Promise unveils Thunderbolt 2 storage lineups
Promise announces Pegasus2 and SANLink2 storage systems that are based on the new Thunderbolt 2 standard to offer top capacities and unprecedented performance for both professional and business users.
The speed of Thunderbolt-based storage is about to double.
Promise Technology announced today the Pegasus2 and SANLink2 storage system to be among the first that support the new Thunderbolt 2 standard, currently the fastest I/O connection that has a cap speed of 20Gbps, or twice that of the original Thunderbolt.
Promise says the new Pegasus2 is a RAID system that comes in three tiers: R4, R6, and R8, offering four, six, and eight drive bays, respectively, thus providing up to 32TB of storage. The storage device supports all RAID configurations available for the amount of hard drives being used, including the industry standard RAID 5.
The new SANLink2 is a Thunderbolt 2 to 8Gbps Fibre Channel bridge storage device that alleviates storage bottlenecks for desktop and portable computing systems. It does this by providing direct connectivity to an external Fibre Channel Storage Area Network (SAN) such as a VTrak x30 RAID storage system or a VTrak A-Class shared SAN filesystem.
Both the Pegasus2 and SANLink2 will provide unprecedentedly fast transfer speeds to meet the needs of even the most demanding tasks, such as 4K video editing. Running bidirectionally at 20Gbps, Thunderbolt 2 allows for simultaneous transfer and display of high-bandwidth 3D and 4K video files, which often requires 15Gbps.
Both new storage devices come with a Thunderbolt cable and are backward compatible with the original Thunderbolt standard. Other than that, their highlights include:
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
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 (4 and 8Gbps Fibre Channel)
Promise says both the new Pegasus2 and the SANLink2 can be purchased from Apple's online store in November and December, respectively. Their pricing will be available then.