Everything you could ever want from a high speed storage solution. Security, reliability and high performance all bundled together in a single package at a great price. These systems ship complete with everything you will need including the enclosure with drives, cabling, RAID Controller and quick start CD. Available for PCIe or PCI-X PC's and Mac computers.

  This system uses an 8 channel Areca RAID Controller with built in CPU and RAM dedicated to managing the RAID so your computer resources aren't taxed. This allows your computer to manage the tasks you assign it without the overhead required to manage your RAID database. By doing so your workflow is greatly accelerated while your data stays safe.

  The BurlyVR System provides excellent performance with a maximum of nearly 700 MB/s RAID 5 and nearly 600 MB/s RAID 6 with a dual revolving parity that can survive two failed drives. Even with the drives full to capacity the RAID is capable of over 400 MB/s. Plenty of speed for photo databases and even editing 2K uncompressed HD Video.

  RAID 5 and RAID 6 use what's called a revolving parity to allow a rebuild after a drive failure. In the event of a drive failure the system will notify you via email of the problem but continue to operate in a degraded state of performance. When the failed drive is located and replaced the controller will begin a rebuild of the database while never going offline.

  RAID 5 allows for a single drive failure where a RAID 6 allows for two drive failures without data loss. RAID 6 will offer a lower performance level compared to a RAID 5.

  The BurlyVR uses the latest in cabling and connection technologies called Mini-SAS. The enclosure will attach to the controller card with a pair of cables that latch in place providing a better more secure connection than ever before. This provides a simple installation and a clean workplace.

  The only drawback to a Parity RAID is the sheer complexity. Combine the sharing of data over multiple drives with a revolving parity or two and you have a very complex system. For this reason we always recommend that you keep a complete backup of any data. Parity RAIDs are designed to protect from a drive failure but that won't save the data from corruption or human error the way a second copy will. Always keep a backup.

  6 Drives, 2 port Multiplier cables and blazing SPEED. All in a very quiet, powerful package. The Dual PM Burly takes a 4 bay size enclosure and uses state of the art tray system to mount 6 drives. With today's larger and faster drives this means you can either have up to 4.5 TBs on 3 drives backed up in the same box to a second set of 3 drives or you can RAID all 6 for 9 TB of full speed uncompressed 1080p video editing.

  The most rock solid enclosure on the market today. The Burly has a massive 300 WATT power supply. With 4 monster 80 MM cooling fans we can leave them at slower turning 2700 RPM speeds for very quiet operation. All these features are aimed at giving the highest stability in temperatures and power supplied. That is the #1 priority of a drive enclosure. Is your data worth the best protection possible?

  Using a pair of 6 bay enclosures allows either a 12 drive RAID for the beastliest -hair on fire - 2K Video editing speeds. Or more commonly, a pair of matching 6 drive arrays with one tasked as your backup. All supported off a single 4 port SATA host card.

  Attaching the enclosure to your computer couldn’t be easier. With an eSATA connector on the back for each port multiplier - you connect the eSATA cable between PCI host card and enclosure. Enclosures come fully assembled either ready to install your choice of hard drives or already assembled and tested with Seagate 7200.11, 7200.12 or Hitachi SATAII Hard Drives for industry leading performance at bargain prices. All components are SATAII capable.

PERFORMANCE

  Todays newest drives give us so much speed over even drives from just last year that we are able to sustain 400+ MB/sec in a 6 drive RAID0 all the way through the useful capacity of the array. Note the graph to the right showing actual tests on a 2007 MacPro with 6 Seagate 7200.11 drives in a Disk Uitlity software RAID0. These numbers allow real time editing of 1080 10 Bit uncompressed HD video. Requires SATA Host cards with sufficient bandwidth capability. We recommend the Lycom PCIe and PCI-X 4 port cards since they have the chipsets and bandwidth to support these kinds of performance numbers.

Performance from individual non-RAID drives is in the 120-160 MB/sec range, empty, per drive.

ENCLOSURE FEATURES & SPECIFICATIONS

• Solid handled skeleton drive trays provide very fast and easy drive swapping.
• Simple 4 screw drive installation in trays.
• LED indicators for Drive access, power and fail as well as, fan and temperature warning indicators.
• Must be attached to port multiplier capable host card or motherboard bus
• eSATA Connections and Cables
• 300 WATT Switchable power supply 90 - 230 volt
• Sil-Image 3726 chipset Port Multipliers
• 2 internal 80MM cooling fans and 2 external 80 MM cooling fans
• Dimensions: 7w x 15.3d x 10.3h
• Fully Assembled with data and power cables and hotswap trays
• 1 or 2 meter external eSATA data cables, both 1 and 2 meter are fully supported by SATAII specification
• Ships with or without drives
• FREE GROUND SHIPPING IN CONTINENTAL US - see below

COMPATIBLE PCI, PCI-X AND PCI EXPRESS CARDS AVAILABLE HERE .

  Burly Storage is currently offering FREE GROUND SHIPPING for any order that includes a Burly Port Multiplier Enclosure, 4 and 8 bay Burly Firewire Enclosure either Fixed Drive or Hot Swap. Retail customers only.

PLEASE READ IF BUYING YOUR OWN DRIVES.

