Apple Thunderbolt Cable and Promise Thunderbolt RAID Systems Hit the Apple Store

[TMay]

Don't buy too soon, because equipment using Apple's implementation of Light Peak with copper with a mini Display Port will soon be legacy hardware, unsupported by Apple or anyone else. Kind of like the old Apple Desktop Bus cabling. Why?

Because what Intel has promised and what everyone really wants is Light Peak running on fiber optic cabling at TEN times the speed of Apple's copper-based T-bolt. I predict the this will be available within a year or two at the most and only then will we see widespread adoption. That means that everyone who bought into Apple's copper scheme will be left with orphan hardware, slow and unsupported.

Is it possible that nothing that you have stated is accurate?

Intel and industry partners are still developing optical Thunderbolt hardware and cables.[16] The optical fiber cables are to run "tens of meters" but will not supply power, at least not initially.[17][18][19] They are to have two 62.5-micron-wide fibers to transport an infrared signal up to 100 metres (330 ft).[20] The conversion of electrical signal to optical will be embedded into the cable itself, allowing the current display port socket to be future compatible, but eventually Intel hopes for a purely optical transceiver assembly embedded in the PC.[19]

Oh, and Apple is using the standard Intel configuration...of Intel Trademarked Thunderbolt. Light Peak was the development name only.

 

[baryon]

Why are a bunch of hard drives so expensive? You can get them separately for the fraction of that price... It's like $100 for a 2TB drive, which would be $200 for 4TB, how the hell is $1000 justified for the same amount of storage?

 

[840quadra]

Why are a bunch of hard drives so expensive? You can get them separately for the fraction of that price... It's like $100 for a 2TB drive, which would be $200 for 4TB, how the hell is $1000 justified for the same amount of storage?

The price you have to pay for high availability, fault tolerance, and redundancy. There are cheaper options out there (Drobo for 1), however few items in this category of storage are overly cheap.

 

[Thermonuclear]

It's not Apple's copper-based t-bolt, it's Intel's technology, and they are the ones who made it copper based for it's first implementation in order to cut costs associated with fiber, and they also need copper if they want to provide power to a device.

It was Intel's interim technology and they have admitted as such.

As for carrying power, Intel already had that cowered by specifying TWO different Light Peak cables: the first with a pair of fiber optic strands, and the second with a pair of strands plus a pair of copper wires for carrying power and ground. This was all done before Apple made any T-bolt announcements.

Apple's T-bolt is NOT fast enough or a PCIe breakout box. Light Peak fiber is ten times faster and can do the breakout job with ease. Those that understand this will prudently wait for for the fiber version.

 

[stefmesman]

some people fail to see the point in what this is used for lol. this is not for transfering files most of the time. Most people who will use this, will use it for editing uncompressed video or another high demanding kind of professional use.

 

[xxBURT0Nxx]

Why are a bunch of hard drives so expensive? You can get them separately for the fraction of that price... It's like $100 for a 2TB drive, which would be $200 for 4TB, how the hell is $1000 justified for the same amount of storage?

well there is probably also a RAID controller in there, and you have to add the parts needed for TB itself, which supposedly cost around $100. You also have to figure they are going to mark up the price as it's brand new tech, and all brand new tech is pricey to make more money from the early adopters and "pros" who need this type of stuff.

 

[mdgm]

Those products have returned today, with a set of four Thunderbolt-equipped RAID storage systems from Promise making their debut in the store and shipping within 24 hours.

In an Apple Online Store I looked at (not the US one) the shipping is 2-4 weeks.

In order to provide connections to the drives, Apple has also released a new $49 Thunderbolt cable.The new Apple Thunderbolt Cable is sold separately from the Promise Thunderbolt RAID systems, and ships within 24 hours.

Apple can ship the Thunderbolt cable within 24 hours, but not the peripheral to go with it, the promise RAID? Kind of defeats the purpose of shipping the Thunderbolt cables now unless you want to use a 2011 27" iMac as the monitor for your 2011 MacBook Pro.

 

[stefmesman]

Why are a bunch of hard drives so expensive? You can get them separately for the fraction of that price... It's like $100 for a 2TB drive, which would be $200 for 4TB, how the hell is $1000 justified for the same amount of storage?

they are server grade hard drives. not regular consumer grade ones.

 

[BornAgainMac]

Why are a bunch of hard drives so expensive? You can get them separately for the fraction of that price... It's like $100 for a 2TB drive, which would be $200 for 4TB, how the hell is $1000 justified for the same amount of storage?

It is always like that. The enclosure is always so expensive and then the vendor sells the drives at last year's prices since it cost a lot anyways. Technically, you are paying for the hardware based RAID implementation from the vendor that doesn't sell in high volume.

 

[gallofilm]

Why would Apple users need this?

