PROMISE Announces First 20Gbps Thunderbolt 2 RAID Arrays

[iBug2]

Shame a person cannot purchase these diskless yet.

This!

The only reason I've been holding out on these so far is that there's no diskless version. Same with Lacie. And it's not that I won't be needing more storage. I constantly buy more disks, but I buy them at 130$ a piece, not for 350$ a piece like these guys sell me.

 

[Battlefield 2]

Would an 8 HDD array really require Thunderbolt 2?

 

[oopl]

I'm actually surprised Apple didn't release their 4K display yet. They might just show one in a "by the way" press release since it's not a major product.

I'm thinking they might hold the 4k display announcement to tie in with the rumored AppleTV? Hopefully it won't take that long.

 

[JeremyWesley]

finaly Affordaable

Finally I can get a pegasus r4 on ebay for cheap!

I agree with the prior poster, Promise should offer diskless units for those that have already made an investment in hard drives that are worth buy like the, WD Black or RE4 drives.

I don't want the sub par seagate, or hitachi included drives.

Come one Pegasus owners dont you want to upgrade to version2? I'm patiently awaiting you ebay listing for your r4 r6 ..

 

[Lancer]

And they wonder why most home users go for USB.

I'd love one of these RAID systems, currently have 12TB hanging off the back of my iMac, and I need more.

 

[iBug2]

Would an 8 HDD array really require Thunderbolt 2?

The more drives you have the more throughput you need to not get bottlenecked since more drives equal higher RAID0 speeds.

 

[MrClam]

There's still nothing (Affordable and useful) which uses the thunderbolt 1, why make a thunderbolt 2?!?

 

[Tech198]

4K over Thunerbolt 2 huh?? I'd add 4K content to the mix. Sine the only thing useful about this drive would be to transfer and work with limited content available.

Bring me the 200Gig.

 

[koruki]

Queue posts about how expensi... nevermind first comment already filled that void

 

[deconstruct60]

Would an 8 HDD array really require Thunderbolt 2?

It can. See the 2MB sequential transfer chart here:

http://www.storagereview.com/western_digital_velociraptor_1tb_review

The Seagate Barracuda XT there gets around 165MB/s. That's 1.320 Gb/s. 8 x that is 10.56 Gb/s. For a 10K or 15K RPM array it is even easier to crack 10Gb/s with 8 drives if confine the workload to just single streaming of a sequential file.

Throw in some random access or concurrent access of multiple files and it is a bit more fuzzy as to whether it will make a difference. (the disk transfer rates will drop. )

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There's still nothing (Affordable and useful) which uses the thunderbolt 1, why make a thunderbolt 2?!?

Because being the cheapest alternative on the market was never what Thunderbolt was targeted at. It was always targeted at both performance and aggregation workloads.

For single usage workloads 20Gb/s is going to be better than 10Gb/s. 20Gb/s can transport USB 3.1 data to a host as easily as the 10Gb/s v1 transported USB 3.0. For mixed data transfer workloads the 4K video Display port data + 1Gb/s + a USB 3.0 port data will work better on TB v2 than v1.

When Thunderbolt (Lightpeak ) first came out there was lots of kool-aid thrown around about how Thunderbolt was going to take over for everything. That was more hype than reality.

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....
You know what I would pay $300 for? A TB hub with:

• 4xUSB 3.0 ports (powered)
• 1xFW800
• 1xeSATA
• 1 x Gigabit Ethernet
• TB Passthrough
• 802.11ac WIFI
• 5.1 Audio
• Memory Card Reader
• Blu-Ray Burner

The everything and the kitchen sink are unlikely to hit a $300 price point ever. The other issue is that the are only 4 PCIe lanes that Thunderbolt controller is going to provide.

FW800 , USB 3.0 , 1GbE , and SATA are all going to take one. Throwing on top Wifi ( another one) is a bit over the top.

If collapse the memory card onto the USB bus then won't have 4 ports. Likewise if couple the 5.1 audio to USB. (if 5.1 audio on PCI ... again already burned up that lane budget)

The wider diversity of "stuff" mean the wider diversity of drivers have to deal with during the certification process. Complexity generally adds to cost.

And I don't even burn blu-rays! But for $300, come on! And it should work flawlessly.

" For $300 just keep piling on more stuff " doesn't generally make systems cheaper to design and produce.

 

[Mechanic]

.



You know what I would pay $300 for? A TB hub with:

• 4xUSB 3.0 ports (powered)
• 1xFW800
• 1xeSATA
• 1 x Gigabit Ethernet
• TB Passthrough
• 802.11ac WIFI
• 5.1 Audio
• Memory Card Reader
• Blu-Ray Burner

How about this one from sonnet it has just about everything on your list with blu ray for $449.00 http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echo15thunderboltdock.html

 

[deconstruct60]

I agree, it's BS that the new iMac doesn't have thunderbolt 2. I guess they wanted to distinguish the "pro" machines.

