We’ve been waiting a long time for this one folks – an actual, shipping Thunderbolt external hard drive for mere mortals.
Western Digital has announced pricing and that it is now shipping 4TB and 6TB versions of its My Book Thunderbolt Duo external hard drives. I first looked at these at CES 2012, while they were still getting them ready for final production.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyt6jwohQ_M&w=640&h=360]The dual-drive system is configurable as a RAID 0, RAID 1 or JBOD. As a RAID 0 drive, the Thunderbolt connection puts a single unit in the 280MB/s transfer range. Additionally, a daisy-chained series of 6 drives configured in RAID 0 will deliver transfer speeds up to 780MB/s.
The 4TB model is priced at $600, while the 6TB model is priced at $700. WD says it is now shipping the drives. Check B&H Photo, Amazon and WD’s online store for availability. I should have my hands on one soon and will report back as soon as I get a first look at its performance.
More info in the full press release below.
WD® SHIPPING MY BOOK® THUNDERBOLT™ DUO DUAL-DRIVE STORAGE SYSTEM: ULTRA-FAST READ/WRITE TIMES FOR CREATIVE PROS,AND TODAY’S NEED-IT-NOW CONSUMERS
Up to 6 TB Capacities, Double-safe Protection, RAID, User Serviceability, and Dual Thunderbolt Ports for Daisy Chaining and Unparalleled Workflow Efficiency
IRVINE, Calif. – Mar. 15, 2012 – Western Digital® (NYSE: WDC), the world’s leader in external storage solutions, is now shipping its first external hard drive with Thunderbolt™ technology – the My Book® Thunderbolt™ Duo dual-drive storage system. The new My Book Thunderbolt Duo provides professionals and Mac® enthusiasts with five primary areas of performance, double-safe data protection and flexibility; ultra-fast data transfer rates for greater work efficiency; a 4 TB/6 TB large-capacity; customized dual-drive storage system with RAID 0, 1 and JBOD options; customer serviceable drives; and dual Thunderbolt ports for daisy-chaining multiple My Book Thunderbolt Duo devices or other peripherals.
Thunderbolt technology brings a new way to connect high-speed storage devices to any desktop or notebook computer with a Thunderbolt port while delivering unmatched speed for multitasking activities such as, editing video/music, 3D rendering, and completing other high definition graphics-intensive projects.
“Offering lightning-fast throughput in both directions, the new WD Thunderbolt Duo storage systems are just what I need for organizing, editing, and archiving complex High Definition video projects,” said Bruce Dorn, DGA (Director’s Guild of America). Configurable as either RAID 0 or RAID 1 – and offered in both 4 TB and 6 TB capacities – these new WD Thunderbolt Duo systems are the perfect solution for video filmmakers who are desperate for an uber-fast time sensitive project management solution.”
“The My Book Thunderbolt Duo offers large storage capacities for creative professionals and enthusiasts who produce, edit, or need quick access to large files, including HD video,” said Jody Bradshaw, general manager of WD consumer storage solutions. “Its dual Thunderbolt ports provide amazing creative flexibility while allowing daisy-chaining of up to six My Book Thunderbolt Duo drives or other high performance peripherals for fast and efficient workflow. The combination of storage, backup, security, flexibility and speed makes the My Book Thunderbolt Duo the ideal choice for creative professionals that need to write, store, protect and edit high-definition and graphic intensive projects.”
My Book Thunderbolt Duo is an ideal, all-in-one external drive for creative professionals, enthusiasts, and consumers who own vast amounts of digital content including videos, music, and photos. The drive serves as a safe and reliable way to backup content stored on your computer while providing the fastest way to get information to and from the WD drive. In addition, its RAID 1 support allows users to create a second copy of their digital content on the drive for double-safe protection, and peace of mind. The drive also supports a JBOD mode (allocate each disk individually to a specific task) excellent option for users running Windows OS on a Mac.
Additional features found on the My Book Thunderbolt Duo include out-of-the-box compatibility with Mac OS Time Machine and formatting for HFS + Journaled for Mac; capability for multi-stream workflows; and a 3-year limited warranty.
Price and Availability
The My Book Thunderbolt Duo is available now at select U.S. retailers and online at www.wdstore.com starting at $599.99 USD MSRP (4 TB) and $699.99 (6 TB).
Very nice! An alternative to the TB Lacie RAID drives. Do you happen to know if these will run in independent JBOD as I can’t seem to find a hard answer to that.
Yes. They’ll do JBOD.
Unfortunatey many companies use JBOD and NRAID interchangeably, so I wanted to make sure it sees the disks as independent units. If you get one could you verify that please?
I will Alex. In the mean time, I’m sending an email to my contacts at WD to get their response on your concern. Cheers.
Awesome. I appreciate you looking into it. My reasoning is I am running ZFS as my file system compared to the horribly outdated and jumbled mess of HFS+ we are stuck using with OS X. The plugin will soon allows up to RAID-Z2 (think RAID 5 double parity), but requires disks to be seen as independent JBOD.
Here is the response from WD:
“The JBOD option is individual separate disks, no RAID or spanning involved. Each drive can be individually formatted and partitioned as the user desires.
Note: There are suppliers using the JBOD term to indicate a spanned single volume. This does not apply to MyBook Thunderbolt Duo.”
Excellent news!
Thanks for looking into this for me.