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. [Read more…]