- #PROMISE PEGASUS2 R6 18TB RAID MANUAL#
- #PROMISE PEGASUS2 R6 18TB RAID PORTABLE#
- #PROMISE PEGASUS2 R6 18TB RAID PROFESSIONAL#
- #PROMISE PEGASUS2 R6 18TB RAID FREE#
- #PROMISE PEGASUS2 R6 18TB RAID MAC#
Of note is that all of the current solutions continue to use hard drives for storage the target is primarily video and image editing workflows where large amounts of portable storage are important as opposed to ultra-high-speed external storage using SSDs – specific mention of 3D and 4K video is made, and raw 4K video can chew through storage at an alarming rate (up to 15Gbps).Īs discussed previously, Thunderbolt 2 effectively doubles the transfer rate of Thunderbolt, up to 20Gbps it does this by bonding two 10Gbps channels into a single channel. These range from a 4-bay enclosure (R4) up to an 8-bay enclosure (R8), with the Pegasus2 R8 the Pegasus2 is also available in a 6-bay (R6) variant. Today, Promise is formally announcing four upcoming Thunderbolt 2 products. Typically multi-bay external storage devices tend to utilize 3.5" drives due to the lower cost and higher capacities.We’ve seen Thunderbolt products from Promise before, and we’ve even heard about some of their upcoming Thuderbolt 2 offerings. The downside, however, is that 3.5" drives are physically larger and heavier, which makes a multi-bay enclosure rather difficult to move around on a regular basis. To fix this, Promise is offering a 4-bay 2.5" RAID solution called the M4.Īside from capacity, the M4 offers everything that the R4 does as you get hardware RAID 5 and two Thunderbolt 2 ports for daisy-chaining. The weight comes in at almost one third of the R4's weight and the dimensions are considerably smaller too, which makes the M4 a lot more portable than the rest of the Pegasus2 lineup. Sadly Thunderbolt 2's ten watts of power is not capable of powering the M4, so it is not a fully portable solution like regular external hard drives are. The M4 is available for $999 in the Apple Online Store and the target market for the M4 and the whole Pegasus2 family is video professionals. Promise markets the M4 as a solution that offers portability for over an hour of uncompressed 4K footage.
#PROMISE PEGASUS2 R6 18TB RAID PROFESSIONAL#
While there are arguably cheaper and larger external 3.5" hard drives around, the M4 provides redundancy via RAID 5, 6 and 10, which is more or less a must for professional video editing because data loss could end up being very expensive. #PROMISE PEGASUS2 R6 18TB RAID PROFESSIONAL# Our review unit shipped with four 1TB 5,400rpm Toshiba hard drives. two-platter drives, so we are not dealing with super high density here. Promise told us that they are not offering 4x1.5TB or 4x2TB configurations due to price sensitivity as $999 is quite expensive to begin with, although I am not sure if I agree because I could see video professionals paying more for increased capacity.
#PROMISE PEGASUS2 R6 18TB RAID FREE#
In the end, 4TB is not that much if you deal with 4K video.įortunately Promise has made hard drive swaps convenient as pressing the button on the bay will free the lever, which you simply pull to get the drive out. The drives are attached to the bays by four standard hard drive screws, so any 2.5" drive will work.
#PROMISE PEGASUS2 R6 18TB RAID MANUAL#
Officially Promise only guarantees compatibility with the Toshiba drive, although the user manual suggests that the drive does not have to be the same make and model. There are a few screws that need to be removed until the top comes off and you end up having access to the PCB along with the rest of the components (PSU, fan, etc.). The RAID controller is covered by the heat sink, so I do not have a photo of it, but I was told that the silicon itself is from PMC with custom Promise firmware. A quick look at PMC's RAID controller lineup suggests that the silicon is the PM8011 SRC 8圆G, which is an 8-port SATA/SAS 6Gbps controller with a PCIe 2.0 x8 interface. Like many Thunderbolt devices, the M4 has two Thunderbolt 2 ports for daisy-chaining. The Thunderbolt controller is Intel's DSL5520 with two Thunderbolt 2 ports (i.e. four channels) and it connects to the RAID controller through a PCIe 2.0 x4 interface. Intel lists the bulk price as $9.95 on their ARK site and the TDP is 2.8W.
#PROMISE PEGASUS2 R6 18TB RAID MAC#
Unfortunately I do not have a Mac with Thunderbolt, so the results and analysis are limited to a Windows based system.