Hydra eSATA

Hydra

Maximize your storage capacity with four 3.5" SATA hard drives with the Hydra 4-Bay RAID enclosure. An ultra durable aluminum casing provides efficient heat dissipation, plus an extra large powerful rear fan keeps your hard drives cool during long hours of operation. Advanced RAID technology provides extra protection for all your valuable data content. The Hydra will surpass all your high performance storage needs.

Features

• Configurable hardware RAID controller (Non-RAID, JBOD, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10)
• Utilizes hardware accelerated RAID rebuild engine
• Supports SATA II Gen2i and Gen2m specification with 3.0Gbps and 1.5Gbps data rates
• RAID 5 write-back cache to enhance performance
• Rebuild transfer rates up to 60MB/s
• Supports large volumes in excess of 2TB
• Smart Fan (automatically regulates fan speed according to the internal temperature)
• Automatic alarm for fan, drive or power supply failure
• "Hot Swap" removable rack

4-Bay RAID Storage

The Hydra is designed to house up to four 3.5" SATA hard drives with optional RAID configurations. Use it as a reliable backup for your important data with RAID 1/10, for optimal performance and speed with RAID 0 striping, or select RAID 5 for the perfect balance between high performance and data integrity. In case of a drive failure, the removable hot swap rack makes installing and replacing the hard drives quick and easy.

High Speed eSATA Connection

The Hydra eSATA comes with an ultra fast eSATA connection to maximize transfer speed, ideal for efficient creation of large backups and quick data access to data and information. To keep your drives cool, the Hydra uses smart fan technology to automatically regulate fan speed according to its internal temperature. This function plus the rubber padded feet not only optimises cooling but also reduces the noise level.

Non-RAID (PM)

The drives show up as independent volumes. Each drive can be formatted and accessed separately. If one drive fails, the others are not affected. This setting does not provide any performance or redundancy benefits.

1-4 hard drives

JBOD - Disk Spanning (BIG)

The drives show up as one large single volume, combining the capacities of all drives. Spanning is an array (not RAID) that is written sequentially across the drives. By itself, it does not provide any performance or redundancy benefits. It is ideal for drives with different capacities, making use of the maximum storage capacity. However, if one drive becomes damaged, the whole array can become corrupted.

1-4 hard drives

RAID 0 - Disk Striping (FAST)

The drives are shown as one large single volume but the total size will depend on the drive with the smallest capacity. This setting is used where speed is the primary objective but RAID Level 0 (also called striping) is not redundant. This form of array splits each piece of data across the drives in segments; since data is written without any form of parity data-checking, it allows for the fastest data transfer of all other modes. On the downside, if one drive becomes damaged, the whole array can become corrupted.

2 hard drives
4 hard drives

RAID 1 - Disk Mirroring (SAFE)

Two drives show up as one volume but only 50% of the total capacity, depending on the drive with the smallest capacity, can be used. RAID 1 creates an exact copy (or mirror) of a set of data on the second drive. This is useful when reliability and backup take precedence over storage capacity. Should one hard drive fail, it can be replaced and the data rebuilt automatically. When more than two drives are installed, the remaining drives will show up as independent volumes.

2 hard drives

RAID 10 - Disk Mirroring with Striping (SAFE)

The drives are shown as one volume but only 50% of the total capacity, depending on the drive with the smallest capacity, can be used. RAID 1 creates an exact copy (or mirror) of a set of data. This is useful when reliability and backup take precedence over storage capacity. When one hard drive fails, it can be replaced and the data rebuilt automatically.

4 hard drives

RAID 5 - Disk Striping with parity (BIG + SAFE)

The drives are shown as one volume but the total capacity, depending on the drive with the smallest capacity, is the combined size minus the size of one drive. RAID 5 uses block-level striping with parity data distributed across all member disks and therefore provides the perfect balance between high performance and data integrity. When one hard drive fails, it can be replaced and the data rebuilt automatically.

3 hard drives
4 hard drives

Remarks

• For RAID 0/1/10/5, hard drives of identical capacities are recommended. If the capacities are different, the total amount of the space that can be used will depend on the drive with the smallest capacity.

• User manuals
• High resolution images
• Frequently asked questions
• HDD compatibility list

Accessories

Extra HDD trays available on request (P/N: HY-NAS-T)
Carton Size: 46.5.cm x 39.5cm x 35.8cm (40pcs per carton)

Benchmark

Test Environment

PC: Motherboard P5AD2-E Premium, Intel Pentium 4, CPU 3.0GHz, 512MB RAM, Sil3132 eSATA host controller, Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit SP1 - FDBench v1.02
Mac: MacPro, Intel Xeon Quad Core, CPU 2.8GHz, 4GB RAM, Sil3124 eSATA host controller, OS 10.5.5 - Quickbench v4.0
HDD: 4x Seagate 1.5TB (ST31500341AS)

eSATA

Remarks

The lower performance on Windows compared to the Mac is due to the motherboard and host controller; it does not support the AHCI mode and only runs on IDE mode. It should be noted that this is not related to the Hydra eSATA or the Operating System.