  Since the emergence of Port Multiplier Technology and it's wide spread adaptation to the digital storage market beginning in early 2006, PM Enclosures have been our best storage seller hands down. While offering unparalleled simplicity, excellent speed capabilities and unheard of expandability for desktop computers, they also offer the best price per GB. Simply install a Port Multiplier capable Host Card into one of your available expansion slots and plug a PM Enclosure directly into that card. The PM Enclosure itself will have at least one PM Board built in that combines the data signal of up to 5 drives and allow them to attach with a single eSATA cable. In some cases such as the Burly6PM we install a pair of PM Boards effectively doubling the performance capability of a single enclosure. This enclosure would attach with a pair of eSATA cables. Since most PM capable Host Cards have four ports there's plenty of room for up to 20 drives depending on the enclosures used. Once drives are mounted you can RAID them in Disk Management / Disk Utility or set the drives up in any configuration you require. Drives can be RAIDed across multiple enclosures to assemble huge extremely fast storage volumes for editing video or very fast databases. Since it's easily expandable a backup of that data is easily managed.

This is the finest built enclosure you can get to store your data!

  Burly Enclosures use the most robust power supply (300 Watt) on the market and provide great cooling with huge incredibly quiet 80 mm fans. All steel construction, you can literally stand on them. These contain full size Hotswap Bays with solid aluminum trays protecting your drives and fully enclosing them even when removed from the enclosure. (Great for archiving) Every Bay has its own internal fan for the absolute best cooling you can get. All these features are aimed at giving the highest stability in drive temperatures and power supplied. That is the #1 priority of a drive enclosure.

Is your data worth the best protection possible?

  Attaching the enclosure to your computer couldn’t be easier. With an eSATA connector on the back for each Port Multiplier - you connect the optional 1 or 2 meter long eSATA cable between the PCI host card and the enclosure. Enclosures come fully assembled either ready to install your choice of hard drives or already assembled and tested with Seagate or Hitachi SATA Hard Drives for industry leading performance at bargain prices. All components are SATAII capable and meet all SATA-IO.org specifications.

ORDERING SUGGESTIONS

  We at Burly Storage recommend that you order the defaulted 2 meter eSATA cable. It's 6'6" length allows you the room needed to move the enclosure around a little and lets you get it a little farther away from your computer. (The maximum cable length possible within the SATA Specification is 2 meters.)

  The LCD trays are a nice way to keep tabs on your drives providing drive temperature, drive activity and fan activity readouts as well as an audible alarm if the drive fan should stop or the drive itself overheat. Standard Trays provide a LED for drive power and drive activity. For most applications the Standard Trays work perfectly but the LCDs are nice for keeping tabs on your drives.

NEW Trayless option!

  The solution to many requests for a robust trayless enclosure has now been found. Burly Storage has been looking for that solution for some time and it's now available in the Burly Enclosure line. If you want your enclosure to include the trayless bays simply choose them in the "Bay Type" pull-down menu on any Burly Enclosure. CLICK HERE for a complete description and photos.

Please note, the 500 GB and smaller Seagate 7200.12 generation drives will not work with the trayless style bay. These drives are physically shorter and will not fit snugly in the drive opening. The 750 GB and larger drives have the correct frame size to fit these bays.

  For those that need a larger enclosure such as the eight bay model, let me suggest a pair of the smaller 4 or 5 bay enclosures instead. (Two Four Bay PM Enclosures combined are only about $61.00 more than a single Eight Bay) The smaller enclosures are easier to move around.

SPECIFICATIONS

• Must be attached to a Port Multiplier capable host card or motherboard bus
• eSATA Connections and cables
• 300 WATT Switchable power supply 90 - 230 volt
• 4 and 5 Bay enclosure single cable, 1 port multiplier
• 8 Bay tower and rack use 2 data cables and 2 port multipliers
• Fully Assembled with data cables, power cables and your choice of hotswap bays
• When shipped with drives the assembled enclosure is fully tested and formatted

Beware the OEM drive! The hard drive market is currently flooded with OEM drives being sold at huge discounts. These drives usually have unknown or proprietary firmware and no manufacturers warranty which tend to cause a lot of compatibility problems. We recommend that you stick with RETAIL drives for the best performance and reliability. Burly Storage only sells Retail drives with the full 5 year manufacturers warranty.

  Burly Storage is currently offering FREE GROUND SHIPPING for any order that includes a Burly Port Multiplier Enclosure, 4 and 8 bay Burly Firewire Enclosure either Fixed Drive or Hot Swap. Retail customers only.

  These Burly Mini-SAS and Multilane Enclosures are the perfect solution for the 3ware, Areca, RAIDCore and Highpoint Hardware RAID Controllers and SAS Cards. The excellent cooling that these enclosures provide will ensure a long drive lifespan. The 8 Bay Desktop and 8 Bay Rack Mount Enclosures will both have a pair of 8088 Mini-SAS connectors on the backplane and SATA Hot Swap Trays or Trayless Bays on the front. All eight drives will attach with the two cables and receive full bandwidth from the card providing the best possible performance. The external cables (sold separately) are all latch-able making this cabling solution much more robust and trouble free than direct SATA.

  The MGBurly8MS and MGBurly8RMS part numbers are the enclosure only and do not include external cabling. Each cable supplies 4 full bandwidth data channels. Order the cable according to what connector type your card requires. Most cards today use the SFF-8088 to 8088 Symmetrical cable (Burly part number MLC88882m) available in lengths up to 3 meter with 2 meter being the most common. The 8088 connection type is what the backplane of these enclosures use and can be seen in the product slide show.