In 2011 and early 2012 Intel was projecting that Thunderbolt 2 would not ship until 2014.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5405/the-first-thunderbolt-speed-bump-likely-in-2014

Even now Intel is still saying volume production of TB v2 controllers won't happen until 2014. Quite likely Apple so soaking up almost everything Intel is producing at this point.

Coupling the iMac to Thunderbolt 2 would have meant pushing the iMac closer to 2014. Apple had already done a SNAFU rollout of the iMac in 2012. Any problems with TB v2 validation and it would be two years in a row of SNAFU iMac rollouts.

There is probably also a "pro" market segmentation thing here too but that is likely quite temporary and secondary to the risk management of attaching too many things to TB v2 which really wasn't intended for 2013.

I won't be surprised if the whole Mac line up has TB v2 in 2014 ... the exact same year Intel targeted all along long term for volume TB v2 production.

I would have thought maybe they'd make a high end iMac with 4K resolution w/ Thunderbolt 2 (Similar to the Retina addition to the MBP lineup)? but its hard to tell that they may do that this year or not..suppose its all in the transition.

There are no 4K 27" panels ( or 21.5" panels ) . 4K would mean an iMac of a different size (31-32" ). The laptops actually have coverage for the same sizes. Apple also sells alot more laptops than desktops. The laminating process for the laptop screens had no where near the problems the adapting the process to the iMac sized screen had. Having a glitched up process with dramatically more expensive 4K panels is only an even bigger SNAFU waiting to happen.

Besides, most folks who need 4K now really need 4K TVs, not computer monitors. Apple has HDMI 1.4 ports which are great hooking up TVs. Right now, Apple isn't in the 4K TV business. 3rd parties can easily fill the role for now.

The other major problem is that a 4K iMac would end up very deeply placed into the Mac Pro price points. There was nothing above the Retina laptops as far as price points go. ( Apple removed the MBP 17" to make room for the rMBP 15". )

 

[krazygoat]

If you are fine with Thunderbolt1 Areca has 4 bay and 8 bay towers as prices well below Promise's prices.

Honestly the complaining about price is silly, these are high-end RAIDs. Try pricing 10GbE SAN modules sometime.

For consumers there are a bunch of cheap desktop thunderbolt drives and small raids. Dat Optic has a 5 bay thunderbolt RAID for $700. There are desktop drives that are not crazy priced too. Apple's old thunderbolt monitors are not that bad considering they are a dock too.

If you are a regular joe why do you need a 8 bay RAID with a 20Gb connection, is don't not increase your whine posting speed on Macrumors forums. This is a bad as back when there were a million armchair quarterbacks on here saying Apple abandoned Pros and were going to kill the Mac Pro.

 

[JayMBP]

I'm not sure why they wouldn't announce diskless version of these. At least the 4-bay version.

Because frankly, unless you go full SSD, you can't touch the limit of TB1 on a 4-bay unit. Much less on a TB2.

I have a Pegasus R4 and I don't think I'd be upgrading any time soon.

The fastest 4TB HDD out there pushes somewhere around 200MB/s... that's roughly 1.6gbps. You'd need 6 of them to be near the limit of TB1, and 12 of them to be at TB2. Even if the new RAID controller is somehow better, HDD is still the bottleneck. So the performance difference between Pegasus 1 and Pegasus 2 would be minimal unless you get the 8-bay version.

 

[jimthing]

OPTICAL Thunderbolt cables anyone! (pro's)

See my post here, for info on the new cables and Tbolt 1/2 (I also added to Thunderbolt wikipedia page):
http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/15...r-all-optical-thunderbolt-cables#post_2411123

The cables are from Corning (yes, the glass people), and are priced at the same per-metre to copper ones.

Got the 10m one (imported from the US, due to the somewhat slow—July 2014!—EU distribution). Works a dream, just as fast as the 3m copper ones I was using (max copper length).

Knew the Optical ones would come eventually! Can now store my 2x Pegasus R6 24TB units in a quiet place away from my Mac Mini machine.

Well advised to get if needed.

 

[Uncle Ruckus]

32TB = your head on a plate.

 

[everything-i]

Basic question about thunderbolt.

Not that I have any interest in buying one of these arrays, but I'm curious about TB technology. Can you use a thunderbolt 1 port with a thunderbolt 2 device? Obviously you would only have TB1 speed, but are the devices backward compatible, like usb?

I have a rMBP with TB1, and am starting to feel left behind already!

