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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 TB Mag Reader Please

Yes, yes, yes! I do not understand why RED hasn't released a TB reader yet, but they desperately need to! And put two TB ports on it as too many TB devices are "end of the line" devices for some reason.
 
The Redmags are limited to offload speeds of around 200-225 MB/s, while a TB reader might be more convenient for some of us, it would not offload red material any faster than USB3 or eSATA and would cost substantially more to produce than the existing readers.
 
Shiblon Wixom said:
The Redmags are limited to offload speeds of around 200-225 MB/s, while a TB reader might be more convenient for some of us, it would not offload red material any faster than USB3 or eSATA and would cost substantially more to produce than the existing readers.
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Bingo.
 
I'm really bad at keeping up with the speeds of the different interface standards, but surely a Thunderbolt reader would offer better download speeds? I'm assuming the Mini-mags have headroom to go faster.
 
I think they will be skipping to USB 3.1 with a Type-C connector. A thunderbolt reader would probably cost an extra $200 and have minimal benefits.

Timothy Eaton said:
Easier, if nothing else. No eSATA to TB hub. That's worth it to me.
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I'm pretty sure you've never needed to do that.
 
just skip to the chase.. Thunderbolt 2. macbook pros and trashcan macs have it. 4x faster than USB 3, 25x faster than FW800. (mic dropped to the floor)
 
Patrick Kendall said:
just skip to the chase.. Thunderbolt 2. macbook pros and trashcan macs have it. 4x faster than USB 3, 25x faster than FW800. (mic dropped to the floor)
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As people say here you would also have to invent some new mags to benefit from that speed. Offload / onload speed to the current cards is far less than TB2.
but I can only agree, As I used to have the old readers and no esata on my laptop I had Lacie. TB to dual Esata and two readers. That could empty 2x128Gb mags in 11,5minutes to a raid. But it was a whole "DIT station" crammed into a little case.

Now wit the current minimag reader with its usb 3 port will work fine on my trascan and most laptops... But if there was one that I could use with TB port on I would be ok with paying double for such just for the convinience of having it.
 
Ah but thunderbolt readers can be daisy chained and still keep the full offload speed of the Redmag up to a point. Also if the USB bus is being used in the write process it will slow down every drive or device that is added to that controller depending on the Model. Thunderbolt readers with two ports make a lot of sense in the future with 1TB Mini Mags
 
Alex Kiritz said:
A thunderbolt reader would probably cost an extra $200 and have minimal benefits.
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Why would it cost much extra? Thunderbolt isn't that pricy to license or implement. Considering there are now devices with TB on them for under $100, I doubt it would be that much extra unless RED decides they can charge a premium since it's TB.
 
Thunderbolt licensing is free, other than the certification process. It is in fact cheaper to license and certify Thunderbolt devices than USB devices as USB requires licensing fees to use their emblems and logos. The big hold up in the industry is that Thunderbolt is largely perceived as a Mac thing and not necessary. Combine that with the certification process... Doesn't matter how cheap it is, none of the peripheral makers want to screw around with certification and approval processes. It's a road block.

Thunderbolt components are more expensive than USB and only available from Intel. However, they are still pretty darn cheap. Actual hardware cost to implement via Thunderbolt would be literally $2 or so, assuming bare minimum quantities are ordered and that's like a 1000 device minimum. So the real cost comes back to R&D and implementation costs. Some component makers like ATTO have off the shelf TB to SATA components for direct integration and they're also super-cheap. Of course, that adds to the cost too. I wouldn't be surprised to see a $30 to $50 premium on a new TB-equipped mini-mag reader. But I don't understand the doom and gloom and predictions of the thing being super expensive. I can buy a 3.5" TB2 enclosure to hold a single 3.5" or dual 2.5" HDDs/SSDs for under $100 on the open market.

That said, Thunderbolt here is just another convenience, it's not going to give a performance boost over the 6G eSATA connection already on the mag readers. In fact, we're still looking at a TB to SATA bridge within the device to interface with the mags as it is.

I would like to see an updated mag reader from RED that has USB 3.1 10Gbps support as well as Thunderbolt. eSATA is also handy.

What I would really like to see from RED is a proper 3.5" mounting sled or mounted version of the mini-mag reader that can be quickly installed into a system. While we're at it, a dual mini-mag reader that fits in a 5.25" drive bay would be super handy... Just sayin'

If they made either of the versions above, it would be simple enough to place them in an off-the-shelf Thunderbolt drive enclosure. And RED could even offer them that way, probably for less than developing their own TB interfaced unit.
 
Something is coming. I know what it is. But I can't say. Something else is coming as well. Is it June yet?
 
would it be possible to have 2 x USB3 ports and plugging them both in gets you twice the bandwidth to offload footage? Is that even doable?
 
roryhinds said:
would it be possible to have 2 x USB3 ports and plugging them both in gets you twice the bandwidth to offload footage? Is that even doable?
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I think you would still be limited by the speed of the cards, as some have suggested.

That said, do SSD based mags have firmware?
 
I'm running a first generation 1.8 red mag station through an eSata->TB adapter. I'm getting 180MB/s Write and 200MB/s Read speeds.

Using that as a base line, what kind of speeds are people getting (or expecting) with the mini-mags?
 
Agree with you 100% Richard. It seems most times clients are handing me USB 3.0 drives or even worse, FW800. I'd love to get Thunderbolt just so I can keep reading and writing on two separate buses. Not necessarily looking to gain speed from Tbolt, just keep my ports open and running efficiently.
 
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