  Please order the cables you need from the Multilane Cable Page. These enclosures can also be configured using SAS Hot Swap Bays and Trays for 3.5" SAS and SATA drives. Custom configurations are available.

NEW Trayless option!

  The solution to many requests for a robust trayless enclosure has now been found. Burly Storage has been looking for that solution for some time and it's now available in the Burly Enclosure line. If you want your enclosure to include the trayless bays simply choose them in the "Bay Type" pull-down menu on any Burly Enclosure. CLICK HERE for a complete description and photos.

Please note, the 500 GB and smaller Seagate 7200.12 generation drives will not work with the trayless style bay. These drives are physically shorter and will not fit snugly in the drive opening. The 750 GB and larger drives have the correct frame size to fit these bays.

  Burly SATA enclosures come in many variations useful for different purposes. Burly Firewire / USB Enclosures can be attached without any other hardware and provide up to 80 MB/s on Firewire 800 buses. The Burly Port Multiplier Systems are the real workhorses that allow several Enclosures to be attached to a single installed Host Card. PM Enclosures are our best selling technology and are usually the best solution for photo libraries and HD video editing. Wicked data speeds are made possible by using Port Multiplication as well as huge volumes with up to 20 drives per host card. Large arrays can be Striped (RAID 0) to combine the speed and volume of each included drive.

  For data storage that requires the absolute in security we offer the Hardware RAID Systems. Built in Failure Tolerance and a dedicated CPU and RAM on the Hardware based RAID Controller manages the RAID and keeps your system resources from being taxed. These RAIDs can protect your data in the event of a drive failure.

  For those of you with a little Techie in your blood there are the Burly SATA Kits that let you to built it yourself and save a few bucks. These enclosures are available in Fixed Drive or Hot Swap configurations. This allows you to build it to your specs, perhaps with an optical drive or a card reader built in.

  A correctly configured workstation is the best way to increase productivity, profits and rev up the old Photoshop performance. The slowest part of your computer is the hard drive, especially if you’re asking it to multitask. Hard drives are very efficient if asked to do one job at a time but waste a lot of performance if they are doing more than one. Streamlining your workflow and using dedicated task oriented drives solves this performance latency. For a photo machine you’ll need at least three drives, or groups of drives. The first of these is your Operating System drive. Keep this drive as clean as possible with just the OS and applications. Natively, when Photoshop gets installed it will configure your OS drive as it’s scratch disk. This causes your most important drive to perform dual tasks slowing down both Photoshop and your OS. By providing Photoshop a dedicated scratch disk, the second drive, you allow the OS and photoshop to run much more efficiently with their own dedicated drives. These two drives should be located inside your computer if possible. The third drive or array of drives should be your database or library drive. This should be housed in a Burly Enclosure, exterior to your computer’s chassis. Since these drives contain your livelihood they must be kept as stable as possible and that’s what the Burlys do best.

  The photo database should be as fast as is reasonable without throwing money at it. You’ve gained a lot of performance by configuring your computer resources correctly. The external storage enclosure must offer the drives a stable source of power and adequate cooling for long term life. It must also offer a connection method that does not slow down your workflow. Port Multiplication Enclosures are the most economical while providing excellent performance which makes them the most popular with photographers. These enclosures attach to a Host Card that gets installed inside your desktop or laptop computer and provides multiple high speed eSATA attachment points, many times faster than Firewire. Each of these eSATA ports is capable of hosting up to 5 drives in a PM Enclosure. These drives can be configured as individual volumes (JBOD) or they can be RAIDed into larger single volumes with improved performance.

  If your computer type prohibits the installation of a host card a Burly Firewire Enclosure offers the same drive protection as the PM Enclosures. These Firewire enclosures have a powerful built in power supply and excellent drive cooling allowing for 24/7 operation. Most firewire enclosures have little on no cooling and brick power supplies that lead to early hard drive failures. The Burly Enclosures solve these problems and add the ability to swap drives in and out of the chassis as needed for archiving.

  Today we’re shooting with cameras that have huge image capabilities. We shoot and keep more photos than we ever did when we had to absorb film and developing costs. We store RAW as well as edited and non edited copies of our work. This means that our storage needs are constantly growing. Today’s cataloging applications like Lightroom prefer to have the database on a single volume. Once your database has grown to a certain point it will no longer fit on a single hard drive. In the effort to streamline this means creating a RAID. A RAID 0 will combine the individual drive capacities and their performance into a single large volume designed to work with Lightroom and other cataloging software. This database volume can be as large as required by including the number of drives needed. This RAID should be constructed in Disk Utility (Mac) or Disk Management (PC).

  As with any database a backup must be maintained. Working without a backup is akin to walking a tightrope without a net. Any digital data that you can’t do without should be kept backed up and current. The most cost effective method is to maintain a direct hard copy on a backup drive and use a dedicated software application to automatically perform backups on a daily basis. (Do Not Use Time Machine) If your library is stored on a RAID 0 you should have a second RAID 0 of equal size for it’s backup. This type of backup will protect your data from hardware failure as well as data corruption and human error if it’s managed properly.

  Now that you have your photo library on an automated backup routine and your workstation is working like a top, what’s left? Consider keeping an off-site copy or archive of your data. If losing your photos means going out of business or starting all over always keep a second copy stored in a different physical location. Catastrophic events do happen. Occasionally we have a customer call that has had their computer equipment stolen, burned in a fire or zapped by lightening. Consider what you would do in either event. We can always go out and purchase a new computer, but you can’t buy what was stored on it. It’s awful easy to keep a copy archived off-site. Hand your neighbor a hard drive or take one home and store it on a shelf or in a fireproof safe. It’s cheap insurance and the best Digital Asset Management!

