RED STATION MINI

[Mike Halper]

Brian, just because the bandwidth of Thunderbolt is vastly greater than the speed of a Redmag, doesn't mean it shouldn't be used or that Red shouldn't make a Redstation with Thunderbolt. You're forgetting that Thunderbolt is daisy-chain-able, whereas USB3 is not. The idea is that you'd have a few hard drives in that Thunderbolt chain and still transfer faster than FW or even USB3. Also, Macs do not have USB3 on them, so Mac users (and there's more DIT's using Macs than Windows) need Thunderbolt since it's faster than eSATA.

That Sonnet Thunderbolt ExpressCard adapter is not the best solution. You're still limited to the speed of the ExpressCard. You're also forced to have it at the end of the chain because it has only one Thunderbolt. That's the main issue with Thunderbolt devices right now. Most are single port only so you can't daisy-chain or use an external monitor (unless it's an Apple Thunderbolt display). The manufacturer's just don't get it.

[Mike Halper]

Thunderbolt we continue to look into.. but there are a few issues... like no Tower support for Mac's.

I'm sure that will be coming in the Mac Pro update. And don't discount the fact that a lot of DIT's are actually using MacBook Pros with Thunderbolt on set. You'd sell A LOT of Thunderbolt Redstations. I'd probably buy 2 myself. Just make sure there's two ports so we can daisy-chain.

[Brian Iannone]

Brian, just because the bandwidth of Thunderbolt is vastly greater than the speed of a Redmag, doesn't mean it shouldn't be used or that Red shouldn't make a Redstation with Thunderbolt.

Perhaps you missed what I said in one of my previous posts, so I shall repeat myself:

I personally hope, just as everyone else does, that RED releases a Thunderbolt-equipped RED STATION. My point was that it will not increase transfer speeds like Paul suggested.

You're forgetting that Thunderbolt is daisy-chain-able, whereas USB3 is not. The idea is that you'd have a few hard drives in that Thunderbolt chain and still transfer faster than FW or even USB3.

I'm not forgetting anything. I understand that Thunderbolt is daisy-chainable. However, I don't think you understand how significant the speed reduction will be when you're simultaneously transferring data between multiple daisy-chained devices. I assure you, even with the bandwidth Thunderbolt can provide, it will be significant to a point where professionals will not want to daisy-chain high-bandwidth devices. Hard drives and SSD readers like the RED STATION would be classified as high-bandwidth devices.

Thunderbolt is not a magical single-port, fix-all interface. The deeper you get into the daisy-chain hierarchy, the more bandwidth you lose. Just as any with any other data transfer interface, multiple ports are going to have to be used; which is why the 27" iMac has two.

[Jay Kim]

What a timing! Just cancelled Red Station 1.8" which hasn't been shipped yet and ordered Mini.

[Mike Halper]

Perhaps you missed what I said in one of my previous posts, so I shall repeat myself:

I personally hope, just as everyone else does, that RED releases a Thunderbolt-equipped RED STATION. My point was that it will not increase transfer speeds like Paul suggested.

Ok. Sorry for misunderstanding what you were saying.

I'm not forgetting anything. I understand that Thunderbolt is daisy-chainable. However, I don't think you understand how significant the speed reduction will be when you're simultaneously transferring data between multiple daisy-chained devices. I assure you, even with the bandwidth Thunderbolt can provide, it will be significant to a point where professionals will not want to daisy-chain high-bandwidth devices. Hard drives and SSD readers like the RED STATION would be classified as high-bandwidth devices.

It's 20Gb/s, 10 in each direction. So you can copy from one or multiple devices at up to 10Gb/s to another device(s). That's plenty for copying from a couple Redstations to a few hard drives and not losing as much bandwidth as you're saying. Daisy-chaining TB devices would give better performance than having 3 USB3 devices on a USB3 bus, considering that computers generally have just one USB bus. You're also limited by the number of USB ports, which is less than the number of TB devices you can daisy-chain.

[Brian Iannone]

Ok. Sorry for misunderstanding what you were saying.

No worries. :)

It's 20Gb/s, 10 in each direction. So you can copy from one or multiple devices at 10Gbs to another device(s). That's plenty for copying from a couple Redstations to a few hard drives and not losing as much bandwidth as you're saying. Daisy-chaining TB devices would give better performance than having 3 USB3 devices on a USB3 bus, considering that computers generally have just one USB bus. You're also limited by the number of USB ports, which is less than the number of TB devices you can daisy-chain.

Perhaps you are thinking of a different amount of data that I'm thinking about... In my opinion, daisy-chaining high-bandwidth devices is not even an option. However, I suppose everyone has their own opinion about how long they're willing to wait to transfer a certain amount of data.

I prefer dedicated links for each device. If an anomaly were to appear, it would be simple to identify the issue. There are too many factors in a daisy-chain system when you're dealing with large amounts of data.

I am in no way stating that USB 3.0 is better than Thunderbolt. I much prefer Thunderbolt as a data transfer interface. USB 3.0 is built on a foundation initially created for transmitting mouse and keyboard commands to a computer. With the latest revision, it has become an option for transferring data and it's speed can now compete with true data transfer interfaces like eSATA. But again, I prefer eSATA now and Thunderbolt later.

[Greg M]

I'm not forgetting anything. I understand that Thunderbolt is daisy-chainable. However, I don't think you understand how significant the speed reduction will be when you're simultaneously transferring data between multiple daisy-chained devices. I assure you, even with the bandwidth Thunderbolt can provide, it will be significant to a point where professionals will not want to daisy-chain high-bandwidth devices. Hard drives and SSD readers like the RED STATION would be classified as high-bandwidth devices.

Thunderbolt is not a magical single-port, fix-all interface. The deeper you get into the daisy-chain hierarchy, the more bandwidth you lose. Just as any with any other data transfer interface, multiple ports are going to have to be used; which is why the 27" iMac has two.

Actually according to Lacie, if you daisy chain their drives you can get up to 800MB/sec
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10549

but doesnt help much when your SSD cant keep up.

[Larry McKee]

USB 3.0 is next ( End of this month )

Thank you for that!

[Mitch Pierias]

Is there a plan for a Thunderbolt Red Station at some point?

[Elsie N]

Is there a plan for a Thunderbolt Red Station at some point?

Read backwards. '-)