CalDigit - Reviews
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TweakTown Rating: 95% . |
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... If you are a media professional in need of a speedy desktop external drive, and want one that comes with some cool extras, the AV Pro could be the perfect fit. It’s incredibly easy to use right out of the box and performed impressively in our lab tests. Plus, if you fill up a drive, the AV Pro’s drive module allows you to quickly and easily remove and replace it with a fresh one. All in all, CalDigit’s AV Pro is a nice external drive that’s easy to recommend to users looking to maximize their production. Read More… |
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...The AV Pro features removable drive modules and options for 2.5-inch SSD drives as well as 3.5-inch traditional hard drives... the drive also supports bus power over the USB and FireWire data cables when using an SSD configuration...In fact, we have yet to find another single-drive USB 3.0 device that can beat the AV Pro in terms of raw performance. Read More… |
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The design and feel of the drive is good and solid – its made of aluminium and it’s not that heavy... If you are someone who does a lot with audio and video then you really should take a look at the AV Pro, it may just be the external drive you have been waiting for......Read More… |
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… The CalDigit AV Pro joins the newest generation of USB 3.0 enclosures that offer speed rivaling single drive eSATA and Thunderbolt enclosures. Thanks to the installed Intel 520 6G SSD, we measured as high as 426MB/s. Though CalDigit offers versions of the AV Pro that have HDDs up to 4TB…Read More… |
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… The AV Pro is also hot swappable – that means you can remove the installed drive and slot in a new drive whenever you wish – you simply need to use the accompanying pin keys to “unlock”, then pull out the drive tray and off you go. For the Mac-loving storage geek who wants to keep a careful check on their device, a drive monitoring application for OS X is bundled with the AV Pro, offering diagnostic information and email alerts.…Read More… |
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…The CalDigit T1 is built exquisitely well, with plenty of attention paid to fit and finish… A unique aspect of the CalDigit T1 Thunderbolt drive is the supplied ThunderView software which allows users to monitor the status of the enclosure from an iOS device. You can monitor the available space, as well as overall SMART status of the drive to make sure everything is in check… Read More… |
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… The CalDigit T1 single bay Thunderbolt drive delivers faster sequential READ speeds than other "purely" single bay Thunderbolt enclosures …There are two Thunderbolt ports so you can use it to daisy chain to another Thunderbolt device.…Read More… |
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The CalDigit VR looks fantastic as it resembles a little mini MacPro Tower sitting on my desk with a backlit LCD displaying menus and current status. The Caldigit VR supports hot swappable drives, with the capabilities to support RAID 0, RAID 1, and JBOD for separate disks without the need of a RAID. The CalDigit VR can reach speeds over 250 MB/s in RAID 0, and over 160 MB/s with RAID 1 protection. Read More… |
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The CalDigit AV drive is a 1TB external drive designed to be used for audio and video applications. These applications often demand high throughput, so the AV has two of the fastest interfaces you can find, two FireWire 800 ports and a USB 3.0 port. To provide USB 3.0 connectivity, we used the CalDigit SuperSpeed ExpressCard for Laptop. The review compares the FireWire 800 and USB 3 performance on a MacBook Pro. Read More… |
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A podcast about all things Macintosh. For Mac geeks, by Mac geeks. Show 347. Apple finally responds to Locationgate. Apple spends 11B to shore up supply chain. Mac OS X v10.6.7 Snow Leopard Font Update. iPhone '11 updated. iMac Hard Drive Firmware Update 1.0. New iMacs on May 3rd. Apple developing iCloud. Apple more profitable than Microsoft. White iPhone arrives, really. OS X Lion preparing to pounce. Host iWeb on Dropbox. Saving iOS files to Flash Drive. CalDigit USB 3.0 AVDrive review. Error -1407 in Finder. Measuring Apple's success. Airplay to Mac with BananaTunes. Read More… |
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The obvious way to expand storage in the 2010 Mac Pro (or other models of Mac Pro) is to add HDDs or SSDs to the four factory drive bays. But sometimes that's not enough to satisfy the professional or consumer or pro-sumer. Let me tell you about three new, innovative, external storage solutions for the Mac Pro. Read More… |
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For months, Mac users have had to sit on the sidelines while Windows users have enjoyed drives with USB 3.0 capabilities. The next-generation connection type promises to be even faster than eSATA while still maintaining USB's convenience and universality. CalDigit's AV Drive claims to be the first drive with USB 3.0 connectivity for both the Mac and Windows Read More… |
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USB 3 has been on the horizon for a couple of years, and now some USB 3-enabled hard drives are finally shipping. CalDigit's AV Drive is one of these rare breeds, but it stands out even more because it's the only drive I know of -- shipping today -- that works on the Mac as well as Windows. Read More… |