CHECK OUT OUR PHOTO STORAGE GUIDE IN THE REFERENCE & INFORMATION SECTION

  The most important considerations for video storage are performance (speed), volume and security. The goal is to keep enough performance headroom to avoid dropping frames and enough storage volume to accommodate your project requirements. Redundant data backup equates to security regardless of RAID type used. That said let's look at the performance requirements first since they are the most complex.

PERFORMANCE

  For every format of video there is a performance threshold or minimum performance that must be maintained to avoid problems when editing the footage. SD has very low performance requirements and can usually be accomplished with just a pair of drives in a simple RAID 0. HD, especially editing uncompressed has much higher performance requirements. For example, to edit 1080i uncompressed will require about 250 MB/s minimum and 2K starts at about 300 MB/s. Fortunately with today's high performance drives it requires less hardware to manage those speeds.

  To understand where the storage RAID array get it's speed there are a couple of realities that must be understood. The performance requirements dictate the number of drives that must be used. Each drive included in a RAID be it either a RAID 0 or a RAID 5 adds it's performance value to the RAID. Today's retail desktop drives are capable of 100 - 120 MB/s when empty. If you build a RAID out of multiple drives the number of drives included dictates the maximum performance available. Sometimes there are other limits to performance such as bandwidth or computer limitations.

  As data is added to a hard drive it's performance degrades, the more full a drive the slower it will be. At 80% of capacity a drive will provide approximately 70% of it's original speed when empty. The problem occurs when editing on a system that only provides enough performance for the required format when it's empty. As the drives fill up with data the performance degrades and the array starts dropping frames. The cure for this is to plan for the degraded performance of a loaded array. At 80% of capacity the performance is approximately 70% what the array started at. If you plan for this slow down and buy hardware accordingly you won't experience dropped frames.

Video format data rate chart is available at the bottom of this page

STORAGE VOLUME

  The volume of storage required is determined by the format of video multiplied by the hours of video that must be stored (MB/s X 3600). This includes the RAW footage as well as the post processed final product. With the huge 1500 GB drives available now this is easier than ever. When you choose what drives to RAID together to get the performance required for your project you will also choose the drive capacity. By considering the volume losses and your project's space requirements you should be able to decide what size drive is best for your needs. Keep in mind that you never want to fill a hard drive to it's capacity, always stop at about 80% when storing video. This provides room for the directory index which avoids data corruption. If the RAID you plan on using is a RAID 0 all but about 7% is available for storage. That 7% is lost to the formatting process. If you choose RAID 5 you will lose the volume of one of the drives as well as that 7%. For example if you build an 8 drive RAID 5 using 1TB drives you will lose 1TB for the parity and the 7% format loss leaving you with approximately 5.2 TB of usable space at 80% of capacity.

SECURITY

  Contrary to popular belief, a RAID 5 does not offer much more data security over a simple RAID 0. What it does offer is failure tolerance, a RAID 5 can fail a single drive and maintain it's data where a RAID 0 will lose all data if a member is lost. Parity RAID such as a RAID 5 or RAID 6 is a server technology designed primarily to maintain database uptime. It does this by storing parity data across all of the drives along with your video data, if a drive fails the RAID Controller can calculate what was on the missing drive. This makes for a very complicated algorithm which requires a high quality RAID Controller. The real quality comes into play when something goes wrong. These parity RAIDs are intolerant of data corruption. A little corruption introduced can make the RAID unreadable. Another issue is the complexity of the RAID itself. They are complicated to maintain especially when a problem arises. Should a drive failure occur and the operator accidentally remove the wrong drive the controller sees the missing drive as a failed drive , meaning that the array has lost two members and is now irreparably lost. We've seen this happen. Parity RAIDs have their own avenues of failure and for this reason can't be used without a backup copy of your data. Even a RAID 5 can fail and lose your valuable, irreplaceable data.

  The best plan that exists for protecting what you can't afford to lose is to have multiple copies. If you manage a backup copy of your data correctly it can protect you from events that the most robust RAID 5 can't. If a failure or corruption should occur, the backup copy can be used to recover or keep working. The backup should be automatically updated by a software application which keeps the backup version up to date with the primary. The one caveat to this method is should you experience a database problem or corruption you must stop the automated backup from occurring until the problem is rectified, otherwise that corruption will be carried over to the backup. Anytime an Operating System, Security Update or new software is installed you should disable your backup so that in the event of a problem it will be in pristine condition and available.

  For more information on RAID 5's check out our RAID 5 guide.

HARDWARE

  Most of our customers are processing their video on RAID 0 systems with a second array for backup. This requires a Port Multiplier capable Host Card installed inside the computer to provide external eSATA ports. Each of these ports is capable of up to 5 drives when using the Burly Port Multiplier Enclosures allowing enough drives to be mounted for today's video formats. These RAID 0 systems are the most cost effective and expandable storage available. One of our best sellers is the Burly Dual PM which uses a pair of Port Multiplier Boards and 6 drives in a small chassis with excellent cooling to provide 400 MB/s performance. That's fast enough to edit 2K or you can stripe 3 drives and back up to the other three in the same enclosure. Depends on your performance needs.

