A high performance, high capacity backup system based on a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) was announced by Highly Reliable Systems. Holding up to 3 Terabytes (TB) of uncompressed data (5TB compressed) on a single partition, the RAIDPac removable cartridge used by the RAIDFrame is the world's largest removable backup cartridge. The RAIDFrame is approximately the same size as a high end tape drive but holds 3.75 times more data. Using a single, industry standard, eSATA cable running at 3 Gigabits per second or may be connected with a USB 2.0 port for emergency and/or portable use, The system attaches directly to a fileserver or workstation.

Companies struggle, as data stored on computers swell, to find ways to protect it against loss. Techniques such as backing up to tape, over the Internet, or to network attached storage (NAS) often can't keep up with the need to move large amounts of data offsite nightly for safety. RAIDFrames are a more reliable and faster way to backup these huge data sets. RAID systems aren't new - they've been used to provide hot swap drives in servers for a while. The difference is that the RAIDFrame backup system makes an entire 3 drive RAID array, and its controller, removable as a cartridge.

According to Tom Hoops, the company CTO: "With no overhead for Ethernet or TCP/IP, a RAIDFrame will outperform Gigabit Ethernet by as much as 5 times, reducing the clients backup window dramatically". "No special drivers are needed since the RAIDFrame is "seen" by the host system as a single removable hard drive. Unlike tape systems, RAIDPacs can be accessed in an emergency even if the RAIDFrame itself has been destroyed. Simply open the RAIDPac to expose an industry standard SATA connection and a molex power connector that is useable on any PC to gain access to the data."

RAIDPacs containing three 1Terabyte drives, according to the company, can be configured with a total capacity of 3TB when using RAID0 for maximum speed and size or with a capacity of 2TB when using RAID5 to protect against single drive failures. In RAID0 mode backup speeds of 200Gigabytes per hour are achievable. By using multiple RAIDPacs (as with tapes - a new one each day in rotation), redundancy is achieved even when using RAID0, so that the loss of a single drive in a RAID0 RAIDPac is not as serious as when RAID0 is used for primary storage. The "worst case" scenario is that the previous days RAIDPac is still available for restoration.

Released in March of 2008, the 1 Bay RAIDFrame, joins the 5 bay rackmount RAIDFrame that was released in 2007 to create a new product family that addresses the needs of customers with backup sets that exceed 1TB and who do not wish to split their backup data onto multiple tapes. The manufacturer ships utility software with the units and recommends the use of "best of breed" backup software such as Computer Associates Arcserve TM, Symantec Backup Exec TM or imaging products such as Acronis True Image TM.