SUMMARY: A rackmount RAID available in 12- or 16-bay configurations using PCI-express Extender technology
TARGET APPS
Post houses needing high-performance, secure and redundant storage
WHAT IT COSTS YOU
$6,359 (PRX1208-4)
$13,659 (PRX1616-16)
WHAT’S COOL
It’s fast, quiet and offers up to 16TBs of storage
WHAT’S MISSING
The price is prohibitive, at least for a smaller production guy like me
SPECS
PCI-express extender to a rackmount 12 or 16 drive enclosure; 20Gb/s PCI-e x8 Host Bus Extender; RAID levels 0, 1, 3, 5, 6, JBOD plus hot spares; Ideal for 2K film, multiple streams of uncompressed 10-bit / 8-bit HD; un-compressed SD, ProRes 422, DVCPRO HD; PRO EX compatible for future expandability.
My production company, Wonderdog Media, Inc., is home to three Avid suites, two Media Composer 3.0 suites (one with Mojo and Mojo SDI), and a smaller project suite with Xpress Pro Studio. As far as storage is concerned, I use a hodgepodge of internal and external FireWire drives. I have yet to put down the big bucks for a dedicated external RAID system. When the Dulce PRO RX system arrived at my door, it was quite intimidating at first. It’s been a luxury to review this beast and test out all the advantages it had to offer over other systems. The 16 drives came in four boxes of four drives each. The drives were pre-formatted for Windows XP and were pre-assigned to a specific drive bay (a nice feature for a busy guy like me).
A Flexible Solution
The Dulce PRO RX has all the configurations you could want in a RAID: 0, 1, 3, 5, and double redundant RAID 6. My system arrived preconfigured as protected RAID 5, providing a level of security that I have been lacking in the past. 90% of my footage is DVCPRO HD on P2, and I had no problem working with multiple streams of video, not to mention several channels of uncompressed HD from After Effects. Dulce’s PRO RX handled it with no problem. I also loaded some new P2 clips — 235 to be exact. When I consolidated the clips (embedded them), it did it fast. When I need to edit 2K film using my Scratch DI workstations, the PRO RX with a RAID 5 data rate of greater than 750 Mb/s will continue to support my needs. How sweet is that!
The maximum capacity for the PRO RX I tested is 16TB, though by using the Dulce PRO EX PCI-e Expander my system was expandable to 112TB of total storage. If you’re working in HD, you know how fast your drives fill up. Dulce’s PRO RX system can handle and store a lot of footage. This product is plug-and-play for Windows XP and Mac users. The system comes preconfigured for the operating system of your choice: Mac, Windows XP or Vista, and Linux. Each drive is hot swappable, meaning it can be attached or detached to a device without rebooting, and comes with a lock to keep your files secure. Another neat feature is the built-in Ethernet port, which allows you to connect this to your network and manage your array from any computer you choose on your network. It even has e-mail notification.
With HD becoming more prevalent world – wide, and with more production facilities shooting in HD, the Dulce PRO RX makes sense for its massive storage capability. Dulce’s PRO RX is the fastest RAID on the market for the money. And I really appreciated the fact that my P2 cards downloaded faster, due to the PRO RX’s inherent speed.
I’ve been planning to move most of my editing hardware into a machine room and it’s nice to know that I can purchase a 10 – meter – long interface cable to connect between the PRO RX and my workstation.
