Winchester Adds Rugged Disk Array for Military Use

Winchester Systems Inc. announced a product line of Rugged Removable Canister disk arrays, called the FlashDisk RR2P Series, designed for mobile use aboard planes, ships and ground transports – purpose built for the US military.

The product enables soldiers and sailors to remove reconnaissance and surveillance images and video from the RAID disk array and plug it into a ground station for analysis – and insert new canisters into the mobile asset for rapid redeployment.

The RR2P is lightweight 2U RAID disk array chassis made of milled aluminum, weighting 47 pounds fully loaded, containing two removable canisters. Each canister holds ten compact 2.5" Small Form Factor (SFF) disks or SSDs with capacity to 1 TB each and total system capacity to 20 TB. All ten disks in a canister are carried as a single unit by a handle for safe transport and locks into place with a positive locking lever. Reliable canister connectors are military grade for field usage and are mounted to float to protect against shock and vibration. Designed for harsh environments, each canister includes an easy-to-replace filter that protects against ambient dust and humidity. The RAID controller delivers up to 1,550 MB per second write throughput for data recording and up to 1,800 MB per second for data reading and transfer from SAS disks.

"There is a pent up demand for the RR2P as a replacement for the old and popular Ciprico Talon II & Talon IV and similar products that are no longer made and are at end-of-life," elaborated Mr. Joel Leider, the company’s chief executive officer. "People loved the removable functionality of the Ciprico Talon II and Talon IV but could not find a way replace them – until now," he elaborated. "Our experience is that the RR2P is exceptionally well received by the people who really need them," he further explained.

The RR2P is a configurable FC 8 Gb hosted product, with two ports per canister, that offer options including AC or DC power supplies variety of disk and SSD storage alternatives. It is 17" wide to mount with a variety of standard rackmount rails and offers optional base plate mounting screws for secure lockdown to the vehicle.

The RR2P is designed to facilitate rapid data transfer from mobile vehicles to ground stations in the field. The RR2P will operate at 5° to 40° C and at 10,000 foot pressurized attitudes. Each canister includes four variable fans to provide cooling on demand while reducing noise and vibration at moderate ambient temperatures. Canister fans are shock and vibration isolated from the disk drives by a floating mount for added field reliability. Two additional large capacity cooling fans on the rear panel provide cooling for the system as a whole. A front-mounted LCD on each canister provides power, activity and status information.

"The RR2P was designed in tight collaboration with customers to meet the real needs of US military and prime contractors for compact and high speed, yet light-weight and removable data storage for field deployment – at COTS prices," according to Mr. Jerry Namery, the company’s chief technology officer. "This is a major leap forward combining a handsome, yet highly functional rugged design plus the latest and highly reliable 2.5" disk and SSD technology to provide what the military truly needs for today’s sophisticated reconnaissance and surveillance missions," he added.

Prices for RR2P disk arrays start at under $40,000. Products are available, are built to order and delivery is 4 to 6 weeks.