Still no Thunderbolt PCI-chassis out there

[Carl Dieker]

Why on earth are these Thunderbolt PCI-chassis taking so long to be released to the market? They have both been announced since last year and the word still is that they all are awaiting a final evaluation by intel. I really need one for the RED ROCKET I am holding off to buy.


http://www.magma.com/thunderbolt.asp


http://www.sonnettech.com/product/thunderbolt/index.html

Plus a few other brands coming up...

 

[Carl Dieker]

And when they do come out, which one to choose? The Sonnet one seems smaller, the Magma has space for more cards. Both of them need to be hooked up to a power cable, which prevents any of them to used out on the field.

 

[Jean Déraps]

It is highly ironic: Thunderbolt™ the world's fastest interface, but trickling out at a snail's pace...

 

[Mark Bearss]

This one actually looks more promising:

http://www.mlogic.com/mlinkR/preorder

Here is a video for it as well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8haGqWpC6E

However, still external power supply, but other then a RedRocket what are you going to attach that does not require power it's self.

 

[Brian Merlen]

tell me when we can get a cuda card to work in it... in a mac not a bootcamp..

 

[Carl Dieker]

It is highly ironic: Thunderbolt™ the world's fastest interface, but trickling out at a snail's pace...

Good one!

 

[Harry Clark]

Can someone from the Red Team answer this?
The mLink R looks very slick, and the reservation page has a giant Red logo on it. Will this be a Red-certified solution like the Maxx Digital Mobile Rocket? I'm nervous about choosing a product that is not Red-certified.
I'm also curious what the performance boost may or may not be. The current laptop setup is hobbled by the speed of the Expresscard slot; is Thunderbolt faster in this case?
Also, the form factor seems very small on the mLink R. There seems to be more room for cooling in the current crop of expansion chassis out there, and we know the Rocket runs HOT! Wondering about that.
Cheers,
Harry

 

[Clay Glendenning]

Can someone from the Red Team answer this?
The mLink R looks very slick, and the reservation page has a giant Red logo on it. Will this be a Red-certified solution like the Maxx Digital Mobile Rocket? I'm nervous about choosing a product that is not Red-certified.
I'm also curious what the performance boost may or may not be. The current laptop setup is hobbled by the speed of the Expresscard slot; is Thunderbolt faster in this case?
Also, the form factor seems very small on the mLink R. There seems to be more room for cooling in the current crop of expansion chassis out there, and we know the Rocket runs HOT! Wondering about that.
Cheers,
Harry

Seconding Harry's questions here, and the request for a Red response of some sort. I'm purchasing upgrades at the moment, and it would be nice to see them working in one of the Thunderbolt boxes if and when they ship.

Harry, your question regarding speed. I'll try and look up a reference for this, but when I was at NAB I believe the nVidia guy there running an mlink said it was 80% as effective vs. plugged into directly to standard tower setup. In any case, he was plowing away through footage. I was impressed, and I did indeed put my hand on the mLink, which they did not like. It was hot, I can't say much more than that as I was requested to stop touching the thing.

I am also interested in a multi unit box running a CUDA card along with a Red Rocket and it's proposed compatibility with software, and I'm sure many others are.

 

[Uli Plank]

From the mLink website: "With mLink you can. mLink enables just about any half-length PCIe card to be attached to any Thunderbolt enabled computer."

Are Nvidias or the Rocket half-length?