For Itunes or for Imovie "pro"? Make it for a windows machine, at least there will be some video editing going with it.

 

[CplBadboy]

Erm... what does this photo mean?

Image

Pegasus R4 only has TB port... and there's no Mac Pro with TB port yet!!!???

http://store.apple.com/us/product/H5184VC/A?fnode=MTY1NDA0Nw&mco=MjMwMzE1NTU

Looks like no redesign on the MacPro come August then! Shame.

 

[xxBURT0Nxx]

It was Intel's interim technology and they have admitted as such.

As for carrying power, Intel already had that cowered by specifying TWO different Light Peak cables: the first with a pair of fiber optic strands, and the second with a pair of strands plus a pair of copper wires for carrying power and ground. This was all done before Apple made any T-bolt announcements.

Apple's T-bolt is NOT fast enough or a PCIe breakout box. Light Peak fiber is ten times faster and can do the breakout job with ease. Those that understand this will prudently wait for for the fiber version.

what are you even talking about, it's not Apple's T-Bolt, it's INTELS... they developed it, they own the trademark, etc. Apple helped them, and came to intel with the idea, but INTEL were the ones who decided to develop a copper based version of "light peak" (which is just a code name, it is not a separate technology) to cut initial costs. There will still be optical versions in the future. Check your facts before spewing BS

 

[Tastic Bycrom]

Relax and breathe, people! I'm sure MonoPrice will have a perfectly effective and affordable cable soon enough. Apple branded cables have always been overpriced. You already knew that.

 

[imwoblin]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Give it a month or so. Monoprice will have ThunderBolt cables for $1.99...

 

[Blipp]

It comes to a point were it is easy to think we are being price gouged. That is worse than most gold plated HDMI cables. That better be an ounce of pure silver wiring for that price!

I don't understand all the shock over the cable price. Since when have brand-new protocol cables sold from a major retailer ever been reasonably priced? They'll be on monoprice for $8 once a few more peripherals are released.

 

[bpaluzzi]

$50 for the cable, huh? That's nice. Not expensive enough to begin with.

Remember when Apple included cables with their stuff?...

You mean back when Apple was making external hard drive enclosures?

 

[rikscha]

Shouldnt the whole thing have some sort of NAS functionality for this price?

I know that would kind of defeat the purpose of a thunderbolt equipped raid drive, but I would at least expect it to have a 1gbit ethernet port. You probably dont want to run it always directly connected to your mac.

 

[xxBURT0Nxx]

Shouldnt the whole thing have some sort of NAS functionality for this price?

I know that would kind of defeat the purpose of a thunderbolt equipped raid drive, but I would at least expect it to have a 1gbit ethernet port. You probably dont want to run it always directly connected to your mac.

I think you would buy a much cheaper NAS device if you wanted network storage, why pay the high premium for TB and its speed if you are going to use it over a network?

 

[peskaa]

Wow, what a lot of whinging! This is a professional RAID array, not a NAS box for home use or an external drive for Time Machine - it's not even a dog-slow Drobo.

I for one can see immense value in this. MBPs/iMacs suddenly able to edit video, with access to 500 or 800Mb/s file transfers? This was previously the domain of a Mac Pro with a fibre channel card and an Xserve RAID, which cost thousands and thousands of dollars. Instead you can be set up for $1048.

This is simply the first Thunderbolt product. It's aimed at professionals, and priced accordingly. Don't worry, cheaper stuff will emerge, along with third party cables that aren't $50.

 

[stadlin]

they are server grade hard drives. not regular consumer grade ones.

like the ones from Time Capsule?

 

[OllyW]

The UK prices compare well to those in the US. Without the VAT the cheapest RAID drive is only $26 more expensive while the higher end models are actually $48 & $135 cheaper.

 

[stefmesman]

like the ones from Time Capsule?

time capsule is not a professional product and thus apple is indeed lying to their costumers stating the time capsule has an server grade hard drive.

OT: everybody knew thunderbolt was made for professionals. and that the first wave of TB devices would be expensive. Everyone who is saying that this is too expensive needs to check their facts and is OBVIOUSLY not any professional user at all and will probably never ''need'' a thunderbolt product. (need not want.)

i do admit the apple thunderbolt cable price is a bit steep.

 

[peskaa]

like the ones from Time Capsule?

Meh, they're probably not special HDDs in the Promise system, just 7,200rpm desktop drives. You're paying for the RAID hardware, the enclosure and then Thunderbolt. The drives are the cheapest part of the equation.

 

[Thunderhawks]

Give it 2 years and that thing'll be half that price and the cables $20.

And they will personally bring it to you house

 

[Unggoy Murderer]

It's interesting that in the product images it shows the Drive connected to a Mac Pro...