You may never have heard of iStoragePro, but chances are you've encountered a system for which they were the OEM. After some 20 years of manufacturing as OEM, parent company Ci Design now produces a line of storage solutions including single external drives to FireWire, eSATA, SAS and Fibre Channel RAIDs.

I've had the opportunity to work with their iT8SAE SAS Expander Storage unit and all I can say is, "Wow, I'm impressed!"

The iT8SAE connects to the host-computer RAID controller card with just one mini-SAS cable. In this basic configuration, the one cable will support all eight drives in the RAID. Two other mini-SAS ports on the unit allow daisy chaining of up to 10 units (80 drives!) for storage expansion, added redundancy or multiple RAID volumes. The enclosure supports the latest 2TB drives for a maximum of 16TB (unformatted) per unit. Multiple by a maximum of 10 boxes and that's a lot of redundant storage! Of course, SAS drives are also supported, and with the 15,000 rpm mechanisms available in SAS, high-end users pumping massive resolutions would do well to consider fast SAS hard drives.

iStoragePro provides maximum flexibility with Windows, Linux and Mac support through qualified expansion-capable controller cards from Areca, ATTO or Highpoint Technologies.

My test unit came populated with eight 500GB Seagate Barracuda drives and pre-configured as a RAID 5 Mac volume. That results in 3.13TB available storage space. I chose not to reconfigure the RAID, since RAID 5 is my recommended RAID configuration for video production. RAID 5 stripes parity across all drives in the array, allowing for the failure of one drive. RAID 6 can withstand two failures, but at the expense of somewhat slower read/writes and less useable capacity. The RAID level you use is proportionate to your propensity for risk. For most video applications, RAID 5 is adequate.

But first, the unit itself. Its brushed aluminum design with grille and top handles matches my Mac Pro. The grille opens to reveal power button and removable drive trays with clearly visible disk activity lights.

The unit shipped with the drives removed but very carefully packed. One thoughtful feature not seen in many other arrays is that trays are numbered to correspond to the appropriate slot in the enclosure. For most controller cards, the order of drives really does not matter, but this little added bit of care shows that iStoragePro tries not to miss any detail.

The rear contains one host mini-SAS port, two slave ports for daisy chaining and a series of push buttons that control functions including audible alarm and password. These are carefully documented in the brief but well illustrated and clearly written documentation.

Construction is solid. The drives slid into their slots and locked with no problems or resistance. Every connection was stable. The first thing I noted when configuring the unit was a removable fan module which also revealed a second fan. Heat, as we know, is a hard drive's worst enemy. The iT8SAE has two powerful fans and adequate ventilation. But the first thing I noted when powering up the RAID was how quiet those fans were. iStoragePro claims "studio quiet" in their publicity, and I would agree.

My RAID controller card of choice in both PCs and Macs is the Highpoint RocketRAID 4322. At under $700, its relatively economical price belies its features. A dedicated Intel processor and dual channels combine with an easy-to-use browser-based GUI for RAID maintenance and configuration.

This RAID came pre-configured as a RAID 5 for Mac. All I had to do was connect one mini-SAS cable to the Highpoint card in my Mac Pro, power up the enclosure and then power up the Mac. The RAID mounted immediately.

Speed, of course, is a function not just of the enclosure but of the drives and controller card. The Seagate Barracudas are fast, but SAS drives are faster. The fact that the internal electronics of the enclosure expand the four-channel-per-SAS-connector spec to the full eight channels without any loss of speed is a tribute to iStoragePro's engineering.

Had they shipped me multiple enclosures, I could then have daisy-chained those enclosures to create some massive volumes or multiple volumes. The enclosure will support any level of RAID or configuration that your controller card will support.

This quality comes at a very reasonable price point. The bare enclosure lists for $750. The 4TB unit I tested retails for $1,595. Both bare and populated configurations are available. Add a controller card in the $700-$1,000 range and you've created a storage system that will crunch through your renders and provide peace of mind that your files are secure.

The experience of parent company Ci Design is apparent in everything from the design of the unit to its sturdy construction to its functionality. All of their products are sold exclusively through retail and VAR operations but excellent and rapid tech support is provided directly through iStoragePro.

The beauty of the system is the expansion capability which it provides making it an enclosure well worth the consideration of anyone designing a complete storage and redundancy system.