Elgato readies Thunderbolt-fed external SSD
Fast, but expensive
CES 2012
Best known for its TV tuners, Germany's Elgato is moving into the storage biz. Announced at the Consumer Electronics Shows (CES) today: a Thunderbolt-connected SSD.
The solid-state drive is packed into a stylish casing that's the same size as your average portable hard drive. But instead of a USB 2.0 micro or mini port round the back, there's a Thunderbolt port.
That makes it readily available for use with modern Macs - and the coming range of Windows machine equipped with the Intel-developed high-speed connectivity tech, such as the upcoming Acer Aspire S5 Ultrabook.
Running the drive on a 2.2GHz Core i7-based 15in MacBook Pro running QuickBench 4, Elgato said it clocked up read speeds of 270MB/s for the SSD, compared to 80MB/s for a Firewire 800 drive and 35MB/s for a USB 2.0 unit.
Alas, though, thanks to the price of Flash chippery, the Elgato drive will set you back a pretty penny: £350 for the 120GB drive, or £570 for the 240GB version. You get a three-year warranty with that.
The Elgato Thunderbolt SSD goes on sale in February. ®
COMMENTS
Uh...
Hate to be all quibbly, but three photos seems a little excessive for such a featureless device. Er, especially when two of them are THE SAME PHOTO.
Another single-port TB peripheral :(
Yet again, there is another TB peripheral that has completely missed the point of TB; It only has 1 port. That means you get to choose which ONE peripheral you want to use by plugging it into the ONE TB port on your computer.
In my case; I choose to use my DisplayPort monitor, so this SSD can stay in the shop.
As an aside, is this really a TB SSD, or is it just a SATA SSD and a TB interface card in a box?
Can you say: "daisy-chain" ?
I also wanted to see the business end. Couldn't really believe that Elgato would be dumb enough to stick just one connector on the thing. But if you follow the link to the Elgato web site, that's exactly what you find. Duhhh…..
Go right ahead being quibbly
The first photo shows the drive with you data all safe and sound.
The second photo shows the drive after all data has been lost due to an Elcrappo FW bug.
Seriously, it would be nice to see the business end with the connectors, flashing LEDs, and panic button.
USB3 is sloooow
Doesn't compare to the 10Gbs bi directional thunderbolt.
