ADDONICS IS A COMPANY that makes all sorts of storage related computer accessories and more often than not they have some quirky kit that you can’t really find elsewhere. Its latest addition is the aptly named Compact RAID which is a small box that takes five 2.5-inch SATA drives and RAIDs them.
The Compact RAID measures 77x138x124mm (WxDxH) and weighs in at 610g without drives. This makes it a very portable solution for the features. It seems like Addonics is aiming the Compact RAID towards the market interested in something portable. The hardware that makes the RAID magic happen is a JMicron JMB393 port multiplier with RAID functionality. The JMB393 supports RAID 0, 1, 3, 5, 10, JBOD and Clone modes.
As JMC393 is a port multiplier the performance will at least to some degree depend on the controller in the computer that the Compact RAID is connected to, just as we saw with the Photofast controller we tested some time ago. The chassis itself is nothing out of the ordinary, although it’s made out of aluminium and you get hot-swap trays for all of the five drives. The only ports around the back are a standard eSATA connector and a power connector.
The Compact RAID is OS agnostic, so as long as your OS supports eSATA it’ll work just fine. Addonics also offer an optional eSATA to USB 3.0 adapter for those that don’t have an eSATA port on their system. At $149 the Compact RAID doesn’t come cheap, but it’s a niche product that we’re certain that some users will find very handy.S|A
Lars-Göran Nilsson
Latest posts by Lars-Göran Nilsson (see all)
- AMD and Nvidia set to take on LucidLogix Virtu - Apr 7, 2011
- Notebooks and hard drives to increase in price - Apr 6, 2011
- Motherboard makers craving affordable USB 3.0 solutions - Apr 6, 2011
- IEEE approves the IEEE 802.16m standard - Apr 1, 2011
- LucidLogix scores Intel as first Virtu customer - Apr 1, 2011