With the announcement of Apple/Intel's Thunderbolt technology in the new Apple Mac hardware, Germany-based Promise Technology were the first to jump on the bandwagon.
They first released Pegasus R4 & R6 RAID enclosures. These house between 4TB and 12TB of RAW storage and are configurable in 0, 1, 5, 6 & 10 RAID levels.
The R6 has a throughput of 800Mbps and the R4 has a throughput of around 500Mbps. Both are available now.
The SANLink was very promising. A small Thunderbolt device with two Fibre Channel ports, enabling the user to connect to a SAN via their MacBook Pro, iMac or Mac Mini.
Running via an iMac, the SANLink was connected to a small VTRAK SAN and running four streams of ProRes HD.
In FCP7 I was able to scrub, edit picture-in-picture, multicam edit - it performed seamlessly, reiterating the fact that the iMac may become the professional editor's hardware platform. The SANLink will ship in December.
More interestingly, Promise have also developed a prototype rack that houses two Mac Mini Servers and two SAN Links that fit in 1U, making an interesting metadata controller alternative to the now defunct Xserve for those running XSAN environments.
For more information on Promise and Thunderbolt technologies visit
http://www.promise.com/.
Sam Johnson got his start as a runner in Soho, learning the ropes on Avid systems and working his way up the ladder. He is now a Production/Post-Production Engineer for the LAB, AMV BBDO's post facility, and specializes in Apple Pro Applications & Xsan Environments. He also provides consultancy to the TV department. Learn more about AMV BBDO at http://www.amvlab.com.