HighPoint launched the RocketAIC 6542AWW, an industry-first external RAID storage drive with 492 TB of storage. It achieves this through eight Solidigm D5-P5336 NVME SSDs that deliver 61.44TB each while delivering a 28-GB/s “real-world” transfer speed.
According to HighPoint, the most outstanding characteristic of this device is that it’s smaller than a shoebox, measuring just 9.25 x 8.27 x 4.84 inches (L x W x H). By comparison, a typical shoebox is 13 x 7.5 x 4.75 inches.
At the back of the external storage device, you’ll find a rocker power switch, a mute button, a slide switch, a USB-C port, the PCIe Gen4 x16 outlet, an Ethernet port, the PSU socket, and a Kensington lock slot. It also has two large fans and one smaller fan for device cooling.
The eight bays are also hot-swappable, making service and system upgrades easier. Solidigm also plans to launch a 122TB version of the D5-P5336 in early 2025, which means that eight drives will have a total capacity of 976TB. However, we are unsure if that will be compatible with the HighPoint device.
This compact external storage solution would make high-performance data storage and backup more effortless and accessible for small and medium enterprises. The company says it is ideal for data-intensive applications like high-speed data acquisition, music & effects post-production, and rapid backup and recovery workflows.
However, you must be prepared to spend a pretty penny to get this device, as it costs $78,999. It comes with all the drives included, though, which cost more than $7,340 apiece, so you’re saving money on that.
