
SilverSATA II has a fast eSATA port, plus a USB2 port for compatibility.
Fast Speeds
All SilverSATA units accept the largest, highest capacity 3.5" SATA
drives for large amounts of storage space. Transfer rates are fast!
Speeds can exceed 200 MB/s on the SilverSATA V SR (when properly
configured as a software RAID). The connections are fast, too. Most of
the SilverSATA line has eSATA connectors - which let you make the most
of your drives' speed. A SilverSATA II and IV are now available with a
FireWire 800(400) connection also. A portable SilverSATA V is also
available with an Ultra320 SCSI connection yielding data transfer
speeds up to 250MB/s. Take connection types and transfer speeds into
account when looking at the comparison chart and reading about each
unit below.
Product Comparison Chart - SilverSATA Series
For propagated with drives see below:
SIS2-SR-250 add 2 X 250GB Serial ATA 3.5-in. Hitachi 8MB/7200rpm
SIS2-SR-500 add 2 X 500GB Serial ATA 3.5-in. Hitachi 16MB/7200rpm
SIS2-SR-750 add 2 X 750GB Serial ATA 3.5-in. Seagate 32MB/7200rpm
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