CalDigit Announces the HDPro 8 bay RAID Solution

(April 16, 2007 Las Vegas, NV, NAB 2007 – Booth SL9929) CalDigit, a leader in storage today announced the CalDigit 8 bay HDPro RAID storage solution. With capacities from 2.0TB up to 8.0TB, the HDPro is a high- performance storage solution at under $2 per gigabyte including host interface card and all the accessories.

When you have a need for large storage for your HD projects, or large media files, database, photos, images, the HDPro is your storage solution. Offering RAID 0, 1, 5, 6 with the HDPro you’ll have safe & reliable operation all in one package, warranted for 3 years by a leader in HD storage, CalDigit Inc.

Prices start at $3999 for a 2TB system which includes a CalDigit Controller Card.

“CalDigits’ HDPro offers the best gigabyte-per-dollar ratio in the world. Everything you need is in one package, at a fraction of the cost of products currently in the marketplace. The HDPro is truly in a league of its own head and shoulders above the crowd. We’re very excited to introduce this new product to our lineup”, said Jon Schilling, Account Manager of CalDigit Inc.

The CalDigit HDPro’s unique architecture combines the best in value with the newest technology. The HDPro is made to work with MacPro, G5, Mac OS X Server, Windows, and Linux workstations as well as other platforms.

High Speed, Lost Cost, with Virtually Unlimited Capacity
Ready to use with ease of setup and the ultimate in reliability built right in, each system hold up to 8 drive modules in a rack mount enclosure or tower. The swappable functionality of the HDPro allows user to upgrade the drive capacity as needed. There is no capacity limitation to any single chassis.

The CalDigit HDPro features SATA 3Gb/s and up to 16MB cache drives for the speed to meet the demands of the most up-to-date video & content editing software. Each 7200-RPM SATA hard drive connects to a dedicated SATA channel to eliminate bottlenecks and maximize the 3Gb/s native SATA connection. With up to 20Gb interface to the host, the HDPro offers 2.5 times faster bandwidth of 4Gb fibre-channel. As you add drives, HDPro scales in both capacity and performance. This powerhouse delivers up to 300MB/s in RAID 5, up to 400MB/s in RAID 0.

RAID Protection
With single parity in RAID 5 mode, the HDPro features an advanced distributed parity algorithm, accessing data and parity blocks across all the drives in the disk array, this removes the limitation that the dedicated parity drive represents in RAID 3, improving write and read performance in RAID 5, HDPro can rebuild itself in the event of one drive failing.

When configured in RAID 6 mode, fault tolerance is maintained by the world class CalDigit RAID engine ensuring that the parity information for any given block of data is placed on TWO drives separate from those used to store the data itself. Such double protection is to protect your valuable data even if two drives fail.

Up to 400MB/s. Ultra-fast Sustained data rate.

With a revolutionary 20Gb storage interface, the HDPro delivers up to 370MB/s in RAID 5, and up to 400MB/s in RAID 0.

24 hours a day/ 7 days a week/ 365 days a year
The CalDigit HDPro is designed for nonstop operation, with uninterrupted access to your critical data. All components are modular in design & can be replaced quickly with a minimum amount of downtime and give you protection and replacement options to continue to work without losing data or interrupting your project.

Modular Designed Components, Hot Swappable Power
Redundant hot-swappable power supplies, fan, drive modules, enable the system to keep running even if one module were to fail. All active components are modular and designed to be switched in and out of place in seconds all without tools and no interruption of service.

Managing the activities of your HDPro is easy with CalDigit’s intuitive LED visual feedback which allows you to easily monitor your RAID’s status with status and indicator lights on the front panel of the unit which gives you status at a glance for fans, drives and power. There is an audible signal to signal any system, controller, drive failure.

Self Monitoring and Reporting Technology.
Should you experience a fan failure, or a drive failure, the CalDigit HDPro solution will notify you audibly through your computers speakers & will also generate an e-mail notifying you of such a condition even if you are offsite of your RAID’s location. Built with redundant & swappable components, drives, power supplies and fans the HDPro is the best choice for both the discerning Video editors and professionals who are looking for inexpensive storage with reliability & minimal of downtime.

An Industry Breakthrough 20Gb/s Interface that leaves SCSI & Fibre Channel Speeds in it’s dust

Unlike Fibre Channel, SCSI, FireWire and eSATA RAID storage, the CalDigit HDPro is using a direct connection to the computers bridge chip and memory system combined with high link speeds. This direct link eliminates latency introduced by the conversion of other interfaces and provides superior bandwidth, availability and deployment flexibility over earlier-generation SCSI and Fibre Channel technology.

The CalDigit controller card includes error correction, and adapts to the speed of the slot automatically.

CalDigit HDPro features up to 20Gb bandwidth for ultra-fast data transport between the storage system and the host computer. You get both superb speeds and reliable bandwidth for high-speed data transfer.

The Hefty Cache keeps pumping the data without taking a breath

Because of HDPro’s sustained and high speed data transfer rate, the size of controller cache can act as a bottleneck.

For example, the video playback does not keep up with your movements on the timeline, and lag behind. Larger cache size keeps up with you as you edit and buffer the video files. For the critical application, you can increase HDPro controller cache up to 2GB.

Reliability is the Key

We understand that the key element to the success of your projects is reliability. Although the technology behind hard drives has greatly improved, failures can & do happen. The idea of course is that when a drive or component failure has happened that your downtime is kept to the minimum. CalDigit offers in it’s RAID products, modular design, which allows for the user to replace any failed component without having to resort to sending the unit back to the manufacturer for repair.

CalDigit Inc is a leading manufacturer of affordable, quality SATA II 3Gb/s RAID products. CalDigit is located in Orange County, California. For further information, please visit our website at http://www.caldigit.com. See CalDigit’s products at Matrox, Blackmagic Design and at the Panasonic booths during NAB 2007.