Sonnet Thunderbolt adapter - Macbook Air

[Patrick O'Sullivan]

We are currently struggling with ideas for onset offloading.

We have a macbook Air free with a thunderbolt port. Does anyone know if the following is possible:

Can we use the Sonnet thunderbolt adapter (http://www.sonnettech.com/product/echoexpresscard34thunderbolt.html) with the CalDigit Fasta-2ex 2-Port esata express card (http://www.caldigit.com/FASTA-2ex/) and hook up the Red Station in one esata port and our RAID set up in the other esata port?


Thanks

[Danai Chutinaton]

I just got the Sonnet thunderbolt adapter to use with a sonnet edge esata express 34 card and it didn't work for me. Maybe its dead on arrival because the adaptor won't keep the express34 card locked in place. Its easily pulled out when its supposed to be in the inserted position.

Danai

[axel ebermann]

Apart form this setup working or not you - unfortunately - can always just pull out expresscard34 cards.
it is a springloaded mechanism that makes the card just kind of 'sit there', without being locked in place.

It is a bit of a design flaw if you ask me (which nobody ever does :-)



I just got the Sonnet thunderbolt adapter to use with a sonnet edge esata express 34 card and it didn't work for me. Maybe its dead on arrival because the adaptor won't keep the express34 card locked in place. Its easily pulled out when its supposed to be in the inserted position.

Danai

[Danai Chutinaton]

Apart form this setup working or not you - unfortunately - can always just pull out expresscard34 cards.
it is a springloaded mechanism that makes the card just kind of 'sit there', without being locked in place.

It is a bit of a design flaw if you ask me (which nobody ever does :-)

Its very loose...much looser than I ever recall using express cards on my Macbook Pro. But thanks for the info, I did not realize this design flaw.

Using the Sonnet thunderbolt adapter, I could not get it to connect to my Drobo S which I currently use on my iMac via the firewire 800 port.

The sonnet express34 to e-sata card that i'm using with the thunderbolt adapter connects just fine to my Drobo S when used on my macbook pro vintage 2007.

Hopefully others will be more fortunate than me.

[Tom.Wong]

A. only sonnet cards work on the sonnet echo.
B. the sonnet echo doesn't work. period. will crash out the system non stop.

[Danai Chutinaton]

A. only sonnet cards work on the sonnet echo.
B. the sonnet echo doesn't work. period. will crash out the system non stop.

That sucks...but LOL!!!

So yeah, I have a non working sonnet echo trying to get to work with a sonnet tempo edge. Must get RMA number.

[Tom.Wong]

That sucks...but LOL!!!

So yeah, I have a non working sonnet echo trying to get to work with a sonnet tempo edge. Must get RMA number.

I don't get what they are doing right now, initial release of the echo there were drivers to download on their main page to get the echo working, and now there aren't. I don't know if a mac os update lets it work now, and if so, now I have to figure out how to uninstall those drivers. if not, than how are people supposed to even try to get it working right now? I've been really unhappy with Sonnet as of late, their so called prized esata card is flaky and has a hard time mounting more than one drive at a time, their qio was a disaster flooded with problems that people had to to work around, and they never really completely solved all the issues. and now this. I'm not holding my breath for their pci card chassis. Until they get the echo working flawlessly, the company is pretty much dead to me.

[Danai Chutinaton]

You know...I was looking for drivers to download for the Echo but couldn't find any. So they took them down? That's terrible, how am I supposed to get it working then? Thanks for shedding light on the subject.

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Driver issues for my Sonnet Q400s around the time of the Win7 release made several TBs of data impossible to recover.

The build quality, form factor, design features and component selection have made Sonnet's hardware a compelling choice. If only their drivers and general support acumen lived up to that level.

Cheers (well, actually jeers) - #19

[Russ Campbell]

I have the Echo working with my Tempo, Pro and the 6Gb/s card on my 17" MBP's with 10.7.2. Make sure that you boot with the Expresscard installed in the Echo for reliability. Unfortunately, there is a 20-30% reduction in write speeds over the standard Expresscard port, which is very disappointing. Card firmware needs to be TB aware for them to work with the Echo. Can't believe how Sonnet dropped the ball on this one, given the huge throughput of TB.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

A. only sonnet cards work on the sonnet echo.
B. the sonnet echo doesn't work. period. will crash out the system non stop.

