Originally
posted 06/05/03 by rob-ART
morgan,
mad scientist
In the midst of
all my enthusiam over the new FireWire 800
enclosures, I took time to test yet another
FireWire 400 enclosure, the Miglia
MediaBank HS-R.
But this one is special. Why? Because you pop two
drives in and it AUTOMATICALLY mirrors them.
Instant backup!
The transfer
speeds are not the news here. The mid 30's transfer
rate is average for FireWire 400 drives. What is
news is that it can write to both primary and
secondary drive simultaneously without any
performance penalty. There's no software required.
You just install two drives. One drive mounts on
your desktop. The other acts as an invisible
shadow.
Each drive mounts
in a tray with a latch. There's a tumbler key that
locks down the trays so the drives don't get
accidentally or un-officially removed. The case
itself is built like a tank using thick
aluminum.
Want a second
copy of your primary drive? Romove the secondary
tray and put a third tray with yet another drive
into the secondary slot. No need to power it down.
Just hot swap the replacement. (Then store one of
the backup copies off site for maxiumum
security.)
NEED MORE
SPEED?
Being a speed nut, I wondered if the MediaBank HS-R
will be upgraded to FireWire 800 in the near
future. The answer is "YES."
If you're
satisfied to have FireWire 400, another way to add
speed is to buy two MediaBank HS-R's to house a
total of four drives. Then you would use Apple's OS
X Drive Utility to stripe the two MediaBanks. That
way, you have the speed of striping and the
security of mirroring. The best of both
worlds.
WHERE TO
BUY?
The Miglia
MediaBank HS-R
is available for purchase from various
distributors, as well as their online
store.
Another Miglia
Product I like a lot is the Director's
Cut 'Take 2',
an anlog to digital conversion box that I've been
using to capture my important VHS tapes, editing
them, and converting them to DVD's.
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