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Most Mac users will have an external hard drive. We all use them. They have become an integral part of our workflow. They offer a quick, simple way of increasing computer storage space without breaking into your precious MacBook to upgrade components. These gadgets tend to look quite tacky. Mac users are very demanding. We want performance, looks and quality. Step in the AV Drive by CalDigit, a beautifully designed hard drive that offers good power efficiency, great looks and speed ?lot's and lot's of speed! Read More… |
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Let's face it, we all spend more time at our computers than we want to these days. With digital camera manufacturers pushing megapixel and file sizes higher and higher, and HD video becoming the norm, we are constantly in need of more hard drives. On top of a need for reliable storage space I'm always looking for a way to speed up my workflow and hence spend less time in front of the monitor. A couple of months ago storage solution specialists CalDigit announced a new addition to their external drive lineup, the USB 3.0 packing AV Drive. Read More… |
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Enter CalDigit's AV drive, a Mac compatible SuperSpeed USB3 external hard drive bundled with either an ExpressCard 34 or PCIe card and a custom Mac driver. My evaluation package easily installed in an available PCIe slot in a 2009 MacPro. Compatible MacBook Pro owners can purchase the ExpressCard 34 bundle with the drive. The 1TB AV USB3 drive performed surprisingly well using USB3, and provided the fastest write speeds I've seen for a FW800 device. Read More… |
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 Buckle your seat belts. In this review COW leader David Roth Weiss, an L.A. based director, editor, and colorist takes you inside CalDigit's brand new HDPro2; an advanced 8-drive video storage solution that will absolutely rock you with blistering performance and sustained video throughput unlike anything you've ever experienced before. Read More… |
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From Kbs to MBs to GBs to TBs, you'd be blind to not notice the trend. Today's storage needs are increasing at exponential rates. And this trend has led me to a five-plus year search for the ideal storage solution. I've bought a few off-the-shelf, rolled a few of my own and demo'd more than my share. All that experience has brought me to this point, and this review: and I've finally found what I've been looking for, CalDigit's HDOne. Read More… |
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So whether it's thumbs up, double guns, lots of stars or diamonds these days in order to recommend something, all I can say is that the VR mini is gear I would use--especially for editing out in the field. And, I would definitely use the RAID 1 feature when shooting with a file-based format like P2 because I'd automatically be creating two copies when I transfer media off the cards. Previously I wrote an article Backup Strategies Part 1 discussing RAID 0 and 1 strategies vis-a-vis standalone storage boxes like CalDigit's VR. Recently! |
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It's all fine and well to have an extremely well designed product available, and it's another thing to back it up with support, and from my experience with CalDigit, you needn't worry about either situation. They have responsive customer service and they have a product here that's second to no one's. First in it's class for sure, and let's face it: It's just plain chic. |
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The CalDigit VR is solid, quiet, versatile and is backed by a company with a reputation for knowledge in the video world and which delivers the kind of support that professionals require.Among all of the small RAID solutions on the market, I recommend the CalDigit VR for its form factor, versatility of configuration and dependability. Read More... |
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The CalDigit VR is a very good RAID 1 (mirror) solution in both form and function. It offers ease of use with both its hardware and software interfaces and I really like how the front panel displays the unit's current state and status. The price point of the VR is also quite compelling considering it has a hardware RAID controller and ships with two drives (price varies with capacity configuration). Read More… |
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The HDElement is expandable. The CalDigit RAID Card's multiple external ports allows you to connect up to three HDElements, or twelve individual drives, adding to a total storage capacity of up to 12TB. That? a lot of space! You also have the flexibility to configure the RAID on different RAID levels for various workflows and projects. The 4-drive box I believe is sold preconfigured in a RAID 5 configuration, which, by spreading and replicating data across three or more drives safeguards the loss of data against the failure of any one drive, but this can be changed accordingly to the demands of the user. Here is where the RAID Shield Client GUI (graphical user interface) comes in handy. You can monitor your system, do performance checks, check hard drives, fan, temperature, power supply, configure RAID array, etc. all in an easy and accessible fashion… Read More… |
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The CalDigit HDOne rates an easy 5-Cows. Take it from me, you really can't go wrong with an HDOne -- if you're looking for peace of mind in a box, CalDigit has just the ticket for you. |
