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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Announced at CES earlier this year, the LaCie's new Thunderbolt eSATA Hub is now shipping. The device allows external eSATA drives to be connected to Thunderbolt equipped Macs. The daisy-chainable hub includes two eSATA ports and retails for $199.

eSATA is a high performance drive connector used to connect external hard drives to your computer. eSATA has never been a standard option on Macs, but is a faster alternative to USB 2.0 and Firewire and is commonly found on high performance external drives and storage arrays.

esatahub.jpg



For those who are have existing eSATA drives or are waiting for Thunderbolt drives to drop in price, this could be a good interim solution. The Hub isn't yet available for order on LaCie's website. We spoke to someone at LaCie's sales center who told us the first batch had sold out, but that more were to arrive in a few days. Interested parties can contact LaCie sales directly to place an order for one of these backordered units, and it'll ship out when LaCie receives them.

Article Link: LaCie Hub Now Shipping, Connects eSATA Drives via Thunderbolt
 

Battlefield Fan

macrumors 65816
Mar 9, 2008
1,063
0
A sub $600 solution to finally daisy chain my thunderbolt and older mini display port monitors together!:D
 
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WhoDaKat

macrumors 6502
May 20, 2006
379
665
Ugghhh. SATA II WTF? Its TB people, give us our speed! I've been screaming for a TB to eSATA connector since TB came out, and they deliver it with yesterday's tech. :mad:
 

Moonjumper

macrumors 68030
Jun 20, 2009
2,740
2,908
Lincoln, UK
They talk about eSATA being faster than USB2, but isn't it slower than USB3? So the only advantage of doing it with Thunderbolt is daisy-chaining?
 

goinskiing

macrumors 6502a
Jun 25, 2008
914
11
Meridian, ID
Thunderbolt really is great IF there were more support and cheap solutions for it. Would have been so hard to use USB 3? Heck, a $20 TB to USB3 would be a treat and they would sell like hotcakes! None of this $200 HUB (cough adapter) business. So far, TB is just too expensive for wide adoption.

With all of that said, I LOVE my MacBook Air!
 

slembcke

macrumors newbie
Feb 6, 2009
11
0
Minnesota
Holy crap! $200 + a $50 cable? I'm not that desperate to plug something into my thunderbolt ports...

You can get a USB2 -> eSATA adapter for like $20.
 

barkomatic

macrumors 601
Aug 8, 2008
4,518
2,821
Manhattan
To think I waited and waited for thunderbolt to be introduced on the Macbook pro because I thought I could use all these fast new peripherals. Little did I know how stupidly expensive they'd be and that for the entire life of my computer I'd never once use that port.
 

Ries

macrumors 68020
Apr 21, 2007
2,313
2,827
They talk about eSATA being faster than USB2, but isn't it slower than USB3? So the only advantage of doing it with Thunderbolt is daisy-chaining?

Daisy-chaining an advantage? Anyone who lived through bnc daisy chained network, knows its a bag of hurt.
 

getz76

macrumors 6502a
Jun 15, 2009
821
0
Hell, AL
eSATA at SATA II speeds? Really? Are we going backwards?

I do not even understand the target market for this? Thunderbolt is still Apple only, sans Mac Pro. Who has Thunderbolt and eSATA drives in usage? A small minority of MacBook Pro 17" users with ExpressCard adapters?
 

scarred

macrumors 6502a
Jul 24, 2011
516
1
Thunderbolt continues to be a big disappointment. That is the one feature on my MacBook air that is going to waste. Too bad.
 

Dragado

macrumors member
Mar 29, 2012
34
0
They talk about eSATA being faster than USB2, but isn't it slower than USB3? So the only advantage of doing it with Thunderbolt is daisy-chaining?

Doing eSATA over thunderbolt is a great idea when the computer doesn't have an eSATA port... I don't really think people make hubs for speed generally.
 

neroroxxx

macrumors newbie
Sep 23, 2010
15
0
too bad they didn't add a pair of firewire ports as well, that would have made it worth it to me.
 

Antares

macrumors 68000
too bad they didn't add a pair of firewire ports as well, that would have made it worth it to me.

Agreed. I would not mind a hub at this price if it had eSATA (eSATA 2?) plus Firewire...and USB3 for an extra plus. That would definitely be worthwhile. But not a $200 hub with just two eSATA ports and nothing else but aThunderbolt port, which is a given.
 

Domalais

macrumors newbie
Jun 27, 2011
23
11
The pricing on this doesn't make sense.


Why would I pay that much to get ****ed by Apple? I can get ****ed for a lot less than $250.
 

thetoad30

macrumors regular
Jun 24, 2010
151
0
I'm going to echo most people in here and say that TB is going to die if it doesn't start getting some peripherals soon.

What I can see is TB being licensed to provide external PCIe, which I believe the industry is starting to adopt as the standard bus.

PCIe SATA is a new standard being explored, and PCIe is a high-speed serial interface much like TB and USB.

It only makes sense to have one bus interconnect in the PC. The CPUs are already integrating PCIe lanes, and can do so for far less power than an external chip for another bus.

TB is a great idea that can transfer many protocols over it. I think that if TB could use/license a USB connector, then backwards compatibility can be maintained. This would have made implementation far quicker, in my opinion. Of course, licensing may be the problem. Who knows.
 
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