Rack-Mount SAS Expansion RAID by G-Technology (HGST)

G-Technology by Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) announced its new G-SPEED eS PRO XL, a rack-mount, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) expansion solution, with mini-SAS connectivity, providing high-performance, low-cost RAID for professional content creation applications. The new G-Technology G-SPEED eS PRO XL comes in a 2U 12-drive, or 3U 16-drive rack-mount enclosure, with hot swappable SATA 3Gb/s hard drives for high-performance, high-capacity, expandable direct-attached storage for small film studios and production houses.

Supporting the real-world performance needs of multi-stream uncompressed HD and 2K workflows, the G-SPEED eS PRO XL in a 3U RAID 5 delivers sustained read/write speeds of more than 650 megabytes per second (MB/sec), making it ideal for real-time video editing and digital intermediate (DI) film applications. A simple-to-use, web-based control panel allows users to easily manage, configure and monitor the system.

The G-SPEED eS PRO XL ships with a two-port mini-SAS RAID controller card and a locking, two-meter mini-SAS cable, allowing users to easily and affordably scale from an entry-level 12 TB 2U solution up to an incredible 192 TB. The PCIe x8 RAID controller supports JBOD and RAID levels 0, 1, 3, 5 and 6. Up to eight G-SPEED eS PRO XL units can be connected to one RAID controller card, allowing an enormous amount of data-intensive video, graphic material and audio files to be centrally stored and managed.

"Compared to Fibre Channel solutions, our new G-SPEED eS PRO XL with mini SAS instantly changes the economics of deploying a rack-mount solution in a small studio or high end production house," said Roger Mabon, vice president of G-Technology by Hitachi GST. "The value of the G-SPEED eS PRO XL enables a new class of customers to benefit from the performance, reliability and scalability without breaking their IT budgets."

Mac OS X and Windows compatible, the G-Technology G-SPEED eS PRO XL will ship in May 2009. It comes with a three-year standard warranty with pricing starting at $6,999 MSRP for 12 TB in a 2U rack-mount enclosure.

Limited-Edition, G-Technology G-DRIVE mini Sweepstakes
As a tribute to loyal content creators and A/V professionals, G-Technology is giving away 42, commemorative, limited-edition, G-Technology G-DRIVE mini external drives, skinned by Infectious, a company that creates consumer art products in collaboration with an online community of global artists. The rules are simple. Simply sign up to become a fan on the G-Technology page on Facebook( and you’re automatically entered into the drawing. Starting today through May 3, three fans per day will be randomly chosen to win a G-DRIVE mini. Each drive will be ‘skinned’ with one of three exclusive designs by Paul Burgess, Dalek, or Shadow Chen, all renowned artists contributing to the Infectious community. Visit our G-Technology page on Facebook for more details.

The G-Technology G-DRIVE minis are ultra sleek, portable drives designed for the Mac market. With capacities up to 500 GB, the G-DRIVE mini features a FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 interface, giving A/V professionals and multimedia enthusiasts fast, high-capacity portable storage. Compact and light weight – around 10 oz – the G-DRIVE mini easily slips into a computer, camera or camcorder bag, holding more than 45 hours of high definition video, 200,000 5 Mpixel JPEG photos, or 125,000 MP3 files. Because the device is bus-powered, no bulky AC adaptor is required. Visit www.G-Technology.com for more product information.