Multiple Drives, No Compromise

Digital content creation and editing requires more speed and space than standard desktop drives are capable—why limit yourself to a single drive? Sonnet’s award-winning Fusion™ D400Q desktop and R400Q rackmount storage systems (except 0TB models) provide up to 8TB⁽¹⁾ of storage in four swappable drive modules, and four ways to connect them to your computer. They offer speed, versatility, and reliability—they’re great solutions for anyone looking for an affordable storage system that will fit into a variety of workflows.

One Cable, All the Data

Fusion D400Q and R400Q enclosures employ a high performance SATA II port multiplier to manage the enclosed drives—just a single locking data cable connects the enclosure to an eSATA host controller card. This efficient interface simplifies setup and cuts cable clutter without compromising performance. No SATA? No problem—connected via a single FireWire® 800, FireWire 400, or USB cable, all four drives can be accessed at the full speed of the respective interface. There is no need to reformat drives when changing from one interface to another, regardless the configuration.

Maximum Performance, Maximum Convenience

Connected to a Sonnet Tempo™ SATA E4P PCIe or X4P PCI-X host controller installed in a Mac® or Windows® computer, a Fusion D400Q or R400Q system’s drives can be accessed through its port multiplier⁽²⁾ at maximum speed, whether configured as a RAID 0, 1, 10, or JBOD set. With its drives configured as a RAID 0 striped set, a single Fusion D400Q or R400Q system achieves data throughput of 220MB/sec, fast enough to support multiple streams of DV, HDV, DVCPRO, ProRes 422, or a single stream of uncompressed 10-bit NTSC video. Do you want even more performance? Up to four Fusion D400Q or R400Q systems can be ganged on a single Tempo SATA E4P or X4P controller for enhanced data throughput and multiple times the available streams (as well as increasing the number of supported video formats).

Driving Force

Fusion storage systems (except 0TB models) employ Enterprise/RAID Edition hard drives or select, Sonnet certified desktop drives⁽³⁾ that have been selected for their superior performance, error handling, and reliability characteristics, especially when used in RAID groups. These drives are subjected to hours of additional, stringent testing to check for soft errors, vibration, and other reliability predictors. Just the sturdiest drives pass these tests and are prepared with special RAID-optimized firmware to become the building blocks of a super-reliable Fusion storage system.

Versatile Performance

These systems are ideal for use in mixed environments—various operating systems, editing applications and output demands requiring the flexibility and interoperability that Fusion D400Q and R400Q storage systems provide. Fusion storage systems support Mac OS® X, Windows® 7, Windows Vista®, Windows XP, Windows Server 2008 and 2003, and Linux. They are compatible with capture cards from AJA, Blackmagic Design, Matrox, and Bluefish444, and work with all mainstream video editing applications including Apple® Final Cut Pro®, and Adobe® Premiere® Pro.

Desktop or Rackmount

To keep things cool, the Fusion D400Q uses a swappable fan module. The fan is 80% quieter than a standard case fan, making this system perfectly suited for use in noise-sensitive environments. The 1U rackmount Fusion R400Q system enclosure, at just 1.75" tall, is simple to deploy in most server racks. Both systems feature drive presence and drive activity LED indicators on their front panels, so drive status can be determined at a glance.

Expandability to Start

Looking for a desktop or rackmount 4-drive, removable storage system to expand with your needs? Fusion D400Q-0TB and R400Q-0TB storage systems offer the same great features as Sonnet’s other D400Q and R400Q models, but without the hard drives⁽³⁾. Of course performance, capacity, and RAID reliability are dependent on drive choice.

Fusion D400Q and Fusion R400Q Benchmarks

CONFIGURATION: Fusion D400Q (or R400Q) with four 1TB drives configured as a RAID 0 set, connected to Tempo SATA E4P host controller installed in Quad 2.66 GHz Mac Pro with 3GB of RAM and an AJA Kona3 capture card.

* Supports 1 stream of playback. Capture supported if disk array is less than 80% full and not extremely fragmented.

About stream count testing:
We've conducted in-depth, real-world testing to provide you with realistic results. Testing was conducted after weeks of use, during which time projects were captured, parts deleted, more parts captured, rendered, and so on, leaving the drives 85% full and fragmented. The stream counts we present here reflect the reduced performance that results from day-in, day-out use. Many storage systems work well the day you get them, but the true test is whether one will continue to serve you when you push the envelope. Fusion storage systems won't let you down.