Q: Where are the thunderbolt HDD enclosures and other peripherals ?

I'm actually a fan of oyen digital. I have 2 of their datatale fw 2-bay enclosures. But c'mon...$600 for an empty enclosure?!?! This thunderbolt ******** is getting out of hand.

Seems like we won't ever be able to get our hands on an empty and affordable (<$300) Tb enclosure. #usb3ftw

Tthere are bunch of Thunderbolt drives out there.. Lacie, DATOptic, DataTale, Promise, Sonnet, CalDigit

DATOptic is having a promotion on their Thunderbolt products.

$214.00 Off on T12-S6.TB

http://www.datoptic.com/ec/thunderbolt-trayless-twelve-sata-6gb-s-hardware-raid5 -6-quiet-tower.html

$130.00 Off on tRAID-T2 Dual TB 5x drives RAID/JBoD

$75.00 Off on tRAID-T1 Dual TB 5x drives RAID/JBoD

But no discount in Thunderbolt JBoD 5x SATAIII hot swap

http://www.datoptic.com/ec/dual-thunderbolt-raid-with-5x-sata-bay-for-mac-and-wi ndows.html

Go figure :-(

Otherwrold Computing (aka MacSales) now as a 2-disk Thunderbolt enclosre for $299:  http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/METB7DK0GB/

Unfortunately, the ship date is still a couple of months out, but apparently they did ship a batch of these at some point.

This is the last piece I am waiting for to upgrade from my early 2008 Mac Pro to what will likely be a souped up iMac 27".  In addition to my boot drive, I currently have 2, 3TB drives in my Mac Pro and I'm not thrilled with the idea of HighPoint's "docking" system, which aside from being a dock rather than an enclosure, only has a single TB port.  The enclosure does Raid 0 & 1, or JBOD (which is what I need).

Thanks - there is also a 4 bay option available shipping today for just under $500:

OWC ThunderBay IV Thunderbolt 4-Bay

Mac / PC / Thunderbolt / RAID Ready

The Speed You Need

Add vast amounts of high-performance storage capacity to any Thunderbolt equipped Mac or PC with the ThunderBay IV. Utilize each of the four drives independently, or use the software RAID of your choice to setup the ThunderBay IV for multi-drive performance or data redundancy. Take A/V post-production, photography, data management, and backup to new heights with sustained data rates of up to 895MB/s*.

Real-Time Editing

You can now work at the full speed of the drive. Create, backup your data, or edit multiple uncompressed video streams faster and more efficiently than ever.

Mix & Match Drives & RAID

With four drive bays you can choose to install all hard drives, all SSDs, or a mixture of both hard drives and SSDs. You can setup two or three drives as a software RAID and leave any remaining drives in independent mode, or setup two software RAIDs.

Solid, Reliable, and Cool

The ThunderBay IV has a durable aluminum enclosure that protects the four internal drives while keeping them cool thanks to its superior heat dissipation. A locking faceplate keeps the drives secure.

The Perfect Mac Pro Migration Drive

You don't have to give up your drive bays when migrating from a Mac Pro tower to the new Mac Pro. Simply plug in the ThunderBay IV to your new Mac Pro and you'll have four drives with a Thunderbolt interface capable of running all the drives at full speed – just as if they were installed internally.

Thunderbolt Daisy-chain Capable

Add high-performance features by daisy chaining up to six devices plus one high-resolution display. Of course, the biggest benefit is even when you use a ThunderBay IV, you will still have an available Thunderbolt port.

Key Features

• Space for 4 independently mounted/enumerated drives
• 2 Thunderbolt ports for daisy-chaining
• RAID ready
• Durable aluminum enclosure with fan
• 1 meter certified Thunderbolt cable included

Hey jimmyc - that was a beautiful enclosure.  And if you are looking for a USB3, its a vrey good deal.  I'd love to see that same in Thunderbolt, and better - in Thunderbolt II.  It would also be good if OWC would update to use the fastest interfaces.  SATA II is pretty slow, actually.     

Thanks for the find though - I've been looking for a good USB3 RAID solution too.

Imagine that box in Thunderbolt II with large SSDs...  Sigh.....

saw it the minute I clicked add reply and regretted it. the 4 bay is $500 so updated my post.

I don't think my Macbook Pro has TB 2 but I imagine that woudl be even better.  TB 1 should be what I need to move all the drives out of my old Mac Pro and simply connect to my new Macbook Pro for video editing.

Broke down and bought the Pegagsus2 R4 Diskless unit:

http://store.apple.com/us/product/HE150VC/A/promise-pegasus2-r4-diskless-4bay-th underbolt-2-raid-system?fnode=5f

I put my 4 drives straight out of my old Mac Pro into this unit (as JBOD) and am extrememly pleased, the read/right is great, the disks all show up properly on the desktop and it sleeps/wakes perfectly.

I have been using Lightroom and Photoshop all morning, even used a USB3 card reader to move RAW files from my camera card to one of the attached disks and it seems all to be working very fast.

Finally

I have the LaCie thunderbolt 120gb SSD coupled with my Macbook Pro which has impressive drive speed.

There are other ones out there now which are HDD / SSD most are very expensive but a nice luxury

I picked up a Seagate Thuderbolt Drive Adapter a while back. I can use an exsisting drive and it saves me a ton of time with improved transfer rates.

Only if the existing drive is a Seagate Backup Plus Portable Drive

Csound1 wrote:

 

Only if the existing drive is a Seagate Backup Plus Portable Drive

Uninformed hogwash.  You can stick any SATA 2.5 drive or SSD directly into the standard connection.

Take a picture of your non Seagate drive working with this adaptor, post it here.

Csound1 wrote:

 

Take a picture of your non Seagate drive working with this adaptor, post it here.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/community-content-search/results/ref=cm_srch_q_rtr/?que ry=bare&search-alias=community-reviews&Go.x=-1481&Go.y=-370&idx.asin=B009HQCARY

“By G. Kuo  August 2, 2013

This desktop Seagate Thunderbolt adapter has been praised for its usability with drives other than just the Seagate goFlex encased drives. Indeed it is true, you can attach bare external drives if you also arrange for some physical support for the drives. That's already covered in other reviews.”

and

“J. Lapham March 22, 2014

I use this with a bare 2.5" drive for backups from my Macbook. The first time I moved a large file, I assumed it didn't work because it copied so fast. I've not yet had any compatibility issues with any of the 2.5" drives I've used.”

You do not even need the Seagate sled to attach any drive to the SATA connection, just support the drive underneath.   I don’t own this as I have 3 of the FW800 versions and use them daily with bare drives but have used this one often this way.  Here’s a pic from a magazine:

So you have not actually tried this?

Thanks