GE AR RE V I EW. SANDISK PROFESSIONAL G-RAID SHUTTLE 8
MIGHTY AND
POWERFUL The new G-RAID Shuttle 8 supports a huge amount of data in a single unit, but it’s a bit of a beast
WORDS. Adam Duckworth
C ameras with huge data 8K and 12K shooting. File sizes are not going to get smaller anytime soon, so at some point you will need to address this issue. Sandisk Professional’s solution is the G-RAID Shuttle 8, in 48TB, 96TB and 144TB. We tested the £6394/$7300 version, housing eight 12TB Ultrastar Enterprise-class, 7200rpm HDD drives inside. These individually cost around £500/$491 each, so that’s where £4000/$3982 of your hard-earned money is rates and resolutions chew through storage, even in 4K – but especially if you start going anyway. The drives are held in quick-remove caddies, so you can always buy new ones – or even faster and larger options when they become available. The G-RAID Shuttle 8 can grow with you. The eight drives are housed inside a transportable eight-bay hardware RAID, with Thunderbolt 3 connectors for superfast 40Gbps transfers – and a USB-C socket for up to 10Gbps. What limits the speeds are the drives themselves, which have transfer rates up to 1900MB/s read, and 2000MB/s write. We connected the unit to a Thunderbolt 3-equipped MacBook Pro – and transferring 8GB of files to the unit in RAID 5 configuration took 96 seconds. That’s not as fast as flash SSDs, but then the price would be stratospheric. The HDDs are quick enough to allow backups, fast access to files, and real-time video editing. It supports multi-stream 4K, 8K and VR workflows, with RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, and 60 configurations.
G-FORCE There is much to admire about the Shuttle 8, including its versatility and rugged build
The Shuttle 8 is set up at RAID 5, so if just one of the drive units fails, you can plug in a replacement and the data is automatically rebuilt. It means the capacity drops from 96TB to 84TB, though. Getting going is very quick. Just take out of the box, plug in the power cord and included Thunderbolt 3 cable. The MacBook Pro instantly recognised the drive and mounted it to the desktop, ready for use. The spinning drives are relatively quiet, too. With two Thunderbolt sockets, you can daisy-chain up to five additional devices, such as other drives and 4K displays. It can also deliver up to 85W of power to charge a MacBook Pro. Although the unit is a great desktop RAID, it has a rugged build and top-carrying handle, to go on location and be used to ingest, or even edit, while out and about – with mains power. With a five-year warranty, it’s a huge capacity and fully-featured RAID with Enterprise- class drives. If you can afford it, you won’t be disappointed.
Specification CAPACITY 96TB HARD DRIVES 8x12TB Ultrastar Enterprise-class 7200rpm HDD MAX TRANSFER RATES 1900MB/s read, 2000MB/s write
RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, 60, JBOD
INTERFACE 2x Thunderbolt 3, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2
COMPATIBILITY Mac 10.5 or later, Windows 10+ DIMENSIONS (wxhxd) 17.5x38.5x24.5cm/ 6.9x15.2x9.6in
WEIGHT 10.99kg/24.23lb
Conclusion It’s a huge amount of data in a single unit. The abiity to plug in and play is a major perk, but its heavy build makes it less transportable than advertised.
PRICE £6394/$7300
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