Portable Rugged RAID by Winchester Systems

Winchester Systems Inc. announced their FlashDisk RU5 series of portable, rugged RAID disk arrays that store up to 5 TB of data and intended for field use.

Originally designed for the US Army for terrain mapping applications to MIL-STD 461D, 810E & 1472F specifications, the RU5 (Rugged 5-bay) model offers five SATA disk drives with capacities to 1 TB each. The unit, which weighs in at only 23 pounds, offers a top mounted, rubber grip handle for ease of transport and measures only 8" x 9" by 14" in a nice compact "cube" arrangement. The RU5 was designed to meet MIL-STD-810E for environmental compliance and MIL-STD-461-D for Electromagnetic Interference.

The RU5 model offers one Ultra320 SCSI host port that delivers 320 MB/sec. data transfer rates. For a wider variety of typical field applications the RU5e, enhanced version, offers three more popular interfaces in one unit including eSATA, Firewire 800 and USB 2 interfaces that offer 187.5 MB/sec., 95 MB/sec. and 60 MB/sec. data transfer rates respectively.

Both RU5 units support 500 GB, 750 GB and 1 TB SATA disk drives with MTBF of 1.2 million hours with access time of 8.5 msec. Each disk drive is removable and is secured with unique lockdown thumbscrews to minimize shock and vibration. Both units support RAID 0, 1, 3, 5, and 6. RAID 6 offers dual parity for the utmost in data protection for valuable and potentially irreplaceable field data.

"These portable and rugged products are intended for use by people collecting serious amounts of valuable data," states Mr. Joel Leider, the company’s chief executive officer. "It is perfect for Federal Emergency Management, oil and gas exploration, mining and forestry, police and emergency responders, terrain mapping, seismic monitoring, surveillance, data acquisition, video, audio and photo image collection, environmental field studies, aircraft and ship data collection, disaster recovery for fire, flood and earthquake ‘grab and go’ data protection and other portable uses," he added.

Mr. Jerry Namery, the company’s chief technology officer, said: "The RU5 products are perfect companions for rugged laptops like the Panasonic Toughbook. They meet the most stringent military standards yet are priced reasonably enough for serious commercial and government users." He added, "These units are field proven by the US Army in deployments in the most difficult environments worldwide."

Each unit is shipped in a rugged wheeled transport case with telescopic handle. Pricing starts at under $10,000 and quantity discounts are available. These systems are configured to order and thus delivery is 4-8 weeks ARO.