C. Everything Tom just said is true.

I heard they pulled the drivers because of all the issues. But I don't know if that's true... The thing still needs drivers, at this time, to work with OSX.

This thing is garbage. Perhaps they will get it working right as the drivers mature. Until then, it's crap. And even if they do get it working right, it has some definite design flaws -- It's only ExpressCard v1.x when it should be 2.0 compliant. It uses some crappy off-brand or proprietary ExpressCard host interface that isn't supported by OSX natively, when it supports several better and more capable ones, which are also supported by Windows. So if they would have built this thing properly, it wouldn't have needed drivers at all. It doesn't have a pass-thru port for chaining more TB devices to it. So it has to be the last device on your chain, which sucks if you also want to run a display or other device that thinks it needs to be last.. And why make such a device and only put one ExpressCard slot in it? WTF? Give us at least two slots! Would sell a LOT more units because then it would actually be useful for offloading SxS media.

[David Battistella]

I have rarely had a good experience with Sonnet Drivers.

In fact. It's generally always been bad and I simply no longer trust them.

David

[Tony Lorentzen]

Sonnet sucks - in so many ways, across so many products. Don't rely on doing ANY kind of serious work with their products. Sadly. I wish someone would make a FAST card reader for SxS cards like the Qio that actually works.

[charles lim yi yong]

I am curious to know if PC notebooks are performing faster than macbooks for this sort of jobs?

[Jeff Kilgroe]

I am curious to know if PC notebooks are performing faster than macbooks for this sort of jobs?

There are currently no PC notebooks, that I'm aware of, which currently have Thunderbolt ports -- soon though, within the next few months. But if you mean in terms of connecting ExpressCard devices, I can say that most of the good notebooks with the ExpressCard slot perform just fine. They read or operate cards any faster than a 17" Macbook Pro, we're limited by the ExpressCard interface and more often than not, by the card itself.

[Patrick O'Sullivan]

Thanks for all the replies guys.

Pretty nice I didn't hit the buy now button when I had the chance.

So are there any solutions for getting two esata ports on a thunderbolt equipped macbook air that actually work?

[Patrick O'Sullivan]

Will this idea work:

We want to use the USB slot and plug in this: USB to Expresscard Adapter (http://intrl.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/Slot-Extension/Broadband-and-USB-Based-ExpressCard-to-USB-Adapter~ECU2USB)

In the adapter we will plug in the CalDigit 2 port expresscard.

Then connect the Red Station to one port and the RAID 1 enclosure to the other.

Will this work and what speeds will we be getting for transfer? Are we even going through the USB at all or will the files go from esata to esata?

[joe hedge]

I have the Echo working with my Tempo, Pro and the 6Gb/s card on my 17" MBP's with 10.7.2. Make sure that you boot with the Expresscard installed in the Echo for reliability. Unfortunately, there is a 20-30% reduction in write speeds over the standard Expresscard port, which is very disappointing. Card firmware needs to be TB aware for them to work with the Echo. Can't believe how Sonnet dropped the ball on this one, given the huge throughput of TB.

Working fine on my 17" MBPro 10.7.2 as well

Slower than I would like because of the PCIe 1 issue, but I've used it every day since I bought it 3 weeks ago, not one crash

The whole Thunderbolt thing is starting to make me nervous though, I'll admit, although the Pegasus R4 and R6 have been getting good reviews

[Danai Chutinaton]

Will this idea work:

We want to use the USB slot and plug in this: USB to Expresscard Adapter (http://intrl.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/Slot-Extension/Broadband-and-USB-Based-ExpressCard-to-USB-Adapter~ECU2USB)

In the adapter we will plug in the CalDigit 2 port expresscard.

Then connect the Red Station to one port and the RAID 1 enclosure to the other.

Will this work and what speeds will we be getting for transfer? Are we even going through the USB at all or will the files go from esata to esata?

