Resellers caught speeding by commission-hungry traffic cops could turn the situation into a sales opportunity, thanks to a new rugged removable RAID storage product being distributed by Hammer.

Storage vendor CRU-DataPort has launched a DataPort 25 hand-held SATA RAID removable drive enclosure, designed for moving and rough environments, such as speeding police cars, tube trains and heavy industrial workshops.

Made of heavy-duty stainless steel, the DataPort 25 line allows users to hot-swap two 2.5in SATA hard drives from a 3.5in slot in PCs, servers and other devices ­ such as the digital cameras that the police use to record speeding IT salesmen.

The police use camera footage to prosecute drivers, but in a car chase the equipment takes a beating, explained Steve Cowley, sales manager of the product’s distributor, Hammer.
“The beauty of this product is that it is rugged and durable, but the user can just pop it out of the device and then carry it back into the station.”

Any storage resellers that are stopped by traffic police might like to turn this challenge into a sales opportunity, by offering them a more flexible and reliable storage medium, Cowley suggested.

The discs can store up 320GB of data each, giving each hot-swappable twin hard drive a total capacity of 640GB.
Other target markets could be areas where CCTV is used, such as rail, road and shipping transport, manufacturing and security.
The tiny footprint, huge capacity and rugged design are highly persuasive, said Jon Johnson, marketing director for CRU-DataPort.

But the real selling point that resellers should push is the clever use of RAID storage technology, which duplicates all data. “The police will understand the concept of backup,” he said.
“The added functionality of RAID support will greatly enhance customer applications, which include digital video surveillance capture in military and police vehicles, mass transit such as buses and trains, digital audio and video capture and editing in devices such as portable video cameras,” added Johnson.