Promise Technology Announces Pegasus2 and SANLink2 Thunderbolt 2 Products
by Jarred Walton on October 25, 2013 2:48 PM EST
We’ve seen Thunderbolt products from Promise before, and we’ve even heard about some of their upcoming Thuderbolt 2 offerings. Today, Promise is formally announcing four upcoming Thunderbolt 2 products. These range from a 4-bay enclosure (R4) up to an 8-bay enclosure (R8), with the Pegasus2 R8; the Pegasus2 is also available in a 6-bay (R6) variant. Of note is that all of the current solutions continue to use hard drives for storage; the target is primarily video and image editing workflows where large amounts of portable storage are important as opposed to ultra-high-speed external storage using SSDs – specific mention of 3D and 4K video is made, and raw 4K video can chew through storage at an alarming rate (up to 15Gbps).
As discussed previously, Thunderbolt 2 effectively doubles the transfer rate of Thunderbolt, up to 20Gbps; it does this by bonding two 10Gbps channels into a single channel. That means aggregate bandwidth for a single Thunderbolt controller remains unchanged, but if you’re primarily reading or writing you effectively double your transfer rate. Interesting to note is that Promise also has their SANLink2 product, which is a portable bridge with dual 8Gbps Fibre Channel ports and dual 20Gbps Thunderbolt 2 ports. This allows the use of the new Thunderbolt-enabled systems with existing high-speed Fiber Channel SANs (e.g. the Promise VTrak x30).
All of the Pegasus2 products support RAID 5. Pricing has not been revealed, but the new Pegasus2 products will be available at the Apple store in November and will either replace or augment the existing Promise Thunderbolt offerings. The Pegasus2 R4 is the entry-level solution with four 2TB hard drives. The Pegasus2 R6 is available with either 2TB (12TB total) or 3TB (18TB total) hard drives, while the R8 will ship with 3TB (24TB total) and 4TB (32TB total) drives. The SANLink2 will be available starting in December, again via the Apple store. Below are the highlights for the new devices.
Pegasus2:
- Supports maximum throughput allowed by Thunderbolt 2 interface
- Supports simultaneous streaming, editing, and backup of 4K video
- Dual Thunderbolt ports for daisy chaining
- Hot-swappable drive bays for effortless drive access and serviceability
- Portable hardware RAID protection for offsite shoots
- Massive storage capacity for backing up creative projects and digital libraries
- Thunderbolt cable included
SANLink2:
- Enables Fibre Channel connectivity on systems with a Thunderbolt 2 port
- Dual 8Gbps Fibre Channel Ports
- Dual 20Gbps Thunderbolt 2 ports with DisplayPort and device daisy-chain support
- Supports OS X and OS X Server
- Supports Xsan and StorNext filesystems
- Supports all VTrak storage subsystems (4Gbps 8Gbps Fibre Channel)
- Thunderbolt cable included
Source: Promise Technology News Release
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california_son - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
Now awaiting influx of people arguing this is too expensive for "consumers."Promise doesn't target consumers - they never have, they never will.
But this product announcement is definitely great news for professionals in broadcasting and film, especially with 4K gaining traction worldwide.
Reflex - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
I think the real comment to be made is that Thunderbolt does not target consumers. There are very few products that typical consumers use that depend upon TB or require its capabilities. And that is why companies like Promise are making products like this targeted at professional and IT applications.adamdz - Sunday, October 27, 2013 - link
I've set up several Pegasus units and was pretty disappointed how cheap they feel: really low quality plastic front panels. I expected aluminum at this price point.CecileWamsley - Monday, October 28, 2013 - link
my Aunty Brianna recently got a stunning yellow BMW Three Series Wagon just by working online with a computer. website link... http://smal.ly/8wUo2sorten - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
I have no use for Thunderbolt until a pci-e external enclosure shows up on the market. Then I'm all over it.Devfarce - Friday, October 25, 2013 - link
They do exist. Sonnet makes a line of them. They aren't oriented towards graphics cards by size or power requirements but they are there and start at about $400. (I assume that's what you want out of this.) I think someone should make a mini ITX compatible board that is simply an array of 3-4 PCI 3.0x 16 ports with a PLX chip connected to an intel TB 2 controller. Use ATX power supplies and BYO chassis. You have all the expand ability you want and this would be easily be doable for $250. With the Darth Vader Mac Pro coming on line (6 TB!!!!) soon I believe that this will be a reality soon. Professionals are the ones who need and are willing to pay for Thunderbolt but before this their Mac pros didn't have the interface. They are the market who will drive TB, so they need the product to drive it.cbelle - Saturday, October 26, 2013 - link
The problem is each Thunderbolt controller is limited to a total bandwidth of 20Gb/s or about the same as 4x lanes of PCI-e 2.0. I don't think you can combine 2 Thunderbolt controllers (yet?). But even then the MacPro 2013 has 2 - maybe 3 TB controllers via 6 ports. Not enough to feed 3-4 slots of 16x PCI-e 3.0.Reflex - Saturday, October 26, 2013 - link
Another issue is that most PCIe cards and drivers are not able to handle hot swapping. There are no video card drivers that handle this scenario properly. Even if you had external PCIe via TB, you'd need support from AMD/NV in order for it to matter.jasonelmore - Saturday, October 26, 2013 - link
so your saying thunderbolt wont initialize until your in the OS?Reflex - Saturday, October 26, 2013 - link
No, I am saying that if you bring your laptop in and set it down next to your TB chassis and plug it in, a variety of bad effects could happen. It is unlikely that the graphics cards would be dynamically recognized and activated. It is much more likely that either they will not or your system will crash.