Promise Pegasus R6 & Mac Thunderbolt Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 8, 2011 2:01 AM ESTIt's Bootable
With the Thunderbolt firmware update installed on your MacBook Pro or iMac, the Promise Pegasus is a bootable device. You can install OS X to it and select it as a boot device either at startup (hold down option) or through OS X's Startup Disk preference pane:
I would still recommend using a single SSD to boot from. Even in a 6-drive RAID-0 configuration you get much better small file random read/write performance from a single SSD. As a result you get better boot and application launch times. Although sequential performance is far better on the Promise array.
Power, Thermals & Noise
With six 3.5" 7200RPM drives inside, the Pegasus R6 consumes a decent amount of power. At idle a fully configured R6 draws around 64W of power at the wall. Under maximum load I saw just under 70W on our power meter.
| Power Consumption Comparison | |||||
| Idle | Sequential Write | Random Write | |||
| Promise Pegasus R6 (6 x 2TB RAID-5) | 64.3W | 69.1W | 68.1W | ||
The single 100mm fan tasked with cooling all six drives does a good job. Even after writing 10TB of data to the RAID-5 array for nearly 8 hours the highest temperature of any drive in the Pegasus was 45C. Under load the drives tend to stay in the 41 - 45C range and the fan likes to spin at 1200 RPM.
The fans are the loudest part of the Pegasus R6. While you can hear the 7K3000s spin up, random and sequential accesses are typically quiet. The noise level at my desk is around 43dB, with the Pegasus R6 running it peaks at 48dB with all of the drives crunching and idles at 47dB. The Pegasus is by no means silent - it definitely adds low fan noise to your environment.
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Spazweasel - Friday, July 8, 2011 - link
$50 too much for a cable? Psshh. Children these days don't remember $75-100 SCSI-3 and UltraSCSI cables. These things are expensive for good reason.You want the highest performance, you pay to play. That's always been the case.
tzhu07 - Friday, July 8, 2011 - link
The phrase, "you get what you pay for" is generally true as a rule of thumb, but in the computer and consumer electronics industry, that has for the most part been untrue.Case in point: The high price of Monster cables having no performance advantage over the same type of cables one can find on newegg at a much lower price.
Apple just has this technology cornered....for now.
tzhu07 - Friday, July 8, 2011 - link
Well, I should say untrue in the computer and consumer electronics cable market.darwinosx - Friday, July 8, 2011 - link
The technology is Intel's not Apples. Intel determines the licensing fees.Samus - Friday, July 8, 2011 - link
Yes, but like SCSI, Apple was its only mainstream delivery vehicle. Back in the 80's and 90's, SCSI interfaces were reserved for servers, ultra high end workstations, and Apple computers. They always push the bleeding edge, which is possibly the only thing I respect about Apple.Justin Case - Saturday, July 9, 2011 - link
This has nothing to do with "pushing the bleeding edge". This has to do with giving Apple an "excuse" to remove USB ports from their iToys, thus locking out 3rd party accessory manufacturers (Thunderbolt is far too expensive to be competitive, unless you have a special deal like Apple has with Intel).The Mac hasn't been Apple's main focus for a long time; it's all about iOS and its ecosystem, now.
haley2011 - Sunday, July 10, 2011 - link
okMySchizoBuddy - Sunday, July 10, 2011 - link
doesn't the article specifically say that thunderbolt is free to license.Isn't Promise Pegasus a 3rd part manufacturer. Do you have any source claiming that Promise has a special deal with Apple.
Sony has thunderbolt ports in it's laptop as well.
Focher - Sunday, July 10, 2011 - link
Besides that you give away your bias of anything from Apple, TB isn't an Apple technology. It's an Intel one. What I find ironic is the USB versus TB arguments. First, it's a false choice. Even Apple has offered both FireWire and USB ports for years on their machines. It's only recently that FireWire has started to be removed from models. There's no current indication that USB will be dropped by Apple. Second, in specific regards to USB 3.0 I don't see the argument versus TB device availability. Neither have much market penetration yet, so only time will tell how each of them will do - and both could do fine or both could fail.MobiusStrip - Tuesday, July 12, 2011 - link
iOS devices are toys, but they already lack USB ports. They don't have any proper developer- or user-accessible I/O, so you think Apple's going to put Thunderbolt ports on them?NO. Apple has created a whole line of mobile devices that are ironically isolated from the world around them.