POWAY, Calif., Nov. 10, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Apricorn today announced the introduction of its Mac Array, an easy-to-install, turnkey solution for instantly increasing your Mac Pro's processing power. Designed specifically for Apple® Mac Pro systems, the Apricorn Mac Array internal SSD RAID bridges the gap between your computer's high capacity yet slow hard drive and your system's RAM, acting as virtual memory, for a performance increase of up to 10 times. Aimed at the ever growing creative market, the Mac Array is the ideal tool for high performance applications such as video editing, animation and image processing, providing a measurable performance increase that can slash render times to a mere fraction of the usual time.

Built around four high performance 128GB solid state drives on Apricorn's specially designed SATA PCIe Host Card, the Mac Array's unique form factor adds a total of 512GB of virtual memory to your system, yet uses only one internal full length PCIe X4 slot, keeping the other slots and drive bays free for expansion. Fully configurable, the Mac Array can be used singularly or for the ultimate boost - in tandem with a second or even third Mac Array for even greater performance.

Increase your Mac Pro's performance by 10x with a single Mac Array or combine multiple boards for a performance boost of over 18x

When tested with Disktester®, the Mac Array increased read rates by 10x and write speeds by 6.8x over a traditional 7200 RPM SATA hard drive. When used in tandem with a second Mac Array, the speeds increased yet again to 18x read speed and 13.5x write speeds.

80% Reduction in Video Render Times

Perfect for high definition video rendering, Apricorn's Mac Array has been shown to slash rendering times by 80% in real world tests when used with Final Cut Pro.

360% Increase in Image Processing Performance

Great for graphic artists and photo editing, when used as a scratch disk with Adobe(R) Photoshop the Mac Array showed performance increases of up to 360%, making it the ideal tool for fast image editing.

"Designed specifically for those in the creative industry, the Mac Array provides an affordable, turnkey solution for those looking to boost their Mac Pro's processing power," said Mike McCandless, VP of Sales & Marketing at Apricorn. "By greatly decreasing rendering and processing times, the Mac Array quickly pays for itself in recouped hours and increased throughput. With the ability to add additional Mac Arrays to the same system, users are able to configure their system to meet their processing needs."

Easy to Install

The Mac Array takes just minutes to install and comes pre-configured with the Mac BIOS and RAID 0 (striping) for maximum performance. Simply remove your Mac Pro's side panel, slide the Mac Array into an available PCIe X4 slot, replace the side panel and install the included driver. Your system will instantly recognize the newly installed drives - with the drives already formatted, you'll hit the ground running.

Availability

Apricorn's Mac Array is available from Apricorn's website at http://www.apricorn.com/MacArray

Pricing

Mac Array fitted with four MLC 128GB SSDs (total capacity 512GB) - $1,499.00

Warranty

One year limited

High Resolution Image

Photo: http://www.apricorn.com/MacArray.jpg

System Requirements

Fully compatible with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard 32-bit systems.

Works with Apple® Final Cut Pro, iMovie, iPhoto, ProTools, Adobe(R) Premiere, Aperture, Photoshop, Lightroom, Sony® Vegas, Avid® Liquid, etc.

About Apricorn

Apricorn, a leader in personal storage, offers a broad family of innovative, high-quality storage, backup and upgrade products for both PC and Mac notebook and desktop applications. Apricorn was founded in 1983 and has developed numerous award-winning products under the Apricorn brand and has been an OEM supplier to a number of leading computer manufacturers. Apricorn is headquartered in Poway, California, and distributes products throughout North America and Canada. For additional information please visit http://www.apricorn.com.

    Company Contact:

    Apricorn
    Michelle Fischer
    (858) 513-4480
    mfischer@apricorn.com

    Media Contact:

    ProLine Communications
    Bruce Freeman
    (973) 716-9457
    bruce@prolinepr.com

One gigabyte (GB) = one billion bytes; accessible capacity will be less and actual capacity depends on the operating environment and formatting.

Mac Pro is a registered trademark of Apple. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE Apricorn

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