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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

New LaCie eSATA hub

Steve Tenuto

Steve Tenuto

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http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/08/ces-2012-lacie-hub-connects-esata-drives-to-thunderbolt-macs/

(eSATA ---> Thunderbolt)

lacie.jpg


How is this guy going to benefit Red Station speeds (if at all)?
 
Well, at the very least it should allow those of us who have a Thunderbolt-enabled Mac but don't have any way to add eSATA other than an expensive hack (OWC turn-key upgrade) to connect via eSATA. Will be extremely useful for me as I have a 27" iMac. Throughput-wise you're looking at a theoretical maximum of 3gigabits/s for the eSATA port versus 800 megabits/s for FW800, with realized speeds probably being somewhat slower than that. Almost a 4x speed improvement.

I'll probably also use it to connect other fast hard drives.
 
The benefit will be for all the Mac users who don't have an esata port.
They will now be able to transfer data at the full bandwidth of the attached device.

(edit: Harrison was quicker on the draw)
 
Tehben Dean said:
The echo express DOESN"T have a second Thunderbolt port...
Click to expand...

You are right and that really sucks. I bought one and am awaiting its delivery. I was planning on using it to allow me to connect to my eSata Raid for editing instead of firewire 800 that I'm currently using. Looks like i'll be buying this Lacie too when its released.
 
Tom.Wong said:
the echo express also barely works
Click to expand...

Barely? Dude, you're being nice. I got to play with one friday and the nicest thing I can say about it is that it's complete shit. Sonnet should be embarrassed to even put their name on it.

We'll see what LaCie does with this one. I beta tested a nearly identical TB to eSATA unit for another peripheral maker a few months back and the last revision of it was solid as a rock, no drivers needed, just plug-in and away you go. They never pushed to market because they were unsure of how big their potential market was. I kept telling them that they would do well, so did a few of the other beta testers. Now looks like LaCie is beating them to the punch.

On initial observation of what LaCie is showing here, I'm not wild about the form factor. Looks like it's going to be the same height and width as their Little Big Disk RAID unit that they already sell with Thunderbolt ports. Hopefully it's not as deep. So I'm kinda scratching my head here... Unless this is actually the rear of a hybrid unit that also has hard drives inside -- that would be kinda cool, but not what everyone wants.

The other issue I have is the DC power connector... W-T-F???

FWIW, the TB to eSATA product I've tested with success was completely bus-powered. It was compact, had a 12" TB cable running to a "box" that wasn't a whole lot wider than the two eSATA connectors and about 3X as thick, maybe 2" deep. It had a female TB port on the far side of the box so you could connect other TB devices. That was it. No DC power... No drivers... All nicely molded and covered with the same soft rubbery coating that's on current TB cables, port "box" too. I'm really frustrated that I had to send it back, even more frustrated that they're not cranking them out and selling them.

Anyway, I'm not sure I understand what is being shown in the picture from LaCie... Assuming it's even real. Part of my brain is telling me this is nothing more than some BS that someone photoshopped together.
 
Jeff, Tell them we need it now!!!
 
Looks like a legit product, but you're right... too bad it's not bus-powered.

http://www.macrumors.com/2012/01/08/ces-2012-lacie-hub-connects-esata-drives-to-thunderbolt-macs/

Jeff Kilgroe said:
Barely? Dude, you're being nice. I got to play with one friday and the nicest thing I can say about it is that it's complete shit. Sonnet should be embarrassed to even put their name on it.

We'll see what LaCie does with this one. I beta tested a nearly identical TB to eSATA unit for another peripheral maker a few months back and the last revision of it was solid as a rock, no drivers needed, just plug-in and away you go. They never pushed to market because they were unsure of how big their potential market was. I kept telling them that they would do well, so did a few of the other beta testers. Now looks like LaCie is beating them to the punch.

On initial observation of what LaCie is showing here, I'm not wild about the form factor. Looks like it's going to be the same height and width as their Little Big Disk RAID unit that they already sell with Thunderbolt ports. Hopefully it's not as deep. So I'm kinda scratching my head here... Unless this is actually the rear of a hybrid unit that also has hard drives inside -- that would be kinda cool, but not what everyone wants.

The other issue I have is the DC power connector... W-T-F???

FWIW, the TB to eSATA product I've tested with success was completely bus-powered. It was compact, had a 12" TB cable running to a "box" that wasn't a whole lot wider than the two eSATA connectors and about 3X as thick, maybe 2" deep. It had a female TB port on the far side of the box so you could connect other TB devices. That was it. No DC power... No drivers... All nicely molded and covered with the same soft rubbery coating that's on current TB cables, port "box" too. I'm really frustrated that I had to send it back, even more frustrated that they're not cranking them out and selling them.

Anyway, I'm not sure I understand what is being shown in the picture from LaCie... Assuming it's even real. Part of my brain is telling me this is nothing more than some BS that someone photoshopped together.
Click to expand...
 
Jeff Kilgroe said:
Barely? Dude, you're being nice. I got to play with one friday and the nicest thing I can say about it is that it's complete shit. Sonnet should be embarrassed to even put their name on it.

