ThunderBolt Products Starting to Roll Out at NAB
Pegasus R4 RAID w/ Thunderbolt, photo by @josh_diamond
The 2011 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) trade show is underway. While the event is primarily targeted at Audio/Video/Film professionals, Apple fans will be interested to see that companies are finally starting introduce Thunderbolt-compatible devices into the market. Jigsaw Broadcast posts a brief summary of the some of Thunderbolt solutions introduced so far. They include products from AJA, Blackmagic, Promise, and Matrox. All are targeted at video professionals, but finally shows some industry adoption of the new connectivity standard.
Apple and Intel launched Thunderbolt alongside the new MacBook Pro revisions in February. Thunderbolt promises faster connectivity than USB 3.0 and FireWire and we expect it to be included in all future Mac products.
Promise was one of the first companies that announced support for RAID Thunderbolt drive enclosures back in February. Those enclosures aren't yet shipping, but at least a couple of early prototypes are being demoed on the NAB floor. @sforde reports on one at the Adobe booth:
Wow! We have 1 of only 2 promise raids in world with thunderbolt at the Adobe booth at #NAB. CS5.5 screams on it.
The other must be at the Blackmagic booth which is pictured above. Meanwhile, the big anticipated news from NAB is Apple's announcement of a new version of Final Cut Pro. That news should arrive tomorrow night if rumors prove true.Top Rated Comments
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14 months ago
Drive arrays can easily exceed 10 Gbps - today a 2 drive RAID 0 array can hit 10 Gbps.
Single drives faster than TBolt already exist - 12 Mbps SSD drive.
TBolt devices haven't even hit the market, but TBolt is already too slow for many uses.
12Mbps? you sure you didn't mean 1.5GBs?
14 months ago
Would be a while before we see any 10Gbps SSDs (hard drives will never be that fast)
Drive arrays can easily exceed 10 Gbps - even with spinning hard drives. Today a 2 SSD drive RAID 0 array can hit 10 Gbps with consumer-grade drives.
Single drives faster than TBolt already exist - 12 Gbps SSD drive 48 Gbps SSD drive.
TBolt devices haven't even hit the market, but TBolt is already too slow for many uses.
15 months ago
Future is lookin pretty cool.
Not sure how Thunderbolt works, as I'm sure not everyone does yet. But is this a technology that can evolve on its own? As USB 2.0 and 3.0?
Not sure how Thunderbolt works, as I'm sure not everyone does yet. But is this a technology that can evolve on its own? As USB 2.0 and 3.0?
15 months ago
Good sign, maybe I'll be able to buy a consumer external hard drive with Thunderbolt by fall.
15 months ago
What time is the new FCP being shown? Will there be a live or after event stream? I was able to use the current version in a school class two years ago and I'm interested to see how it's going to change... Can't afford it today, but someday I'd like to replace iMovie with it.
15 months ago
I wonder what the point of this connection is...seriously. I don't connect 20 HDD's at a time in RAID 0. The only use I could see for Thunderbolt over USB3 is when I am trying to use the same connection for a few 30" displays in CONJUNCTION with SSD's in RAID 0....
I just can't see anything using this type of bandwidth...not at least until SSD's completely dominate the storage market.
I just can't see anything using this type of bandwidth...not at least until SSD's completely dominate the storage market.
15 months ago
Sucks that there will be no PCIe option for Mac Pro owners. I just bought a new 6-Core system. However, "Light Peak" will be better with full system fiber optic integration driving everything from drives to displays, making for less internal parts for one universal control system (as I understand it).
Perhaps in the 2012 Mac Pro's (this would be hugely beneficial in portables and iMacs as well as they could benefit from less hardware with a streamlined "Light Peak/Thunderbolt" system).
Perhaps in the 2012 Mac Pro's (this would be hugely beneficial in portables and iMacs as well as they could benefit from less hardware with a streamlined "Light Peak/Thunderbolt" system).
15 months ago
Could someone clarify this for me: Aren't hard drives too slow to make use of Thunderbolt anyway? In a typical USB 2.0 external hard drive, what is the bottleneck in speed: The speed at which the hard drive spins, or the USB 2.0 connection? If it's the USB, then why do people even care about the RPM of a drive? If it's the RPM, then isn't USB 2.0 fast enough to run a hard drive at its native speed?
15 months ago
What time is the new FCP being shown? Will there be a live or after event stream? I was able to use the current version in a school class two years ago and I'm interested to see how it's going to change... Can't afford it today, but someday I'd like to replace iMovie with it.
I have a feeling the next version of FCP will be more affordable, something a bit more expensive than FCE is. And then Apple will K.O. FCE.
Haven't heard of any official live streams but maybe a rouge one will pop up on Justin.tv or ustream or wait for something official on Apple's site.
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