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LaCie Hub Now Shipping, Connects eSATA Drives via Thunderbolt
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Not just more peripherals, they also need peripherals at a reasonable cost. No signs of either.
Every hard drive has a SATA connector.
USB2 hard drives have a USB2 adapter plugged into the SATA connector.
USB3 hard drives have a USB3 adapter plugged into the SATA connector.
Firewire hard drives have a Firewire adapter plugged into the SATA connector.
Each of those translates the data from the SATA connector to their own format.
eSata does not translate data, it is a direct connection between SATA connector in the computer and the hard drive.
So no connector could ever be faster than eSATA. If you have a 5 GBit USB3 adapter plugged into a 3 GBit SATA connector, you will never get more than 3 GBit out of it.
Now all that said, this box is just stupid. Every hard drive in the world has SATA. SATA is electrically the same as eSATA. So instead of $200 for a box with two eSATA ports, which forces me to use bloody expensive external eSATA drives (a quick look showed a 2 TB eSATA drive for £180, while a 2 TB USB drive is only £85), it would be much more effective to build a box with two SATA connectors and space for two internal SATA drives inside. That would save the customer £200 on the drives, so the box would be worth its money.
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No, it is oriented toward equipment that has already been deployed. For the overwhelmingly deployed external HDD drives out there the difference between 3Gb/s and 6Gb/s SATA is moot. Even in combination of 1-3 HDD drives, most drives sold over the last 3 years won't saturate 3Gb/s.
Yeah, you can saturate it with a modern SSD drive ( or 4-8 HDDs ), but that is not primarily who is going to buy this. If a single SSD drive would do users most likely would have put it inside the Mac. Likewise, in portable contexts probably don't have greater than 3 HDD set ups.
1. There is much larger group of folks with older MBP 15" and Windows PC's with ExpressCard adapters. Those folks can now transition to a MBP 13" , MBP 15", or MBA if have legacy eSATA external drives they utilized with their laptop.
2. There is perhaps an even larger group of Mac folks who have Quad Interface drives ( e.g, those sold by LaCie, OWC , etc. ) has only been using FW800 for their "top end" connection. For switching from FW800 to eSATA means they get better utilization out of the hardware they already have.
Neither one of those if huge (relative to overall Mac Laptop market) which also explains the higher price. ( lower volume drives a higher mark-up per box do get a reasonable return.)
The price is a bit off. Effectively it is combination of:
1. A PCI-e 2 port eSATA card (~$48 http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/MXPCIE6GS2/ )
[although this is 6Gb/s eSATA. ]
2. An quality enclosure with power supply (~$79 http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEP944FW8EU2/ )
[ trading off a quad interface USB/eSATA/FW400/FW800 for just two. )
would be around $127 versus the $199 being charged. $199 is off but not as far off as some of the comments in the thread indicate.
There would be better long term utility if there were 6Gb/s eSATA ports though. That penny pinching is misguided if they want to maintain the $199 price point for a reasonable amount of time.
Speedwise single-drive TB enclosures don't make much sense (ie, you pay a lot for little speed gain). Single-drive TB enclosures only make sense for daisy-chaining.
I snipped a lot of the above. I know there is a market and population, but it is rather small AND narrow. The latter group doesn't even have Thunderbolt yet, and splashing cash for a new laptop, then $200 for the hub, then $50 for the cable, just to use older technology is probably not attractive to the majority of the already narrow group.
I just think this is a strange decision for a clunky interface (eSATA). Part of the point of Thunderbolt is to reduce connections, but this does the opposite. There would be a much bigger market for Thunderbolt to USB 3, for example. I know part of the problem with that is on OS X's side (for now), but you would get nearly the same throughput and appeal to a much wider audience.
I still don't understand the SATA-II decision, though. Why not just go SATA-III? SSD prices are dropping like a rock.
This is a real "chicken and egg" problem. No one will by thunderbolt technology until it is both reasonably prices and it looks like it is here to stay. But if no one buys it the price will remain hight and it will disappear.
Look at this product. It does almost exactly "nothing". Basically it allows you to connect stuff but adds no more functionality then a cable does and costs $200.
