While the Mac Pro was expected to be the first machine to launch with the new Thunderbolt 2 standard announced by Intel earlier this year, Apple just unveiled its updated MacBook Pro this week that also received the new Thunderbolt 2 technology. That means it’s time for companies to start announcing storage products and other Thunderbolt accessories that also adopt the faster 20Gbps, 4k video capable Thunderbolt 2. The first to announce new products is Promise Technology (via MacRumors), with two new storage solutions including the Pegasus2 hardware RAID and the SANLink2 Thunderbolt 2 to 8G Fibre Channel bridge:
Running bi-directionally at 20Gbps – twice the bandwidth of Thunderbolt at 10Gbps – Thunderbolt 2 is a breakthrough technology for video creators and multimedia professionals because it allows for simultaneous transfer and display of high-bandwidth 3D and 4K video files, which often requires 15Gbps… Pegasus2, the ideal external RAID storage solution, is available in 4-bay, 6-bay and 8-bay enclosures, and maximizes the available line rate of Thunderbolt 2 by providing blistering fast transfer speeds for a growing number of 4K applications. With two Thunderbolt 2 ports, 6 devices can be attached – allowing for daisy chaining of up to 6 Pegasus enclosure units, Apple Thunderbolt Displays, or Mini DisplayPort devices.
SANLink2 is a portable device bridge which provides dual 8Gbps Fibre Channel ports and dual 20Gbps Thunderbolt 2 ports and can be used to connect Thunderbolt 2 systems directly to a high-speed Fibre Channel SAN, such as the PROMISE VTrak x10 or x30 RAID storage system or a VTrak A-Class shared SAN storage appliance for scale out capabilities and real time raw video HD/4K footage ingest, editing, and collaboration. SANLink 2 enables connectivity that provides flexibility to 4K workflows by removing limitations of systems previously unable to connect directly to a Fibre Channel SAN, and is backwards compatible with Thunderbolt 1.
Pegasus2 will be available from Apple Online Stores and other retailers in 8TB, 12TB, 18TB, 24TB, and 32TB variants in November, and SANLink2 will become available in December.
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why such small capacty for that RAID?
See my comment below
Those capacities don’t make any sense…8GB for a 8 drive RAID system? What, is each drive 1GB? lol!
8GB refers to the fibrechannel specification and denotes bandwidth, not storage capacity.
I kinda doubt there is such HDD technology that is able to achieve such speeds, even at RAID0.
You’d need hard drives that are capable to read at 2.5Gbps. I even doubt there are many RAID setups, that can achieve this alone, talk alone individual drives.
That’s nice, but these are very expensive units, this might go for $1500 if their previous models are any indicator.
I want Thunderbolt devices, but most of them are terribly expensive and I have to resign myself to USB 3 counterparts, usually saving at least $100 per device in doing so. So it’s really stacking itself up to be a pro-only technology.
I’ve even found a 5 bay USB 3/eSATA RAID box on Amazon for $210, and it rates very well. The closest TB equivalent is $1000 (with 4 x 1TB drives), probably would be priced $600-$700 if you could buy it without the drives.
And priced out of every consumer’s budget. Thunderbolt is the new firewire.