Sony releases portable Thunderbolt RAID drives in 4TB & 6TB

sony_portable_thunderbolt_raid_driveA fairly unknown party of Sony’s business to many is their professional lineup of equipment that’s mainly targeted at those in the broadcast community. From Bundesliga games to the biggest films to come out of Hollywood, there is a good chance that some Sony equipment was used. To that end, Sony is bringing to market a portable and shock resistant Thunderbolt 2 RAID drive which comes in a 4TB and 6TB configuration that’s meant to accommodate those shooting in 4K.

 Sony’s expanding line of professional storage technologies now includes two distinctive, rugged and portable RAID (dual 3.5 inch HDD) products for ultra-fast data transfer on location in 6TB and 4TB capacities. Each new model has the transfer speeds and high performance needed for 4K production and deliver effective high-capacity content workflow options from the field to the studio. 

Sony continues with:

 Unlike current HDD RAID products, Sony’s offerings are optimized for the transport, back-up and quick transfer of content on-the-go, and are equipped to handle the demanding file requirements of 4K production. The new RAIDs — PSZ-RA4T (4TB) and PSZ-RA6T (6TB) — are convenient solutions which feature a handle on top for easy carrying and are designed to support increasing file sizes in a resilient and reliable housing.  The new models offer rapid transfer speeds of up to 440MB/s (read/write), reducing the transfer time for all files, including large 4K video files. 

And before you ask, you can absolutely daisy chain these drives (up to six) via Thunderbolt so overall, capacity via different RAID modes (RAID 0, RAID 1 and JBOD) shouldn’t be a problem. Pricing remains a bit scarce but from what I’ve gathered, the 4TB will set you back just under $500 while the 6TB comes in at a better value of under $550. You can read a bit more about the drives on Sony’s PR release.