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Thunderbolt accessories at IDF 2011: Belkin's Express dock, Seagate drives and PCIe expansion cards (video)
Seeing as Wintel fans will soon join in on the Thunderbolt fun, how about a smorgasbord of devices toting the interconnect, conveniently laid out in a two pane vitrine here at IDF? Alongside the usual suspects -- such as LaCie's Little Big Disk, Promise's Pegasus and Sonnet's Echo -- are a few devices we've never seen before, namely Belkin's Express dock, some unnamed Seagate drives and two PCIe expansion chassis from Sonnet and Magma. We're particularly smitten with the latter two -- you know, dreams about extending our future Ultrabooks with some serious external graphics horsepower. Check out the entire spread in our gallery below and the video after the break. Myriam Joire contributed to this report. %Gallery-133792%
Apple Thunderbolt cable, Promise RAIDs now available to get your 10Gbps interconnect on
Was it really four months ago that Intel and Apple took the curtains off of Thunderbolt I/O? The MacBook Pro and iMac lines have since been refreshed with the interconnect, but early adopters haven't had much more than a fancy port to stare at. Thankfully, Apple's $49 T-bolt cable is finally available as your ticket to the 10Gbps superhighway. Apparently, it quietly hit Apple's web store this morning along with some fresh Promise Pegasus RAID enclosures ($1k for 4TB up to $2K for 12TB) to support it. All of the peripherals appear to be in stock and ready to ship; so if you've been eagerly waiting to make use of that extra port, now's your chance.
Intel refutes Apple exclusivity for Thunderbolt I/O, LaCie and Promise detail first Thunderbolt peripherals
We can think of a pretty good reason why Apple might have a head-start when it comes to Thunderbolt-capable machines, but Apple doesn't actually have a timed exclusive on the technology, at least according to Intel PR. The company told us that while it's currently targeting an early 2012 launch for Thunderbolt with other OEMs -- whereas the new MacBook Pro has Thunderbolt right now -- there's nothing stopping other manufacturers from launching machines with the 10Gbps interconnect a good bit earlier if they so desire. In related news, the first Thunderbolt peripherals have just been formally announced -- the Promise Pegasus RAID array we saw spitting out 800MB / sec video streams, and the LaCie Little Big Disk. The former will come in four-bay and six-bay variants, topping out at 12TB of magnetic storage when it arrives in Q2, and the latter will boast a pair of Intel 510 Series SSDs -- which, by the way, have yet to be formally announced -- in RAID 0 for 500GB of storage in total. PR after the break. %Gallery-117530%
