CalDigit (www.caldigit.com) says its T3 Thunderbolt 2 RAID storage solution has now been upgraded to support RAID 5, and is available to pre-order at prices staring at US$499 for a 1.5TB model. It will ship April 20.

The T3’s 3-bay design allows CalDigit to offer RAID 5 in a form-factor traditionally found in larger multi-bay storage towers. In smaller form-factor RAID storage most people use 2-bay RAID 0 storage that does not offer single drive redundancy.

However, the T3 offers RAID 5, which means that in the unlikely event of a drive failure all user data is still available and users can carry on working, says Kosta Panagos of CalDigit. This isn't available on storage solutions that only feature RAID 0. When used in RAID 5 mode the T3 offers the same transfer speeds as a 2-bay RAID 0 device, as well as single-drive redundancy, Panagos says.

The 3-bay design of the T3 with RAID 5 means that users get an extra drive’s worth of storage compared to traditional 2-bay storage. When used with 3.5-inch 7200RPM HDDs the T3 is available in capacities up to 15TB, and when used with SSDs it is available in capacities of 4TB.