FirmTek has announced their US$119.95, bootable, 2-port, SeriTek/6G eSATA 6Gb/s ExpressCard/34 adapter (http://www.firmtek.com/seritek/seritek-6g). It offers recorded read transfer rates of over 380MB/s when matched with the new 2011 Apple 17-inch MacBook Pro.
This 6 gigabit-per-second eSATA ExpressCard/34 adapter is designed to expand the external storage options available for the 2011 Apple 17-inch MacBook Pro and Windows PC notebooks with an available ExpressCard/34 expansion slot. Mac OS X 10.6.x (64-bit and 32-bit modes) are supported along with Windows 7, Vista and Windows XP.
"With a single OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G Solid State Drive (SSD), the FirmTek SeriTek/6G can provide over 340MB/s average read performance, or for maximum storage capacity customers can connect up to 10 hard disks using SeriTek/5PM enclosures," says Chi Kim Stanford, vice president of Business Development, FirmTek. "Perfect for use with external storage enclosures, the SeriTek/6G supports advanced features like Mac OS X boot capability, port multiplication with SMART diagnostics support, and Mac OS X 10.6.x Snow Leopard compatibility."
The SeriTek/6G is designed for audio/video editing, photography, large media content libraries, storage expansion, backup and any application where speedy external data storage is desirable. The new FirmTek 64-bit SeriTek/6G driver is built from the ground up to support Snow Leopard while providing a high performance native PCI to Serial ATA 6G interface. With built-in SATA 6G, 3G and 1.5G speeds for 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch SATA hard disks and SSDs, the SeriTek/6G is the future-proof external notebook storage solution which also provides legacy storage device compatibility, says Stanford.
2011 MacBook Pro 17" and Windows notebook customers with expanding data storage needs will appreciate the addition of external 6G eSATA ports. During FirmTek performance trials, two direct-connect 3.5-inch SATA hard disks attached to the SeriTek/6G provided RAID 0 read performance of over 270MB/s, while two Solid State Drives (SSD) provided over 380MB/s. Hard disks installed in the SeriTek/5PM external enclosure can be formatted as individual disks, multiple RAID sets or as one large RAID set. The SeriTek/6G ExpressCard supports a large array of storage configuration options and features.
Got data? The SeriTek/6G and SeriTek/5PM combination supports up to five hard disks on each port, for 20TB of total storage across a total of 10 hard disks. Performance-minded users looking for blazing speeds can combine the SeriTek/2EN2 two-bay external enclosure with the SeriTek/6G. This option offers a high performance dual direct-connect hard disk configuration.
As both direct-connect and port multiplier enclosures are supported, customers can select the SeriTek/6G configuration option that best meets their needs. JBOD, Striped RAID sets (RAID 0) and Mirror (RAID 1) volumes are all supported. The SeriTek/5PM allows users to backup one RAID to a second RAID in the same enclosure, backup a four disk RAID to an individual hard disk or backup an individual hard disk to another hard disk. The FirmTek SeriTek/6G provides customers with a large number of hard disk configuration options for data creation, manipulation, distribution and backup.
With S.M.A.R.T application support, the new SeriTek/6G delivers performance and diagnostic data to Macintosh Disk Utility as well as third-party utilities such as Hardware Monitor. With this capability, users can keep an eye on hard disk temperatures and the overall health of drives attached to the FirmTek adapter.