  For a true Hardware Based RAID 5 check out the Burly VR RAID Systems. This Enclosure comes with everything you will need already formatted into a RAID to your specifications. RAID 5 and RAID 6 is becoming popular for video and provides failure tolerance although a backup is always required. These systems have the dedicated CPU and RAM on a top level Areca card to manage the RAID leaving your computer's resources untaxed. The high performance CPU provides excellent performance in the 700 MB/s range.

  If you have specific questions don't hesitate to call or email us. We're always happy to help you configure a system that will best suite your needs.

  Whether you're doing on location video capture or downloading your camera to your mobile computer at a shoot, it's a good idea to create an immediate backup of your work before you delete or format your capture card. This requires an external storage solution. There are several awesome options available. You can attach single or multiple hard drives via Firewire / USB or keep it natively SATA for even more speed and simplicity. To use a Firewire / USB Enclosure all you will need is the enclosure with the hard drive installed. Plug it in and go to work. By using a native SATA solution you can count on achieving the fastest possible speeds.

  To attach a native SATA system you will need a Host Adaptor Card in one of three formats, PCMCIA (Cardbus Card) for older machines or Express34 or 54 for the newer PCs and Macs. The adaptor cards slide into a slot on the side of your mobile computer and provide external Port Multiplier capable eSATA ports. These cards can direct mount two drives or by using a Port Multiplier Enclosure attach up to 10 drives to your computer.

  If you want the smallest possible mobile drive check out the KC21-SATA that uses a SATA laptop drive and can fit in a pocket. This enclosure can be bus powered via USB or Firewire ports so no external power is required. If you need a more robust mobile enclosure that has a built in power supply and offers a great cooling solution check out the Burly Single Bay Enclosures. They are available in Direct Mount or Hot Swap configurations. The Hot Swap enclosure is great because it allows you to capture to a single drive then pull that drive out and slide it into a desktop enclosure when you get back to the studio for editing on a faster computer.
 

  Our burly line of enclosures is designed to be the very best environment for your hard drive while being user serviceable in the rare event that there's a problem. These enclosures all have superior cooling and a high quality built in power supply. Designed with unitized construction in mind which allows easy diagnostics and convenient and timely failure repair. We use only the highest quality components available to ensure years of trusted service. Burly Enclosures are engineered so that there is adequate cooling while using large slow moving fans which makes these enclosures some of the quietest on the market. Small tightly packed enclosures need fast loud fans to move enough air to keep the drives cool which causes turbulence internally and reduces fan effectiveness. Since most people park their storage right next to their computers within easy reach a quiet enclosure is very desirable. Burly uses a slightly larger enclosure that maintains lower noise levels while still keeping the drives cool.

  Designed for 24/7/365 use, Burly Enclosures are an all steel chassis surrounding the delicate drives internally. Drive trays totally encompass the drive allowing you to remove the drives for archiving while physically protecting the drive itself. Trays come in two versions Standard and LCD and are interchangeable between enclosure types. The LCD Tray will only fit into enclosures originally built to fit them but the Standard tray will work in either. LCD Trays display drive temperature, drive activity, fan activity and have an audible alarm if the drive fan should stop or the drive temperature rise above a certain level. Standard Trays have an LED for drive power and drive activity.

  Burly Hot Swap Enclosures are particularly well suited for Video Editing and high usage applications because in addition to the enclosure fans, behind every drive is it's very own fan that pulls air across the drive tray which is an aluminum extrusion with cooling fins acting as a heat sink. These systems can cool even the hottest running drives out there and extend their life. For the upmost in reliability stick with Burly!

NEW Trayless option!

  The solution to many requests for a robust trayless enclosure has now been found. Burly Storage has been looking for that solution for some time and it's now available in the Burly Enclosure line. If you want your enclosure to include the trayless bays simply choose them in the "Bay Type" pull-down menu on any Burly Enclosure. CLICK HERE for a complete description and photos.

  Burly Storage is currently offering FREE GROUND SHIPPING for any order that includes a Burly Port Multiplier Enclosure, 4 and 8 bay Burly Firewire Enclosure either Fixed Drive or Hot Swap. Retail customers only.

  When simplicity is the plan. This is the easiest way to attach storage to a Firewire or USB equipped computer. If your computer doesn't have that capability, no problem. We have PCIcards available for most computers, plug and play in most cases. Simply plug one data cable and a power cable in and go to work.

  These Burly Enclosures use the Oxford 924 Firewire Bridge Boards providing blazing speeds using SATAII drives. These boards can be chained together to provide huge storage capacities. Perfect for photo and audio library storage. You can even stream SD video on them!

  Anytime you use a non cooled Firewire enclosure we recommend that you power it up to transfer data then power it back down. Non-cooled enclosures tend to fail drives more often if they're left on. If you want a more robust enclosure that is designed for 24/7 duty and will better protect your data, choose the Burly Firewire Enclosures. They all offer great drive cooling and built in power supplies. No more of those power bricks that don't filter the voltage very well. Burly is the way to go!

NEW Trayless option!

  The solution to many requests for a robust trayless enclosure has now been found. Burly Storage has been looking for that solution for some time and it's now available in the Burly Enclosure line. If you want your enclosure to include the trayless bays simply choose them in the "Bay Type" pull-down menu on any Burly Enclosure. CLICK HERE for a complete description and photos.

Please note, the 500 GB and smaller Seagate 7200.12 generation drives will not work with the trayless style bay. These drives are physically shorter and will not fit snugly in the drive opening. The 750 GB and larger drives have the correct frame size to fit these bays.

