Thunderbolt Network?

[reputationZed]

Not that I particularly want to spend $50 on a cable but does anyone know if Apple's TB cable can be used to connect two TB enabled Mac's in an ad hoc network? Rather than using TB for target disk which gives you single direction connection to the target computers boot drive I'm wondering if a TB network would allow both computers to access all of each others disks, similar to FW or USB networks.

What I'd like to do is use a Mac Mini as a sever giving my MBA access to FW harddrives connected to the Mini's FW port. Failing that I'd like to at least be able to transfer files bidirectionally between the MBA and the Mini at a decent speed.

I'm guessing that its technically possible but unsure if Apple has implemented it in Lion. The other alternative is TB-Gigabit Ethernet-TB but I don't believe there are any solutions available as of yet and the solution Sonnet is going to offer seems a bit expensive.

 

[57004]

Thunderbolt does support target disk mode, but not sharing other peripherals other than disks. Also, in target disk mode the computer sharing its drives is inoperable.

Personally I'm putting my money on Belkin's new hub coming out first, it's supposed to have the same ports as the thunderbolt display, so it should have gigabit ethernet too. Still no price on it though, it may also be extremely expensive.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Thunderbolt does support target disk mode, but not sharing other peripherals other than disks. Also, in target disk mode the computer sharing its drives is inoperable.

Personally I'm putting my money on Belkin's new hub coming out first, it's supposed to have the same ports as the thunderbolt display, so it should have gigabit ethernet too. Still no price on it though, it may also be extremely expensive.

I'm willing to put my money that Belkin will price this reasonably mid-to-low ($100-$175) range initially in order to have more purchases and higher volumes to maximize revenue and keep their brand established if not growing. Remember in Q1 of 2012 its not just Mac's that will be using Thunderbolt ports, but Acer and Asus as well with possibility of Dell/HP following suite within 6-8mths thereafter.

 

[reputationZed]

Thunderbolt does support target disk mode, but not sharing other peripherals other than disks. Also, in target disk mode the computer sharing its drives is inoperable.

Personally I'm putting my money on Belkin's new hub coming out first, it's supposed to have the same ports as the thunderbolt display, so it should have gigabit ethernet too. Still no price on it though, it may also be extremely expensive.

I suspect your right, I'm holding out hope for the Belkin TB hub as well. I don't think we will see a reasonable TB hard drive until OWC gets into the game. Until then Belkin and a FW drive may be the best option for an external storage on the MBA.