Remarkable Performance, Diminutive Package

Speed, reliability, ruggedness, and convenience—these are the essential qualities of a storage system for on-location video capture. When you need to travel light, choose a Sonnet Fusion F2 portable SATA RAID storage system. Providing 1.5TB⁽¹⁾ of storage in a small enclosure, Fusion F2 uses two eSATA connections to deliver the fastest performance yet from a 2-drive portable storage system, with data transfer rates up to twice as fast as FireWire®. By connecting Fusion F2 through a SATA host adapter like Sonnet’s Tempo™ SATA Pro ExpressCard/34, or to Sonnet’s Qio™ Professional Universal Media Reader, your notebook’s FireWire 800 port is left open for use by an AJA® Video Systems ioHD, which requires dedicated use of FireWire bandwidth. Fusion F2 is cool, quiet, and energy-efficient: side-by-side placement of its drives increases the metal case’s cooling surface area, thereby eliminating the need for a fan, and allowing it to be bus-powered so it can be used even when no grid power is available.

RAID to Go

Connected to the Tempo SATA Pro ExpressCard/34 eSATA adapter installed in a MacBook® Pro, and with its drives configured as a RAID 0 striped volume, the compact Fusion F2 is capable of sustained read and write data transfers at up to 200 MB/s, fast enough to handle multiple streams of ProRes 422 (HQ). Compared to the slower 66 MB/s performance from a pair of drives connected via FireWire 800, the advantage is clear—Fusion F2 provides you the capability to capture and play more streams of compressed video for field editing. With its drives configured as a RAID 1 mirrored volume, Fusion F2 still can capture Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) HD fed from an AJA ioHD. This protected mode also enables you to safely transfer data from Panasonic® P2, Sony® SxS Pro, or similar memory cards in the field. Verifying captured footage on a MacBook Pro/Fusion F2 system will provide you the peace of mind to erase and reuse cards on location.

Two Data Connections

Fusion F2 features two 3 Gb/s eSATA data ports. By connecting via a direct SATA interface with no bridge chip between the F2’s case and SATA drives, there is no resulting communication slowdown, just the fastest data transfers possible.

Flexible Power Options

Fusion F2 can be powered by your computer through a spare FireWire⁽²⁾ port using an included adapter cable. Alternatively, you can power the F2 by connecting it directly to Sonnet’s Qio with an included 15cm (6") power cable. For longer field work, the F2 is also compatible with all models of myPower ALL batteries from Tekkeon at an 8-19V setting. Sonnet recommends model MP3450i, which at a 56 Watt-hour capacity, should provide up to 9 hours of F2 run time. Other power options include another FireWire device, powered hub, or Sonnet’s optional World Travel Power Adapter.

Driving Force

Fusion F2 employs two 750GB, 7,200 RPM 2.5" mobile hard drives that offer an optimal balance between speed, power consumption, and reliability. Sonnet chose these high-performance drives because they offer greater areal density than other mobile hard drives (pack more data per platter), use the 3 Gb/s SATA interface, and deliver astonishing performance. Simply put, they are the fastest 2.5" mobile hard disk drives available today. Fusion F2’s drives are also extremely quiet and very rugged, making the Fusion F2 a great travel companion for your mobile studio.

Qio Companion

Fusion F2 is the perfect storage solution for Sonnet’s award-winning Qio Professional Universal Media Reader. Sharing the same compact footprint, the F2 and Qio can be stacked on top of each other. You can even connect the F2 directly to the Qio using the short cables included in the package to keep cable clutter to a minimum and eliminate the need for a separate power source for the F2.

Rugged for a Reason

Fusion F2 was devised as a high-performance, high-reliability alternative to existing portable drive solutions. Encased inside a thick aluminum shell, each of Fusion F2’s drives is individually shock-isolated, not only protecting the drives during transport, but also virtually eliminating cross-coupled vibration—a potential source of soft-error-induced skipped frames.

Versatile Performance

Fusion F2 is ideal for use on location as well as the office—various operating systems, editing applications and output demands requiring the flexibility and interoperability that Fusion F2 provides. Fusion storage systems support OS X®, Windows® 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista®, Windows XP Professional, and Linux®. It is compatible with capture cards from AJA, Blackmagic Design, Matrox, and Bluefish444, and works with all mainstream video editing applications from Apple® and Adobe®.

Fusion F2 Performance

CONFIGURATION: Fusion F2 1TB, 7200 RPM connected to Sonnet Tempo™ SATA Pro ExpressCard/34 host adapter installed in a 2.0 GHz MacBook Pro with 2GB of RAM, and an AJA Io HD connected.

Performance Test