  Burly Storage is currently offering FREE GROUND SHIPPING for any order that includes a Burly Port Multiplier Enclosure, 4 and 8 bay Burly Firewire Enclosure either Fixed Drive or Hot Swap. Retail customers only.

   SATA Host Cards come in 3 basic expansion bus formats for desktop computers, PCI, PCI-X and PCI Express also known as PCIe. Laptops also have three card types available, Cardbus (PCMCIA), Express34 and Express54. It's very important to choose the card type that fits your available slot as well as the individual card that works the best for your application and Operating System.

  PCI-X Host Cards are backward compatible with PCI Expansion Slots in most cases. PCI-X cards can be installed in the shorter PCI slots but the extra length will hang over the inboard end of the slot by about 1.5", as long as the motherboard can accommodate the longer card it will usually work. When a PCI-X card is installed in a PCI slot it will perform at the slower bus speed of that slot. If ordering a PCI-X card for use in a PCI slot make sure that your motherboard physically has clearance for the longer card.

  PCI Express (PCIe)expansion slots come in different lengths or "Lane Counts", 1-Lane (1X), 4-Lane (4X), 8-Lane (8X) and 16-Lane (16X). The 16-Lane is almost always used exclusively for Graphics Cards and cannot be used to connect a SATA Host Card. Each Lane of the Expansion slot is capable of roughly 250MB/s, if you install a card that uses 4 Lanes, the "DATA Pipeline" feeding that card can be as fast as 1GB/s. 2 Port cards may be used in 1X slots, the 4 Port cards must have at least 4X lanes both physically and electrically.

  On some motherboards you may find PCI Express slots that are physically longer than they are electrically. Motherboard manufacturers may use an 8-Lane slot bracket (Physical Length) but only attach it electrically to 4 Lanes. This is very common on PC motherboards as it allows a larger card to be attached but the card will only perform at the bandwidth that is available to it.

  Laptop, Powerbook and MacBookPro computers may use either a Cardbus (PCMCIA) card or the narrower Express34 or Express54 cards. We'll concentrate on the Express 34 card because the Cardbus and Express 54 slots are no longer in wide use. If you require a specific card for an application let us know. The width of your expansion slot you should help determine which card type will fit. The Cardbus card is about 2.125" (2-1/8") wide and the Express34 card is about 1.375" (1-3/8"). These cards are all PC and Mac compatible.

  NOTE: Beginning in early 2009 the 15" Apple MacBook Pro will no longer ship with an Express34 Expansion Slot, in it's place is a card reader. The 17" MacBook Pro is still a PRO-Level machine and retains the Express34 slot.

  If you're looking for a card to manage a RAID 5 or 6 stick with the Hardware RAID Controllers from 3ware or Areca. These cards are designed with an on-board CPU and RAM to manage RAID function. This avoids taxing your computers resources and slowing the overall system performance. If you require a RAID 5 or RAID 6 this is unquestionably the way to go.

If you have any question of which card will work in your computer or application please check out our "SATA Host Card Guide" or give us a call. 1-208-983-2555

Burly Storage has a full assortment of Premium cables and adapters for PCs and Macs. All SATA cables support SATAI and SATAII specifications. We sell only the highest quality data and power cables available!

Check out our new line of SAS and Multilane cables and adapters. We also offer Firewire cables and adapter cables up to 32' long for printers and cameras.

  Hardware RAID is accomplished by using a host controller with an on board CPU to handle the needed RAID calculations freeing up your system CPU. This is very important when using a Parity array since by it's nature it tends to be a CPU hog. RAID 5 and RAID 6's share parity information among all drive members where a RAID 3 has a dedicated Parity drive. Parity RAIDs require a lot of processor to perform all the calculations needed to maintain the revolving parity. This is best accomplished by using a Hardware based Controller such as the 3ware since all the needed calculations can be performed on the Controller itself leaving the system CPU untaxed.

  For PCs there are several options. 3ware makes excellent controller cards for up to 24 drives with onboard CPU and RAM which can be used with our line of Burly SATA and Multilane Enclosures. The Areca cards offer the latest Processors found on a RAID Controller providing the best performance for both PC's and Macs. These cards are available in PCI-X and PCI Express versions and work with just about any PC OS.

  Hardware RAIDs are the safest possible means of storing your irreplaceable data but backups are always required. Due to the complexity of any RAID it should never be relied on as your sole storage. You must maintain a backup. There are innumerable ways of losing or corrupting data, most have nothing to do with hardware failure. For this reason we at Burly Storage ALWAYS recommend that you keep your data backed up in at least one place preferably two, one being off site. This applies even when using a Parity RAID such as a RAID 5 or RAID 6. These RAIDs may protect your data from a hard drive failure, but they can't save you from the many other ways of losing your data. ALWAYS use an automated backup routine and make sure that the timely backups occur. Also of note, a Mirror (RAID 1) can not be considered a backup. The problem with a mirror is it's instantness. Should you corrupt your data on one side of a mirror it's also corrupted on the other. If you use a software backup routine to copy your data to your backup drive after hours and should that same corruption occur, your backup drive would remain intact and undamaged to recover from.

Hard drives come in many styles, SATA, ATA, SCSI, SAS not to mention the new Fibre Channel and Solid State varieties. Simply choose the type of hard drive that you need from the sections below.

