LaCie Esata - Thunderbolt

[Peter Lyons Collister, ASC]

Announced at CES earlier this year (http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/08/ces-2012-lacie-hub-connects-esata-drives-to-thunderbolt-macs/), the LaCie's new Thunderbolt eSATA Hub is now shipping (http://www.lacie.com/us/company/news/news.htm?id=10696). The device allows external eSATA drives to be connected to Thunderbolt equipped Macs. The daisy-chainable hub includes two eSATA ports and retails for $199 (http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10574).

eSATA is a high performance drive connector used to connect external hard drives to your computer. eSATA has never been a standard option on Macs, but is a faster alternative to USB 2.0 and Firewire and is commonly found on high performance external drives and storage arrays.

http://cdn.macrumors.com/article-new/2012/04/esatahub.jpg
For those who are have existing eSATA drives or are waiting for Thunderbolt drives to drop in price, this could be a good interim solution. The Hub isn't yet available for orderon LaCie's website (http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10574). We spoke to someone at LaCie's sales center who told us the first batch had sold out, but that more were to arrive in a few days. Interested parties cancontact LaCie sales directly (http://www.lacie.com/us/contact/) to place an order for one of these backordered units, and it'll ship out when LaCie receives them.

[Matthew Mann]

Finally! Looking forward to having throughput without those spring loaded and buggy express slot ports.

[Jon Carr]

So I can finally use my esata port on my REDmag with my macbook pro?

[Bob Gundu]

So I can finally use my esata port on my REDmag with my macbook pro?

Correct. Too bad its not a drive also. Pretty chunky box.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Box is indeed chunky. It's the same size as their Little Big Disk units, but doesn't weigh as much. I played with one of these not too long ago and actually ordered one the other day so hoping to have it soon.

The real down-side to the unit isn't so much the size, but the fact it needs its own power supply. Unfortunately, that is the reality of many Thunderbolt products. There's a good bet they could have made this without the need for external power, but then they would have to sacrifice something elsewhere -- like the ability to daisy-chain. I played with a prototype Thudnerbolt to eSATA adapter from another manufacturer a few months back and it was working well and did not need external power. However, it apparently had some other issues I was not aware of until discussion of the product after I had turned in my beta unit. Mostly when I was pestering them about manufacturing. That maker ultimately shelved the product until Thunderbolt matures a bit, makes it's way to PCs and Intel irons out some of the power issues. For now, Intel is the only source for all the Thunderbolt headers, connectors, etc.. and they're not operating as efficiently as they're supposed to. New components are coming in the near future, as is Thunderbolt support within the Intel chipsets, so we'll start seeing PCs with Thunderbolt ports later this year.

[Vico Martin]

Box is indeed chunky. It's the same size as their Little Big Disk units, but doesn't weigh as much. I played with one of these not too long ago and actually ordered one the other day so hoping to have it soon.

The real down-side to the unit isn't so much the size, but the fact it needs its own power supply. Unfortunately, that is the reality of many Thunderbolt products. There's a good bet they could have made this without the need for external power, but then they would have to sacrifice something elsewhere -- like the ability to daisy-chain. I played with a prototype Thudnerbolt to eSATA adapter from another manufacturer a few months back and it was working well and did not need external power. However, it apparently had some other issues I was not aware of until discussion of the product after I had turned in my beta unit. Mostly when I was pestering them about manufacturing. That maker ultimately shelved the product until Thunderbolt matures a bit, makes it's way to PCs and Intel irons out some of the power issues. For now, Intel is the only source for all the Thunderbolt headers, connectors, etc.. and they're not operating as efficiently as they're supposed to. New components are coming in the near future, as is Thunderbolt support within the Intel chipsets, so we'll start seeing PCs with Thunderbolt ports later this year.

Jeff, could you connect your RedMag reader through this toy?
Faster than Sonnet?

Thanks man!

[Sergio Perez]

That must be the reason we aren't getting Macpro upgrades- Apple is waiting for Thunderbolt compatibility in intel's high end chips?


Box is indeed chunky. It's the same size as their Little Big Disk units, but doesn't weigh as much. I played with one of these not too long ago and actually ordered one the other day so hoping to have it soon.

The real down-side to the unit isn't so much the size, but the fact it needs its own power supply. Unfortunately, that is the reality of many Thunderbolt products. There's a good bet they could have made this without the need for external power, but then they would have to sacrifice something elsewhere -- like the ability to daisy-chain. I played with a prototype Thudnerbolt to eSATA adapter from another manufacturer a few months back and it was working well and did not need external power. However, it apparently had some other issues I was not aware of until discussion of the product after I had turned in my beta unit. Mostly when I was pestering them about manufacturing. That maker ultimately shelved the product until Thunderbolt matures a bit, makes it's way to PCs and Intel irons out some of the power issues. For now, Intel is the only source for all the Thunderbolt headers, connectors, etc.. and they're not operating as efficiently as they're supposed to. New components are coming in the near future, as is Thunderbolt support within the Intel chipsets, so we'll start seeing PCs with Thunderbolt ports later this year.