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We've used this unit for about six weeks of daily onlining. We've beaten up this unit in a pretty rigorous real world project and I've encountered no issues with the HDOne. If your post situation requires uncompressed HD onlines, then the HDOne should definitely be on your short list of Raids to consider. Even if you're using compressed formats like ProRes and DVCProHD, you'll still benefit from the speed and robustness of the HDOne. I've read good reviews about CalDigit's previous products, but having first hand experience with this HDOne has spoiled me for any future raid boxes from other manufacturers... Read More... |
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The CalDigit RAID card's maximum transfer rate is higher than the Apple Pro RAID, though the gap shrinks as you fill up the RAID set (See Disktester graphs). Though we tested four internal drives, the CalDigit RAID card distinquishes itself by support up to 12 external drives using three mini-SAS connectors... Read More... |
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Editor/President of Idea Spring Editing, Inc. CalDigit HDPro - Geek Factor 5 |
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I used the HDPro for a week for various projects I was working on, and never once did I have an issue with frames dropping. I mostly work in 1080i 8-bit Uncompressed (which, when the HDPro was empty, gave me about 4.5 hours of storage space), so I figured I'd digitize and work with some footage in 1080i 10-bit and 720p 10-bit to see if I could get the HDPro to drop some frames, and to my surprise, I didn't have one problem, and not one hiccup. This unit slid into my production work flow seamlessly, and if you didn't tell me that I was using a PCI-e connection instead of fibre, I would never have known it. How It Performed: 10 (out of 10) |
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311 Write and 402 Read....I captured uncompressed 8-bit 720p...no problems. Uncompressed 10-bit 720p...no problems. Uncompressed 10-bit HD...passed again without one dropped frame.
OK, time to abuse this thing. Again I set it up to capture uncompressed 10-bit, and about 5 minutes in...I YANKED A DRIVE OUT! It kept merrily match capturing...not missing a beat. When it was done I saved my project and set about fixing what I intentionally broke. I pushed the drive back in and went into the RAID SHIELD software and unlocked the drive and the software went about rebuilding the RAID. Again, that took about 3 hours. But the footage I captured was still intact and played fine.
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CreativeCOW's Bob Zelin tests a Cal Digit S2VRHD with a host card for a PCI-X computer, and a PCI-E computer. He used the incredible AJA Kona System Test, to evaluate the drive speeds. He was determined to 'break it.' Did he? No. He determined that…''If you want to do uncompressed HD, for a fraction of the price of an Apple Xserve RAID, or other hi end SCSI or Fibre Channel drive arrays, THIS IS YOUR BOX.'' …
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The S2VR Duo is a solid unit that retains drive performance, even while nearly full. This allows me to work with multiple streams of DVCPRO HD (where a firewire drive would not) and allows for more realtime effects. I recommend this unit to everyone who edits DV, HDV, DVCPRO HD, XDCAM and even uncompressed SD formats….
the Firewire VR has another advantage over all other Firewire raids. It is daisy-chainable and doesn't lose drive performance. Other firewire raid units lose performance once you daisy chain them…
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Editor/President of Idea Spring Editing, Inc. CalDigit S2VR Duo - Geek Factor 5 |
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...the S2VR's RAID0 performance is solid. It simply outclasses every external drive solution out there, with great read/write transfer performance..., I have to say that I like the S2VR Duo; it has a good, clean design, and delivers solidly in the areas that it targets... Read More... |
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...Digital Photographers will enjoy the protection that the S2VR Duo offers their image collections. The system is relatively easy to set up and is fairly fast for an external solution. It has a rated read speed of 148MB second..., For video editors with the fastest PCI Express-based computers, the company offers the FASTA-4e that supports 10-bit uncompressed HD, 8 bit uncompressed HD, DV, HDV, DVCPRO HD, 8-bit and 10-bit SD video... Read More... |
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…Three things impressed me about this unit: |
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… We think the CalDigit FASTA-2e SATA 3G PCI-e host adapter will fill the need very well for those who only want to add one or two fast external drives to their Dual-Core or Quad-Core Power Mac. The $79 price point certainly is attractive if you don't have the need for more than two drives. … Read More… |
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… The S2VR Duo has a custom aluminum enclosure, which resembles Apple? Macintosh G5 case … users who need a large-capacity, high-performance, external storage device, the S2VR Duo would be a fine choice … Read More… |
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… One useful feature of the S2VR Duo enclosure is the ability to stripe the two drives at the box level (true hardware RAID). Rather than using a physical switch or LCD display, the configuration is controlled via the CalDigit S2VR Manager. You can configure the enclosure to be JBOD, RAID 0 ("Performance") or RAID 1 ("Protected") …CalDigit's host adapters and enclosures are strong contenders and the company has a strong commitment to meet the needs of "professional grade" Mac users…Read More… |