  Solid State Drives (SSD's) seem to be the next emerging technology on the horizon for desktop and laptop computers. We're monitoring the performance, durability and cost per Gigabyte on these new drives in hopes that the manufacturers will be able to make them a viable replacement for the array of electro-mechanical drives we now use. Solid State drives will provide almost instant data availability with a lower power consumption. Currently these drives are priced very high and the long term longevity is an unknown. Until the SATAIII 6 Gb/s protocol arrives in general use allowing the drives to provide more of their performance potential we don't forsee the SSD's becoming much of an option for the mainstream. By using the SATAII bus their performance will remain limited to the constraints of that bus. Expect great things from SSD's in the future.

Beware the OEM drive! The hard drive market is currently flooded with server and desktop OEM drives being sold at huge discounts. These drives usually have custom or proprietary firmware with no manufacturers warranty and tend to cause a lot of compatibility problems. We recommend that you stick with RETAIL drives for the best performance, reliability and full manufacturers warranty.

This super strong steel enclosure, easy to access, rackmount SATA 4U enclosure is fully assembled and ready to hang. Meeting SATAII and SATAI specification, the highest quality cabling is used. Available in Direct Connect or Port Multiplier versions.

Already assembled with 8 top quality SATA Hotswap Bays and cables. These bays each have an additional cooling fan and fully surround your drives in an aluminum tray with great heat transfer capabilities. Your drives are going to stay their coolest! Available with optional LCD readout trays with temperature monitoring and audible alarm.

Available with built in Port Multipliers connecting 8 drives with 2 eSATA cables, 12 drives with 4 eSATA cables or Direct Connect with 8 Type-A or eSATA data cables. The Rack Mount-VR comes with 8088 Mini-SAS cabling and is available as a complete Hardware RAID System with an Areca RAID Controller or as a Mimi-SAS Chassis without external cabling or card.

CalDigit Rack Mount Enclosures come with a built in Hardware RAID Controller and RAM to manage RAID functions without taxing your computers resources. An excellent choice for video editing with the security of a high speed RAID 5 or RAID 6. These enclosures offer an aluminum chassis with redundant power supplies and a 3 year warranty. Ships with drives installed in sizes up to 8 TB total volume.

  We carry only the finest quality memory available today. This isn’t sub quality overruns bought at auction but only premium quality and manufactured to the highest tolerance possible. Burly RAM is WARRANTED FOR LIFE from failure.

  Burly Storage has been with the same memory supplier since 1995. The nature of the RAM market requires the need for a dedicated testing, evaluating and purchasing facility. We have that service in place. We are analyzing, testing and stocking the best quality RAM from several manufacturers every day.

  With one of most every Mac model on hand for quality and support testing we are able to verify quality and specification needs across the Mac spectrum.

  We make no bones about it, we are not in the discount, low cost RAM business. We search out and purchase only the best for our customers. Poor quality RAM is the bane of any computing experience. The costs in data corruption with the inclement possibilities for data loss, repairs, lost time and frustration have led us to the inescapable conclusion that top quality is worth every penny spent. We are proud of this stance and are dedicated to maintaining this standard.

If you don't see the RAM you need please contact us, our RAM Lab offers RAM that's not offered on this page.

The icing on the cake. All the little parts and pieces that make life easier. If you don't find what you need please contact us, we may have it elsewhere.

  SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) is the next step up from SATA desktop storage. SAS can also accommodate both low-cost, high-capacity SATA disk drives as well as long-life, high-performance SAS drives. This ability to support two classes of drives offers users and systems/storage integrators new levels of flexibility in designing, scaling, and managing disk arrays.

  In fact, the key advantage of SAS is choice. Moving to SAS lets users meet Performance, Capacity, and Reliability Requirements, while being able to employ legacy SCSI software and mix-and-match SAS and/or SATA drives.

  SAS drives are better suited for random, small-block transactions while SATA drives are the best choice for sequential, large-block I/O. SAS drives are quickly gaining market share with Parallel SCSI drives because of the systems flexibility.

  SAS Controllers can attach huge arrays of drives using expanders. SATA drives may be used in SAS networks for large inexpensive storage or backup for the best GB per dollar. For the best in data security use the highly rated SAS drives.

iStoragePro is a leading manufacturer of Enterprise level storage enclosures and PCIe Expanders. These all aluminum enclosures provide a refined look to any studio or workspace and offer excellent performance and reliability. Available in many connection types, you're sure to find a large scale storage system to suit your needs.

  The Express3 PCIe Expander Enclosure allows a user to use a Standard PCIe Card or an Express34 card to greatly increase the expansion capabilities of a desktop or laptop computer. The Express3 offers 3 x PCI express expansion slots and eight 2.5" inch disk modules for internal disk storage. (The disk modules will require a RAID Controller such as the Areca internal port ML cards to be installed in the chassis.) Many people find it's useful to attach a full sized desktop graphics card to their MacBook Pro by installing it in the Express3 Chassis for improved graphics performance.

  The Express3 Expander offers the latest 20 Gb/sec PCI-express Extender technology, enabling it to extend the MacPro, MacBook Pro and many Windows Machines' PCI-express signals to an external enclosure. This allows you to capture and edit video on location using the MacBook Pro Express 34 Card at 200MB/sec or edit in the Studio using MacPro PCIe HBA card at nearly 600MB/sec. This amazing technology provides speed, flexibility and portability.