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Jeff, could you connect your RedMag reader through this toy?
Faster than Sonnet?

that's a big part of my plan... :) It will be faster than most ExpressCard 1.x solutions. A couple of the newer ExpressCard 2.0 solutions, like the CalDigit 6Gbps ExpressCard to eSATA adapter is probably still a better option if you have the 17" Mac Pro. Then keep your Thunderbolt port open for a RAID or something else. I kinda wish LaCie would have put 6Gbps ports on this instead of 3Gbps ports... But whatever, it's a step in the right direction. 3Gbps per port is still plenty fast for the RED SSD's... They seem to top out at about 260MB/s or about where the upper limit of 3Gbps SATA is. I think that's what the SSD interface is based on.


That must be the reason we aren't getting Macpro upgrades- Apple is waiting for Thunderbolt compatibility in intel's high end chips?

Or it could just be that the new Xeon CPUs and chipsets have been continuously delayed and finally launched into vendor channels last month. HP, Dell, etc.. all have yet to ship their updated systems too you know.

Mac Pro will most likely get Thunderbolt, but in the same way it currently happens on the other systems -- added as another component on the logic board / motherboard. Directly integrated chipset support for Thunderbolt won't happen until the next iteration, which for the Xeon line should be about 2+ years out at this point. For the Mac it really doesn't matter since Apple seems to be committed to Thunderbolt and is adding it. For the PC, we're stuck in a catch-22 situation. Motherboard makers are not integrating it due to the lack of peripherals and market support, but that lack is due to it not being available on motherboards and in PCs. Same exact situation we had with USB when it first hit the market. It took a couple years for it to take off and it didn't until PC motherboards started integrating. ...That will happen with Thunderbolt once Intel rolls it into their chipsets, so all the motherboard makers have to do is literally connect a few leads to a port on the rear.

I've heard so many reports of what the new Mac Pro will be that I can't even keep it all straight. So many "reliable" sources and they all have different stories. If I had to guess as to when we'll see it, I would assume an announcement to coincide with NAB and shipment by the end of this month. That's a good possibility as HPD and others will begin shipping their new Xeon workstations this month as well. On the other hand, Apple may wait and launch with OSX 10.8 Mountain Lion later this summer. But I hope not...

[Bob Gundu]

I can't believe how fast they sold out of these.


Box is indeed chunky. It's the same size as their Little Big Disk units, but doesn't weigh as much. I played with one of these not too long ago and actually ordered one the other day so hoping to have it soon.

The real down-side to the unit isn't so much the size, but the fact it needs its own power supply. Unfortunately, that is the reality of many Thunderbolt products. There's a good bet they could have made this without the need for external power, but then they would have to sacrifice something elsewhere -- like the ability to daisy-chain. I played with a prototype Thudnerbolt to eSATA adapter from another manufacturer a few months back and it was working well and did not need external power. However, it apparently had some other issues I was not aware of until discussion of the product after I had turned in my beta unit. Mostly when I was pestering them about manufacturing. That maker ultimately shelved the product until Thunderbolt matures a bit, makes it's way to PCs and Intel irons out some of the power issues. For now, Intel is the only source for all the Thunderbolt headers, connectors, etc.. and they're not operating as efficiently as they're supposed to. New components are coming in the near future, as is Thunderbolt support within the Intel chipsets, so we'll start seeing PCs with Thunderbolt ports later this year.

[Cid J Salcido Uyarra]

It would be perfect if it had three eSATA ports 1-Mag 2-BackUp1 3-BackUp2

I wonder if you can daisy chain two together to have 4! Not sure how it'll bottleneck at 10Gbps.

Other option use a 17'' MBP PCIe Express Slot w/eSATA for Mag and the LaCie for Drives. But then again couldn't you get away with the Sonnet Echo with a Dual eSATA card no need to power?

[Chad Lancaster]

I can't believe how fast they sold out of these.

Call them! I did yesterday and the rep told me they sold out of the first batch but my order should go out today if not next week

[James Drake]

I got an email today... put my order in.

Be happy to report back the findings. A little tired of the FW800 bottleneck when running with just a MBP

[Chad Lancaster]

Arrived today. Was able to transfer using the redstation mini esata and also daisy chain my pegasus thunderbolt raid

http://www.chadlancaster.com/tb1.jpg
http://www.chadlancaster.com/tb2.jpg

[Michael Dalton]

Chad, how fast does a card off-load.

Anyone know if you can order from the USA and have it shipped to Canada quickly. Two weeks to a trip to Kenya and Tanzania and desperately need one.

[Bob Gundu]

Chad, how fast does a card off-load.

Anyone know if you can order from the USA and have it shipped to Canada quickly. Two weeks to a trip to Kenya and Tanzania and desperately need one.

I tried to order from the US site but I needed a US credit card.

[Danai Chutinaton]

I tried to order from the US site but I needed a US credit card.

Also had the same problem. Anyone know another web site that sells this and offers worldwide shipping?

[Bradley Crane]

Hey chad,

Dose the devise allow esata Plug and Play? Do you know if both esata ports share a "bus/chip/thing" (sorry i don't know what thats called) or have their own?

Lacie tech support couldn't answer my questions :(