Hi-Rely RAIDFrame: External Disk-To-Disk Backup Via eSATA

Features
By Julio Urquidi
published

Pricing And Pros

As tested, the manufacturer’s suggested retail price on the RAIDFrame Backup System comes out to $9,409:

  • $3,664: One RAIDFrame chassis (single eSATA multiplier configuration)
  • $5,650: Five RAIDPacs
  1. Two RAIDPacs with 1.5TB drives ($1,019 each)
  2. Three RAIDPacs with 1TB drives ($1,204 each)
  3. One eSATA add-in card ($95)

You can also get the RAIDFrame chassis in a two- or five-channel configuration for $3,986 or $4,236, respectively. RAIDPacs are available with smaller 500GB drives priced at $714.

As with High Rely's other products, each item comes with an 18 month warranty. Optional three and five year extended warranties are also available for the RAIDFrame chassis and the RAIDPacs. Pricing for the latter depends on the disk drive size ordered, and can range from $143 to $482 per RAIDPac. The three and five year warranties for the RAIDFrame chassis depend on the number of channels you get. Single-channel RAIDFrame warranties start at $733 for three years and can reach up to $1,694 for a five-channel RAIDFrame’s five year warranty.

Pros

The first reason to like the RAIDFrame are its removable RAIDPacs. Not only can you remove and store them off-site, but in case of a disaster, you can connect the RAIDPac to a different computer over its SATA interface. The RAIDPacs are small enough to carry by hand, and can provide quick recovery if you should lose your home base and/or your RAIDFrame chassis.

The second positive aspect of the the RAIDFrame is in its construction. Though I had a problem with a loose Molex connector, the chassis and the RAIDPacs are solid overall. I’d say about 95% of the overall product is metal with plenty of screws to keep it together. If you don’t mind the additional work the extra screws present as you break down certain components, the RAIDPacs will prove to be very sturdy. The metallic sleeve around the RAIDPac fits nice and snug. Once inserted into the RAIDFrame slot, the RAIDPac’s fit is well-engineered enough to prevent them from easily sliding out.

The last pro I would mention are the available optional configurations you can choose for the chassis and RAIDPacs. There are one-, two-, and five-channel configurations you can purchase for the RAIDFrame to back up both single and multiple computers over eSATA. The RAIDPacs themselves are easily configurable for RAID 0 or RAID 5 via a jumper sitting on the back of each cartridge. You just need to reposition the jumper, pop the RAIDPac back into the RAIDFrame and wait while the drive reinitializes. 

Julio Urquidi
23 Comments Comment from the forums
  • paxiam
    A good solid well written article. Keep up the good work.
    Reply
  • yyrkoon
    Perhaps I missed something, But I am curious as to how they got 3 drives per port on the port multiplier. I am familiar with port multipliers, but not the technology they use here apparently.

    Also, on a side note, I think this device would be more useful if it allowed you to run RAID 10, but with two out ports. Perhaps even multilane would be in order in this case ?
    Reply
  • yyrkoon
    Let me clarify what I said above. I feel the device would be "better" if they allowed it to be configured to run RAID 10 using two RAIDPacks.
    Reply
  • jeffunit
    Nice hardware, but a bit spendy. My software based raid 5 array has higher performance over gigabit ethernet, uses commodity parts, and is much cheaper. I am sure my array costs well under $1000 with 8 750gb drives. Since I am using supermicro hot swap sata drive cages, all I have to do is press a button and the drive comes out. 4 screws, and the drive is removed. Takes well under 5 minutes to remove a drive and put in a new one, and it just takes a philips screwdriver.

    And why are there two 450w power supplies? Even if the box is full, that is 30 watts per drive, which is a crazy amount of power. If they stagger the drive spin up, they would never need more than 225w tops.
    Reply
  • climber
    This should be a 6Gb/s SATA 3.0 design with port multipliers. If you wanted to back up serious amounts of data to this thing you'd never finish, it would always be in backup mode.
    Reply
  • micky_lund
    wow...this is really cheap stuff
    Reply
  • ZakTheEvil
    Highly Reliable Systems? The company name is Highly Reliable Systems???

    Reply
  • so if one of the three drives should fail inside a RAIDpac, you have to eject the whole RAIDpac to replace that drive?
    That sets the RAID offline ... a RAID 5 should be allow hotswapping a failed disk.

    And two PSU but not redundant ? ... doens't seem very HIGH RELIABLE
    Reply
  • thehighrelyguy
    Although some of these points were mentioned in the article, not being on the front page, these important features may have been missed by a few readers and may answer some of your questions.

    1. Each RAID pack has an integrated RAID 5 / RAID 0 controller. This means the RAIDPACs can operate completely standalone without the addition of any special controllers or driver software. Thus, left with nothing but a RAIDPac, you could connect it via eSATA to your motherboard and restore the data.

    2. The RAIDpacs use standard SATA hard drives. At present, 2.0TB drives are available making the available capacities 4TB in RAID 5 and 6TB in RAID 0 per RAID pack.

    3. There is also a 1 bay RAIDFrame available which can use RAIDPacs interchangeably with the 5 Bay if necessary. The one bay has both ESATA and USB connections for portability and ease of connection. The one bay is substantially cheaper than the 5 bay.

    4. The dual ATX power supplies were chosen over specialty redundant power supplies because they are the most widely available power supply in the world making field service for this unit in the dead of the night, practical. The 1 bay has this same feature. By using two instead of one, if a power supply dies, you're not dead, the unit is still usable although some bays may not function.

    Reply
  • thehighrelyguy
    yyrkoonPerhaps I missed something, But I am curious as to how they got 3 drives per port on the port multiplier. The RAIDFrame is not a single RAID system. The RAIDFrame 5 bay is 5 RAID systems. Each hot swappable RAIDPac is a volume. Port multipliers allow up to 5 volumes (drives) to one SATA channel. Hence one SATA channel, 5 RAIDPacs.
    Reply