If you are photographer or a video maker, then this probably would get your attention. Anyone else, not so much. LaCie has today announced its 5big Thunderbolt Series (just in time before CES kicks off) – its new five-bay RAID solution. And with the use of the Thunderbolt connector, you will be able to read and write to the drive quickly.
The 5big offers five disks, allowing a user to make their own RAID configurations with either RAID 0 or RAID 1. For example, a user could have three disks on RAID 0, and two on RAID 1. They are also hot-swappable, meaning that you can change the disks without switching off the device (that said, you should make sure that the computer isn’t reading anything from it). And because of Thunderbolt’s unique ability to create “daisy chains”, you can can connect up to six other Thunderbolt peripherals in the same chain.
While Thunderbolt has been developed by Intel and Apple, Apple is largely the main user of this technology. So, it’s no surprise that Apple customers are targets for this device – especially given that a large number of video markers and photographers use Apple computers.
The 5big comes in two capacities – 10TB and 20TB – and starts at US$1,199 with the Thunderbolt cable included. It is available through its website and resellers, though when it comes out is still unknown.