Same goes with a new thunderbolt display (if apple ever makes one!). I'm sure the new display will be TB2. So will I be able to use it with TB1 . . . again, obviously at a lower resolution, but will it work?

thanks

When TB2 was anounced by Intel they said it was backward compatible in a similar way to USB. TB2 devices work with TB1 ports and vice versa.

 

[mrxak]

I think you can, only it will be at the speed of Thunderbolt 1.

I don't know if the new display has to be TB2. It probably will, but I don't think it has to. It's a display port device essentially. It just has Thunderbolt to carry additional signal from USB, etc.

I'm actually surprised Apple didn't release their 4K display yet. They might just show one in a "by the way" press release since it's not a major product.

I'm also surprised they didn't include TB2 in the iMacs and also release the MacMini's with the latest announcement.

Most likely 4K displays from Apple will magically appear next to the Mac Pro release this December, without a peep.

 

[Kate4u]

And I bet the price is also astonishing .

 

[macs4nw]

Kinda wish that, too, along with both the iMacs & TB Display updated to retina/4K.

I wonder what max throughput is on these? How many would we need to saturate a TB 2 connection?

What Intel has done with TB2 is combine two bi-directional channels @ 10Gbs each, into one bi-directional channel @ 20Gbs, in order to support DisplayPort 1.2 and 4k video. It is backwards compatible; existing hardware will continue to function with the updated controller.

 

[Jcknows0]

If you are fine with Thunderbolt1 Areca has 4 bay and 8 bay towers as prices well below Promise's prices.

Honestly the complaining about price is silly, these are high-end RAIDs. Try pricing 10GbE SAN modules sometime.

For consumers there are a bunch of cheap desktop thunderbolt drives and small raids. Dat Optic has a 5 bay thunderbolt RAID for $700. There are desktop drives that are not crazy priced too. Apple's old thunderbolt monitors are not that bad considering they are a dock too.

If you are a regular joe why do you need a 8 bay RAID with a 20Gb connection, is don't not increase your whine posting speed on Macrumors forums. This is a bad as back when there were a million armchair quarterbacks on here saying Apple abandoned Pros and were going to kill the Mac Pro.

Areca doesn't have the secret sauce that is Promise's drivers. 500 MB/s R/W on TB1. Wonder what they can accomplish on TB2 with an 8 Drive array. I went with a solid HW USB3 setup x 2 as it was still cheaper than 1 R4 refurbished but I am definitely a fan of my J4 for video editing.

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Most likely 4K displays from Apple will magically appear next to the Mac Pro release this December, without a peep.

I thought they would have announced them especially considering how much they reference 4k displays in their keynote and on the apple store, but after the iMac surprise this fall, I think Apple is in the low key mode of product release due to last fall's SNAFUs.

 

[guzhogi]

What Intel has done with TB2 is combine two bi-directional channels @ 10Gbs each, into one bi-directional channel @ 20Gbs, in order to support DisplayPort 1.2 and 4k video. It is backwards compatible; existing hardware will continue to function with the updated controller.

Actually, I was referring to the the RAID array, but thanks. Can the RAID array saturate the TB 2 connection? If not, how many arrays would it take?

 

[macs4nw]

Actually, I was referring to the the RAID array, but thanks. Can the RAID array saturate the TB 2 connection? If not, how many arrays would it take?

I didn't get that from your specific post I was replying to, but to answer your question, I found this article for you; start at around page 15. http://h20565.www2.hp.com/portal/si...x.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken

 

[hchung]

Please tell me where I can get a 4 bay RAID that will transmit at 10x what Gigabit Ethernet can handle.

I'm serious

I want to know where there are 4 bay RAID arrays for less than $600, I've been eyeing the Drobo 5N and Sysology 5 bay model for quite some time and the price barrier for the bottom seems to be $500-$600.

4 bay RAID array that can flood gigabit ethernet for $600 without drives?
Use OpenSolaris on a PC with some nice SATA cards running ZFS and a cache ssd drive. I was so happy about 80MB/sec transfer rates, I built a couple extra for home use as personal time machine targets.

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I have no idea how much they are to make. But do these companies really expect regular folks to pay $300+ for something they can get for $100 or less (usb ones of course). I'm not bashing them or anything, I know it's a free market and they can market it how much they want, but I just want to say that as much as I love new technology, I simply don't have money for these.

Honestly, they expect regular folks will not even consider it.
This isn't for regular folks.

 

[Glassed Silver]

I am so done with the absolute inevitability of people complaining on these threads about Thunderbolt accessory prices; shall I make it clear:

You can use the cheaper more ubiquitous USB 3 port instead - you have an option & it is not there for joe blow consumer - it is 'pro' tech, for editors and so on, and will therefore cost more...as all pro tech does!

I have an iMac 27" from late '11.

Please tell me where I can find those USB 3 ports.

Thanks a lot in advance

Glassed Silver:ios