We'll see what LaCie does with this one. I beta tested a nearly identical TB to eSATA unit for another peripheral maker a few months back and the last revision of it was solid as a rock, no drivers needed, just plug-in and away you go. They never pushed to market because they were unsure of how big their potential market was. I kept telling them that they would do well, so did a few of the other beta testers. Now looks like LaCie is beating them to the punch.

On initial observation of what LaCie is showing here, I'm not wild about the form factor. Looks like it's going to be the same height and width as their Little Big Disk RAID unit that they already sell with Thunderbolt ports. Hopefully it's not as deep. So I'm kinda scratching my head here... Unless this is actually the rear of a hybrid unit that also has hard drives inside -- that would be kinda cool, but not what everyone wants.

The other issue I have is the DC power connector... W-T-F???

FWIW, the TB to eSATA product I've tested with success was completely bus-powered. It was compact, had a 12" TB cable running to a "box" that wasn't a whole lot wider than the two eSATA connectors and about 3X as thick, maybe 2" deep. It had a female TB port on the far side of the box so you could connect other TB devices. That was it. No DC power... No drivers... All nicely molded and covered with the same soft rubbery coating that's on current TB cables, port "box" too. I'm really frustrated that I had to send it back, even more frustrated that they're not cranking them out and selling them.

Anyway, I'm not sure I understand what is being shown in the picture from LaCie... Assuming it's even real. Part of my brain is telling me this is nothing more than some BS that someone photoshopped together.
Click to expand...

yeh I was being nice, the thing crashed my macbook hardcore every single time. they need to get their drivers unscrewed asap, i wrote so much hate mail to them. and all they could say was, "have you tried a fresh os install and see if you have the same issue"


well la di da if it works on a fresh OS install, i still need to install other crap too don't i? with the echo plugged in, any device i unplug or plug in storage wise, whether it's fw, usb, or something else in my express card slot like another esata card, it will crash my computer. if i just have drives plugged in, on a generic esata card in my expresscard slot on my macbook, and their sonnet tempo in the echo with other drives, and i just open up a drive in finder, it will crash my computer.

i looked at my computer a weird way and the echo crashed my computer.

it's a freakin shame too, it could have been the cheapest way to get a few more ports out of the macbook on smaller setups and gigs. now I just have a 150 dollar paper weight hoping they'll get better drivers out. with their history with their qio i'm not holding my breathe.


and lacie products have never been that seriously hot either, their fw cards were never that good, and I never touch their hard drives due to increase of failure rates with their drives over the years. I'm really surprised they haven't come out with a big raid since they are a hard drive company first. but hopefully this little hub can be solid. and yeh you need to tell that company you beta tested for to get their product asap.
 
Tom.Wong said:
yeh I was being nice, the thing crashed my macbook hardcore every single time. they need to get their drivers unscrewed asap, i wrote so much hate mail to them. and all they could say was, "have you tried a fresh os install and see if you have the same issue"
Click to expand...

I've been using mine for weeks on my 17" MBP, not one problem. Updated to 10.7.2, installed the drivers...yeah it's not as fast as I would like because it's PCIe 1.0, but it works fine

I certainly never had to do any fresh reinstall of the OS...are you using Sonnet's express34 cards?

It's never crashed my MBP, I've never had a crash while using it

What's a "macbook hardcore "?

Did you update the thunderbolt driver?

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1451
 
I've told them, guys... I've told this company we *NEED* it. I even offered to buy the design from them and produce it myself or invest to bring it to market ASAP. No luck on either account. They're a big company and most of you would know the name instantly if I mentioned it. But that's all I can say about it. This company had a couple similar adapters as well, which I did not test. But there was a hybrid eSATA + USB3.0 one and a dual USB3.0 adapter...

The more I look at the CNet report and what has shown up on MacRumors, I'm now convinced the picture is a photoshop mock-up done by someone outside of LaCie. The product may be legit, but LaCie hasn't shown it to anyone yet, or at least not anyone willing or able to get a real picture out.

Several Thunderbolt peripherals making their debut at CES this year. Getting reports of them already. Some manufacturers are announcing ahead of the exhibits -- like the OCZ TB SSD's. Several PC brands are incorporating TB now instead of waiting for Intel to roll into the next desktop chipset iteration later this year. iMac wanna-be systems from Vizio and Acer both sport TB on a couple models. Most all the Ivy-Bridge based mobile systems showing up at CES, which will begin shipping to consumers in late March or early April, are sporting Thunderbolt ports -- now that Intel has included Thunderbolt within the chipset.

Thunderbolt is going to be big, just like USB. Also just like USB, it's stuck in limbo until the PC market picks it up... No real shock there. I guess I half-expected it to happen this way...

According to my ninja spies at CES, the coolest Thunderbolt device they have seen ahead of the exhibits opening are Thunderbolt flash drives. Just like USB flash drives we're all used to, but they work off Thunderbolt and are fast. Some of them have a pass-thru connector, so you just connect this little dongle thing in-line with your other TB devices and suddenly have 64, 128 or 256GB of high speed flash storage. Word is they're kinda expensive.
 
Starting to think CNet was fed bogus info. LaCie today announced their Thunderbolt 2Big series at CES. Did not announce any SATA adapter or anything else... I guess we'll know tomorrow if they show anything at their booth space. I'm having my doubts.
 
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