Thunderbolt Pegasus2

Hi Everyone,

I'm looking for a raid solution to use with FCPX and an iMac.

I had read on various forums that the Pegasus2 can be accessed simultaneously by two computers utilizing the two thunderbolt ports.

I can't find any information from Promise on using it like this and wanted to make sure it would work this way.

Has anybody had any experience using the Pegasus2 like this? In theory 2 editors could share the same media files at great speeds for a manageable price.

Thanks!
Jon

I am not aware of ANY T'bolt drive being able to be accessed by two hosts at the same time. Where did you get the information it was possible?

You can connect it to one Mac, and let that Mac share it over a network with other Macs. But that network has to access it through the single Mac host.

I've heard of this with the first Pegasus version but haven't personally tried it.

If you are daisy-chained or TB Bridge Networked ( arstechnica.com/apple/2013/10/os-x-10-9-...nderbolt-networking/ ) with Mavericks, I don't see why two Macs cannot access the same Pegasus (1 or 2).

I've read older posts about it on a number of forums including the Apple Support boards but have not seen anything recent.

I hadn't thought of using TB Bridge. I guess that would deliver the same speed and results!

Thanks for your quick reply.

T'bolt Bride is simply networking two host computers together. Still, only one can host the RAID.

Ben - even though one computer is hosting the raid can the other one not still access it as a shared drive?

Yes, that's what I've been saying. Typical network configuration.

But you can not run two T'bolt cables, one from each of a RAID's two ports, to two different Macs at the same time.

It would seem the smart people over at creative cow might be doing a story on this very subject.

forums.creativecow.net/thread/292/3115

Here is interesting information that confirms that this is possible without the use of SAN Protocol

discussions.apple.com/thread/3299162

Apple says that you can connect two Apple Devices to a Promise 12 TB Raid device. So you should be good for connecting your iMac and MBA using two Thunderbolt cables to the two thunderbolt ports on the Promise 12TB Raid device.
There is no switching protocol built into Thunderbolt, but there is a switching protocol in the embedded Raid system. With the HFS format, the two computers will only be able to work on different documents, you might be able to view what is happening to the document on another Mac but you will not be able to simultaneously edit the same document unless you bank up on four HDDs using Raid 5 where OS X Lion would use localised versions on the Promise 12TB Raid device. This is very simple to do but would need a localising protocol programme.
We are not talking about a dumb drive we are talking about a smart RAID device.

I would like to know where Apple makes such a claim that two hosts can share one T'bolt device.

Promise says nothing about switching built in to their controller cards. It isn't in any RAIDS they've made so far, I doubt it is in the new P2 line.

As far as RAID itself, it has no switching protocols built in to it's scheme. That's something that happens outside of the RAID environment.

And any network would work, not only XSAN. That's no big deal, just having one Mac share a drive. But, you'd need a SAN for "editing in place", otherwise you'd need to download media to your local drive to work.