First Thunderbolt RAID Storage Solutions Now Available
Perhaps overshadowed by the controversy surrounding the release of Final Cut Pro X is the fact that Apple’s other video editing-friendly technology, Thunderbolt, is finally here. While the port has been shipping on the latest Mac computers, until now there were no currently-shipping RAID storage products compatible with the speedy new interface. On the official Apple store, four products from manufacturer Promise are now available. Priced between $1k-2k, here are the four available options:
- $999: the Promise Pegasus R4, 4X1TB 7200-rpm drives promising > 500MB/s
- $1,499: the same R4 upgraded to 8TB
- $1,499: the Promise Pegasus R6, 6x1TB 7200-rpm drives promising > 800MB/s
- $1,999: the R6 upgraded to 12TB
Here’s a very brief clip of Apple’s now-discontinued NLE pulling 800MB/sec through a single Thunderbolt cable running to one of these Pegasus R6 units:
More info on these drives here.
In related news, Sony also announced the first non-Mac laptop with Thunderbolt support, which is hopefully an indicator that the high-speed interface — which was jointly developed by Intel — will become more widespread.
Finally, Apple has also released a $50 Thunderbolt cable.
[via AppleInsider]
Related Posts
- With a New Final Cut Pro on the Way and New MacBook Pros with Thunderbolt, Apple Pro is Back
- Apple Set to Release FCP X Next Week Alongside New Thunderbolt Accessories
- Thunderbolt Arrives on the Desktop: New Apple iMacs Now Available
6 COMMENTS
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And here I was thinking “jointly developed by Intel” in the post would be accurate enough. Fine, here:
“Thunderbolt was developed by Intel and brought to market with technical collaboration from Apple Inc. It was introduced commercially on Apple’s updated MacBook Pro lineup on February 24, 2011, using the same port and connector as Mini DisplayPort. Though initially registered with Apple Inc., full rights of the Thunderbolt technology trademark belong to Intel Corp., and subsequently led to the transfer of the registration.”
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for me, the #1 issue when it comes to speed on arrays like this is the spin up / spin down delay. it takes 4-6 times as long to spin up all those drives. i can see that being annoying especially when the whole point of thunderbolt is speed overkill. a trivial grievance i suppose, but still, i’d rather use Thunderbolt with an SSD.
now a raid 0 SSD bay… THAT would rule… and would probably max out the bandwidth too. someone get on that.
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I don’t know much about Raids but I think the Lacie Little Big Disk will will be raid 0 ssds =)
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Heiko on 06.30.11 @ 3:25PM
From what I read about the new Sony Vayo Z with thunderbolt, Sony uses a proprietary connector which wll not be adaptible to Apple’s thunderbolt devices.
It would only allow you to connect to the Sony media station that features a better gpu and a blue-ray burner.That doesn’t sound good, because when everybody is making their own private thunderbolt, then there won’t be a lot of devices for each and prices will never go down – but maybe that’s the plan? :-\
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you can see it thoroughly benchmarked over here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4489/promise-pegasus-r6-mac-thunderbolt-review
But it’s not Apple’s technology it’s Intel’s. Plus most people still bottle neck on SATA2.