  There are a couple of different ways to attach Hardware RAID storage to a computer. The first and most common is to install a RAID Controller into the computer and attach that to either a "dumb" enclosure or an enclosure with a built in expander. The expander allows you to add many more enclosures by daisy chaining them from the expander chassis itself. The second way to attach a Hardware RAID is to install a Host Bus Adapter (HBA) which converts your PCIe expansion slot into a different connection type, usually Mini-SAS 8088 ports. An enclosure with a built in RAID Controller is then attached to the HBA. The RAID is managed by the RAID Controller inside enclosure itself. Expander enclosures can be added to the Host Enclosure to increase the storage volume.

  The iR16SASER and iR16SAEJ Enclosures offer some unique features especially valuable to those that need large scale high speed storage. By installing the iAHLS3801E-A Non-RAID Adapter into your PCIe equipped desktop computer you can attach the iR16SASER 16 Bay RAID to it's 2 SFF-8088 Mini-SAS ports. The iR16SASER has a built in RAID Controller that can create a hardware based RAID not only on this enclosure but on up to 4 - iR16SAEJ Enclosures attached to it. Each chassis will show up as it's own RAID Volume, in the RAID level of your choice. Since the iR16SASER has a high speed processor it offers excellent performance for all attached storage volumes.

  Up to 80 drives can be attached to the iR16SASER providing nearly 160 TB of storage capacity all on a single PCIe expansion port. This allows you to scale your storage capabilities by adding enclosures as they become needed. With each enclosure being it's own volume it makes backups quick and convenient. The iR16SAEJ is an expansion chassis that can be daisy chained to almost any primary connection type you choose, iSCSI, Fibre Channel, Mini-SAS etc allowing you to scale your storage to fit your needs.

  iSCSI attached iT8iSCR Enclosures will connect directly to your Local Area Network (LAN) with standard CAT 5 or 6 cables and provide easy, accessible backup storage. The 8 drives can be configured as JBOD or any common RAID including RAID 6 and 60. This is a great way to attach large protected storage volumes easily without the need for host cards or RAID Controllers. The RAID Controller is built into the enclosure and completely manages teh network RAID. Simply access storage via your native Gigabit Ethernet, what could be easier?

  The iR16IS2ER is a 16 drive rackmount version of the iT8iSCR, allowing you to attach 16 drives easily to your network using it's two LAN ports. The iR16IS2ER is not expandable.

  The iSCSI iR16IS4ER provides easy LAN connection but offers a couple of bonuses. The iR16IS4ER can be attached to your LAN Switch with 4 cables essentially doubling the bandwidth over that of the two port iR16IS2ER. Another benefit of the iR16IS4ER is that it can control multiple iR16SAEJ expander enclosures for up to 96 drives (192 TB). This iSCSI system can be quickly implemented within your network and expanded to huge capacities as you grow. Simply slide another iR16SAEJ enclosure into your rack and daisy chain it off of the iR16IS4ER.

  The Mini-SAS connected 2.5" 8 bay drive enclosures allow a small cluster of low power drives to be RAIDed for optimum performance in the field. This is great for those of you who need portability without compromising performance. The iT8PMIS and the low noise version iT8PESA are a great solution to the portability problem. These enclosures accept 2.5" SATA, SAS or SSD drives and can go where you go.

  The iR16FC4ER 16 Bay Fibre Channel Enclosures are a great way to deliver high speed (600+ MB/s) RAID level storage to a computer or a network. The Fibre enclosure chassis can be expanded with the use of multiple (up to 5) iR16SAEJ enclosures for up to 192 TB of storage volume on a single expansion slot. The Fibre connection between the installed Fibre card in your computer and the iR16FC4ER chassis offers enterprise level data protection and performance. This product is certified for use with the ATTO Fibre and Apple Fibre cards.

  The iR16SAE 16 Bay Mini-SAS Enclosures attach directly to a RAID Controller that's installed inside your computer and allow you to expand your storage by adding up to 4 iR16SAEJ enclosures. This system is currently capable of up to 180 TB of expanded storage. The difference between the iR16SAE Mini-SAS System and the iR16SASER is that the iR16SAE uses a computer installed RAID Controller and the iR16SASER uses a PCIe extender card to attach the chassis to your computer, but the actual RAID Controller is built into the enclosure.

  The iStoragePro QUAD Interface enclosures (iT4UFER) can attach via eSATA, Firewire 400, Firewire 800 or USB 2.0. These are a great solution for someone who has to have different connection types for multiple computers. Although it's usually best to go with an enclosure with a dedicated connection type for the best performance and reliability, the QUAD Interface offers the convenience of all four types of connection in a single enclosure.

  The iStoragePro Mini-SAS Enclosures can connect to any Mini-SAS equipped RAID Controller. These enclosures are as simple as it gets to add multiple drives in a Hardware RAID environment. Available in rack mount and desktop tower versions there's something to solve any need. There's even a small frame enclosure (iT8PMIS) that supports an 8 drive RAID using smaller 2.5" laptop drives that's perfect for on location video capture.

  Our iStoragePro enclosures are priced with economical desktop drives. If you prefer to have Enterprise Class or SAS drives installed please contact us for pricing and availability. We list prices for each enclosure type with 1TB and 2TB drives as well as the empty enclosure without drives. If you prefer a different size drive please contact us for a quote.

  Enclosures purchased with drives installed will get formatted into a RAID and an extensive burn in procedure will be performed for 24-48 hours. This ensures that when you install the RAID on your machine everything is well tested and ready to go. It's a service well worth the expense.

Don't hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have. Business hours are 8-5 Monday-Friday Pacific time, 208-983-2555.