Glyph have been demonstrating new FireWire 800 versions of the GT Key, GT 051, GT 103, and GT 205 at the AES Show. Building upon the original FireWire 400 GT Series drives and enclosures, the new FW800 versions offer the newest SATA drive technology, and bus speeds roughly double that of FireWire 400.
At the heart of the GT Series, the new GT Key FW800 hot-swappable hard drive is available in up to 750GB capacities, and utilizes Oxford’s 924 chip to bridge Seagate’s newest SATA drives to FireWire 800. Faster than traditional Parallel ATA (PATA) drives, Seagate’s SATA drives incorporate Native Command Queuing (NCQ). An algorithm that cuts down on extra arm motion, NCQ dynamically reschedules and reorders commands so the heads travel less over the platters of the drive. Built into the drive, NCQ can improve the number of audio tracks that can be played.
Peter Glanville, Marketing Director for Glyph, told us, “In an audio workstation environment, we've seen a 15-20% track count improvement over the existing FireWire 400 GT Series products. That means more tracks per drive, more edits per track, less spreading tracks across multiple drives, and fewer headaches trying to reassemble sessions from multiple drives.�
Working in conjunction with the GT Key FW800, Glyph’s hot-swap enclosures have also been upgraded to FireWire 800. These include:
- GT 051 FW800 single-bay tabletop hot-swap
- GT 103 FW800 three-bay single-space rack
- GT 205 FW800 four-bay 2U rack, which includes a SCSI / FireWire expansion bay.
Both the GT 103 and GT 205 feature a front-panel accessible FireWire 400 convenience port for connecting any FireWire 400 devices while the unit is racked, eliminating the need for a FW400 to FW800 converter cable.
Glyph has designed the new products to work seamlessly with existing FireWire 400 environments. Using the time-tested Integrity FireWire hot-swap interface, Glyph’s existing FW400 and new FW800 GT Series drives and enclosures are cross-compatible, which means upgrading to FW800 can be seamless.
Glyph say the new FW800 versions of the GT Key, GT 051, GT 103 and GT 205 include everything you’ve come to expect in the GT Series. Constructed with durable stainless steel, enclosures have internal power supplies and quiet fans, and tabletops are rack mountable with an optional rack kit.
Focused on keeping your studio quiet, GT Series internal frames are constructed with sound-dampening metal to absorb drive vibration and reduce unwanted noise. For additional protection during transporting, tabletops and GT Key hot-swap drives ship in hard-shell plastic carrying cases.
Backed by Glyph’s service and technical support, GT Series enclosures are covered under warranty for three years. Hard drives come standard with an additional Overnight Advance Replacement warranty in the first year.
Pricing and Availability:
GT Series FW800 products will ship 4th quarter, 2006.
More information:
Facebook Comments 
