Thunderbolt

LAS VEGAS--Seagate's super flexible GoFlex external hard drives just got even more flexible.

The storage vendor unveiled today at CES 2012 its support for the Thunderbolt connection by showcasing the Thunderbolt adapter for its GoFlex family of external hard drives.

In case you're not aware, Seagate's GoFlex lineup of external hard drives, first introduced in May 2010 with the GoFlex Go, has been the most flexible solution for directly attached storage to date. This is because, unlike external hard drives from other vendors that come with a fixed type (or types) of connectivity, Seagate's GoFlex external … Read more

LaCie, one of the first companies out of the gate last year with storage using Intel's fast Thunderbolt interface, introduced a dual-drive system called the 2big today at CES.

The 2big can be configured with two drives paired for high performance and capacity (RAID 0) or for high reliability by mirroring (RAID 1). Some people will appreciate fast backups, no doubt, but it seems likely that those willing to spring for Thunderbolt will be more inclined to take the performance route.

In addition, LaCie introduced its eSATA Hub Thunderbolt Series. eSATA is an external version of the usual internal … Read more

LAS VEGAS--For those looking to get more ports out of their Thunderbolt-equipped notebooks, Belkin's got a box on the way to make that happen.

At CES here, the company gave its Thunderbolt Express Dock product a price and a release date.

For $299, those with a Mac or PC featuring a single Thunderbolt port can add a handful of other ports, all of which get piped through the speedy I/O. That includes three USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire 800 port, a 3.5mm audio plug, gigabit Ethernet, and HDMI.

The new hardware, which hits stores in September, made its debut at last year's Intel Developer Forum with the promise of being available this spring.

A number of Thunderbolt peripherals that have hit the market so far have included a spare Thunderbolt port for daisy-chaining. There have also been products that expand the types of ports like Apple's Thunderbolt Display, which like Belkin's upcoming offering, adds extra USB, Ethernet, and Firewire ports.

Head past the break to see the other side of the dock.… Read more

LAS VEGAS--The message of CES 2012 for laptops thus far: wait.

I'd love to tell you that one of the laptops of this year's Consumer Electronics Show is absolutely wonderful, a must-buy. However, I can't. I have a strong feeling that whatever we see at this show is only a half-step forward. Worse, there's a very good chance that it'll all be out of date by midyear.

The reasons are utterly simple, and made even clearer by this morning's Intel keynote presentation.… Read more

Thunderbolt, the high-speed port technology from Intel that so far appears only on Apple computers, just got a shot in the arm from Elgato with new portable solid-state drives.

At the CES show today, Elgato announced two models of its new Thunderbolt SSD. The $429.95 120GB model and the $699.95 240GB model will ship in February, the company said.

The drives can transfer data at 270MBps and will work with both Macs and Windows machines. They draw power from a computer over the Thunderbolt cable itself, with no need or ability to get power on their own.

SSDs … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Mobile Mac users now can finally say goodbye to their USB or FireWire portable drives.

Elgato showed off today at CES 2012 the first bus-powered Thunderbolt drive, the Elgato Thunderbolt SSD.

While bus-powered--a feature that allows storage devices to draw power directly from the peripheral port, negating the need for a separate power adapter--has been widely popular with USB portable drives, it has been a challenge for the Thunderbolt connection. The Thunderbolt port is slated to offer up to 10 volts of power, but because parts and pieces of the Thunderbolt interface, such as the cable itself, require energy … Read more

LAS VEGAS--If LaCie's Little Big Disk Thunderbolt is, well, too little for you, get ready for this!

LaCie announced today at CES 2012 that its new LaCie 2big external hard drive now features a Thunderbolt connection. Originally, the 2big series only offered USB 2.0, FireWire, and eSATA for Macs. There's also a version that offers USB 3.0, which is geared toward Windows users.

The fact that the LaCie 2big features dual-volume, allowing for RAID 1 and RAID 0, means that Mac users now have another option, other than the Promise Pegasus, to have a fast external storage device that also offers data security. LaCie's other Thunderbolt drive, the Little Big Disk Thunderbolt, only comes with a single internal drive, hence it's susceptible to disk failure.… Read more

LAS VEGAS--If you have a Thunderbolt-enabled computer but just can't afford Thunderbolt storage, LaCie has something that will ease the pain.

The company showed off at the start of CES the first Thunderbolt hub that also supports an eSATA connection, called the eSATA Hub Thunderbolt Series.

This is a device about the size of a portable external drive that comes with two Thunderbolt ports and two eSATA ports. Users can connect up to two eSATA drives to the hub and it will instantly make them work with a host computer via one Thunderbolt port. With the other port, you … Read more

The cable for charging and transferring data from iPhones, iPods and iPads could soon undergo another major shift, switching to technology that could speed up both tasks.

In a freshly published patent application, picked up by Patently Apple this morning, Apple details a new type of cable that blends together increased power and faster data transfer technologies, including Thunderbolt.

While not going so far as to call out the technology by name, the patent application notes that the proposed cable could support DisplayPort and PCI Express--the two technologies that are bundled together in Thunderbolt's architecture.

Along with the faster … Read more