I might pay $200 for a box that holds disk drives inside and has a TB interface.
Look at this product. It does almost exactly "nothing". Basically it allows you to connect stuff but adds no more functionality then a cable does and costs $200.
I might pay $200 for a box that holds disk drives inside and has a TB interface.
Just....wow
So I can pay $250 for this adapter to connect an eSata drive to my mac, or $3 for an eSata cable to connect the same drive to my PC at the same speed.
And people on this thread are impressed by this piece of garbage?
I have got to stop buying mac hardware.
So I can pay $250 for this adapter to connect an eSata drive to my mac, or $3 for an eSata cable to connect the same drive to my PC at the same speed.
And people on this thread are impressed by this piece of garbage?
I have got to stop buying mac hardware.
I don't mind it being only Sata 2 because the main purpose for me would be adding extra hard drives to an iMac that already has an ssd inside. So since the mechanical hd would be the bottleneck before the Sata 2 spec not a big deal. However $200 plus $50 for a cable is kind of pointless when I could get the drives with it for about the cost of the drives themselves In an all in one.
It's all about legacy gear
This image shows when it would make sense to buy this hub:
![eSATAhubTB_UseCase.jpg]()
It's not just legacy esata drives, but also the ability to connect a non-thunderbolt display through a display port connector. So if you have an existing laptop setup with external esata capable drives and a display port connected monitor, you can plug into them with only one cable, and not have to replace everything with thunderbolt compatible gear. I think this is the target market.
But I agree, it should have USB3.
This image shows when it would make sense to buy this hub:
It's not just legacy esata drives, but also the ability to connect a non-thunderbolt display through a display port connector. So if you have an existing laptop setup with external esata capable drives and a display port connected monitor, you can plug into them with only one cable, and not have to replace everything with thunderbolt compatible gear. I think this is the target market.
But I agree, it should have USB3.
This hub makes LaCie's Thunderbolt-based RAID dual-drive seem bargain in comparison (both of which are $100 more expensive than eSATA/USB 2/FW800 versions):
- 2big: 4TB at $600 and 6TB at $750
- Little Big Disk: 1TB at $380, 1TB 7200rpm at $450, 2TB at $550, and 240GB SSD at $850
If those folks have 1-3TB of data already installed on that "older technology" paying $250 to access it faster has value. Part of this is just the inertia from the legacy data and technology. The data has value which brings a "halo effect" over the accessories. Business people pay for it all the time.
There is also the trade off of exchanging this somewhat "clunky" legacy interface (and additional costs) to move to a better, more standard docking port for the rest of the laptop. (as opposed the myriad of non-standard, proprietary docking stations that exist now. )
No. The primary point of Thunderbolt is to aggregate bandwidth onto a single cable. This "hub" allows for a downstream docking station (e.g., TB display ) and other stuff to all hook up to a single point on a Mac Laptop. ( You don't really have more than one so it is fewer. )
Thunderbolt primary value add is aggregating legacy (older ) data protocols onto a single cable. This box does that.
Some folks got caught up in the marketing kool-aid that TB was the "one port to rule them all." Not. Just kool-aid. The "shiny and bleeding edge tweaker crowd" a fixed on milking the most out of the 10Gb/s bandwidth. Again that primarily misses the point as there is no "native" TB access. "Native TB" drives is nonsense, the host boxes don't "see" TB. They only see PCI-e or Display Port. Nothing is "native" to TB but other TB controllers.
Not really after USB 3.0 is fully deployed on boxes. That is a fixed sized market. There is also not much of a sizeable legacy USB 3.0 market either since it is relatively new. The Quad interface external drives may mutate toward being USB 3.0/eSATA drives. Since USB 3.0 (gives you 3.0 , 2.0, 1.0) and FW800/400 doesn't really buy much over eSATA (or if does just USB3.0 /FW800/eSATA just a three interface drive).
A docking station with perhaps USB 3.0 , FW400 , USB 2.0, multicard reader , etc ( a larger collection of legacy PC ports ) would work but not so much a single USB 3.0 only hub.
SSD's you might buy in the future do not already have the value added personal data you already have. SSD prices may drop, but even with the Thailand floods boosting prices they still don't compete on capacity. The bulk of the SSDs already deployed are also capped by 3GB/s.