That would be slow because you are limited by the very slow speeds of the usb2 port. May as well just plug your red station and hdd directly into the usb ports.

[Danai Chutinaton]

So i have the sonnet echo which needs drivers but the drivers are pulled from the sonnet site. I'm definitely returning it now. Thanks all, very informative thread.

[joe hedge]

So i have the sonnet echo which needs drivers but the drivers are pulled from the sonnet site. I'm definitely returning it now. Thanks all, very informative thread.

They say (or said) on that site that if you are running Lion you don't need their drivers.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

They say (or said) on that site that if you are running Lion you don't need their drivers.

In an ideal world that would be right, but something still is amiss. The Echo ExpressCard adapter I got my hands on refused to work on my 15" MBP (running OSX "Lion" 10.7.2). Had to install their drivers to make it work. Would not recognize any card other than the one Sonnet card that was also handed to me. Would not work on the brand new iMac running Lion that it was purchased to be used with, with or without drivers. Client called Sonnet several times, got different answers ranging from people who didn't even know what product he was trying to get help for to "you need drivers" to "you don't need drivers if you're running Lion". Yeah, whatever.. Sent it back. I would be inclined to believe that it might have been a defective unit. However, nearly everyone I have talked to that has got their hands on one of these has almost the same story to report.

[joe hedge]

I would be inclined to believe that it might have been a defective unit. However, nearly everyone I have talked to that has got their hands on one of these has almost the same story to report.

Copy...pretty remarkable that it only seems to work on laptops...can't wait for TB to actually work as advertised, both in terms of promised bandwidth and promised products

[Christopher Reig]

I received one of these a week or so ago. I've so far had good experiences with it. Operated without drivers, but only with the cards advertised. The locking mechanism for the Express Cards is pretty weak, and I'm afraid to breath on it during any file operations. I think I was fortunate, but I think it's really bad that the device isn't living up to the usually-high expectations I have of Sonnet.

[Mike Seymour]

I received one of these a week or so ago. I've so far had good experiences with it. Operated without drivers, but only with the cards advertised. The locking mechanism for the Express Cards is pretty weak, and I'm afraid to breath on it during any file operations. I think I was fortunate, but I think it's really bad that the device isn't living up to the usually-high expectations I have of Sonnet.

We sort of agree... it works here, but the locking mechanism is not good... that said... if you leave it alone (dont play with it or move it) it works well - well it does for us.

Mike

[K. cromwell]

Good thing I didn't buy this product wanted to see how it performed I guess now I know.

[Jonas Rejman]

Given how many issues there are with this product, and as well as the Tempo SATA E4P (http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tempo_sata_e4p.html) and the Tempo SATA Pro ExpressCard/34 (http://www.sonnettech.com/product/temposataproexpress34.html) when it comes to lion drivers, I am am a bit skeptical on how the very awaited TB RR sonnet expansion will do...

If the support would reply to bugreports, that would make a nice change as well.

[Tom.Wong]

I have a slight re review of the echo. I finally got it working but only under very specific circumstances. funny enough, my sonnet tempo pro works better in the echo right now than it does in my expresscard reader. I've always had trouble mounting a second drive when using the expresscard. but did a full day's worth of SxS offloading, two g drives connected to the tempo pro in the echo. and expresscard slot with the SxS. worked flawlessly, and it was actually kind of a relief to be able to offload SxS without having to daisy chain on the firewire now. and even opens up the firewire port for other readers or drives.

but i DID need drivers to install it on snow leopard, which they took down off their site. it will not work on snow leopard without the drivers. if anybody needs them PM me.

and the main conflict i had before was having a second esata card in the expresscard slot while the other one was plugged into the echo. it could be a combination of different brand cards, and driver conflicts. I need to do more tests to see if i can get two tempo pro cards running, but I doubt it would, although I'd be happy if it did. and I have to do more tests with ejecting and mounting drives through the echo, ie. red station. I remember it crashing out my computer a lot doing hot swaps. It's important that you have everything plugged into the card and echo with the computer shut off too. and turn the hard drives on and boot up the comp. I'll give another verdict once I have time to run more tests as of now, having 2 drives with the echo and the expresscard for SxS works well.