The market could be incrementally expanded by making it SATA-III. When cheaper TB controllers come are available in quantity are lower prices it will be the obvious v2.0 of the box.
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$250.00 so you can connect an eSATA drive to a "pro" laptop that ought to have eSATA in the first place? I don't think so, still not impressed with TB during its early years. There are too many eSATA and USB3 peripherals of all price and performance levels out there to bother with yet another standard.
No. You can connect two eSATA drives. Something that can't be done with a laptop with a sole eSATA or a nonstandard single USB/eSATA combo port.
Great solutions for those who have already invested in eSATA RAIDs. i.e. when we upgrade our systems we can keep our RAIDs going to pull up old projects.
Umm...
...for $200, no thanks. I am glad there's more "options" but I really don't consider these real options at those price points.
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You can use a display port cable in a Thunderbolt port already. I have display port to DVI/HDMI adapters that work just fine in the Tunderbolt port. So that's not really offering anything new.
Though maybe you're talking about the fact it has two ports? Then yes, but really most device should much like you used to expect this of firewire drives.
...for $200, no thanks. I am glad there's more "options" but I really don't consider these real options at those price points.
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You can use a display port cable in a Thunderbolt port already. I have display port to DVI/HDMI adapters that work just fine in the Tunderbolt port. So that's not really offering anything new.
Though maybe you're talking about the fact it has two ports? Then yes, but really most device should much like you used to expect this of firewire drives.
Not at all true.
A laptop with one eSATA port can connect to a large number of drives by using an external enclosure. For the price of this thing, I could get a 4 or 5 bay eSATA enclosure.
And still have enough money left over to put a hard drive in it.
And still have enough money after the hard drive to buy lunch.
http://www.amazon.com/ProBox-Drive-Enclosure-3-5-inch-drive/dp/B002UUPWP6/ref=pd_cp_e_1
http://www.amazon.com/Bay-3-5-Sata-...ef=dp_return_1?ie=UTF8&n=172282&s=electronics
Plus look at the size of that thing! What's the point of a lightweight laptop if you're going to drag around that lump in addition to an external drive? If you're going to only use it at home then what's the point of a laptop? Someone who can afford an Apple display, that TB/eSATA thing and a LaCie external hard drive should be right in a Mac Pro's demographics.
Not true. Not every drive has SATA onboard. Quite apart from SCSI derived SAS drives, WD and Samsung bus powered external drives have no SATA connection on the drives whatsoever. The drive hardware goes directly into a USB interface with no SATA-USB translation. The bottleneck remains the spin/seek speeds of the actual hardware for USB 3.0 drives as that bus is not saturated. The pic below is of a WD Elements drive.
Attachments
What a total waste of time on Lacies part. Even if it was cheap you still have the fact that it is basically SATA2.
I understand that nothing TB related will ever be cheap. Contrary to popular opinion it is not a USB replacement but if manufactures are to offer hardware atleast Make something bleeding edge to justify the cost.
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You are not impressed because you see USB as a replacement for TB. It isn't and never was intended to be. This is a constant problem with people perception of TB.
I understand that nothing TB related will ever be cheap. Contrary to popular opinion it is not a USB replacement but if manufactures are to offer hardware atleast Make something bleeding edge to justify the cost.
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You are not impressed because you see USB as a replacement for TB. It isn't and never was intended to be. This is a constant problem with people perception of TB.
Yes, two ports, which then allows two displays, including the apple Thunderbolt display. In fact, when you include an Apple TB display into the mix, for $250, with this device you can use 1 cable to connect your laptop to:
2 monitors: one Apple TB display, one display port monitor
3 USB2 ports
1 Firewire 800 port
1 Ethernet port
2 esata ports
speakers (in the Apple display).
Of course, that only works if you dropped $1,000 on the Apple display. And I agree the hub should also have USB 3 connectors. That would seal the deal.
But for a person with a legacy monitor and legacy external drives (and a printer, and a scanner, etc.), this is a pretty useful laptop setup requiring only 1 cable to attach dual monitors and all the peripherals to you laptop, for $250.