Thunderbolt SAN switch

[Bernard Lamborelle]

Thunderbolt supports One Initiator (your computer) to Multiple Targets (drives, printer, displays, etc.). What you are asking for is the ability to connect Multiple Initiators (computers) to One (or Multiple) Targets (drives). This is not possible with Thunderbolt technology. This is why everyone connecting to a SAN must go to either FC or 10GbE…

Hope this helps,

Bernard Lamborelle
bernard at tiger-technology.com
http://www.tiger-technology.com
514-667-2015

[Bob Zelin]

Hi Antonio –
I know what you want. You want to do a pure thunderbolt network, using a Mac Pro as your server with it’s 6 Thunderbolt ports, and connect your client computers to your “server” via Thunderbolt only, so that there is no Ethernet, and no fibre – just thunderbolt.

Well guess what – YOU CANT HAVE IT. IT DOES NOT WORK. I have confirmed this with Intel.

You are stuck buying one of the existing shared storage systems on the market, or you get NOTHING.

Bet you don’t like that answer. No shared storage for you !

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Antonio Huang]

Hi Bob,

Fibre SAN is too expansive for me. Actually, I have a couple of Promise R6 and R8 but I have 2 new Mac Pro and 1 Macbook Pro. I am thinking if I can find a Thunderbolt SAN switch to share both of them, that would make my life a lot easier.

but anyway, Thanks for the tips.

Antonio Huang

[John Parker]

Hi Guys,

I heard a couple of years ago a pure Thunderbolt switch have been developed. or did i hear that from a BVE show? can’t remember it now.

any idea ?

John P

[Bob Zelin]

a thunderbolt switch has not been developed. All you have to do is plug in two Thunderbolt computers, and enable sharing on one of them. Mount the “shared computer” on the client computer. Now, do a speed test with one of the countless free software products for network speed test that you can download. You will instantly see the poor performance.

So even IF there was a Thunderbolt switch, you would get terrible performance, and not be able to have multiple computers edit HD video over a thunderbolt network. It doesnt’ work. I’ve tried this.

There are countless products that are inexpensive that use simple Ethernet to accomplish what you want. But I know that all of these simply are not CHEAP ENOUGH, when you can just plug in a thunderbolt cable to do what you want. Well, that’s like saying that you want to edit over the internet, without an expensive system like Adobe Anywhere. It’s just a fantasy right now. You can say “I know there must be something out there”- but if you stop google searching, and simply plug two computers together with a thunderbolt cable, and do some simple testing, you will see that it does not reliably work.

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com

[Edgar Chang]

Hi, Antonio,

I’m Edgar from Accusys.

Just as what Bob said, there’s no Thunderbolt SAN switch so far.

But, we have developed a SAN solution for Thunderbolt units share the capacity of one set of storages (See the diagram below).

We have a Thunderbolt to PCIe converter to connect Macs to our switch; and make the Macs access PCIe storage. It is not purely via Thunderbolt connection, but it provides you the sharing capability.

You can view the slides on SlideShare to see the introduction of this solution.

1PB Shared Thunderbolt Storage

Or you can view this webinar video:

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If you are interested in this solution, you may contact me for more details.

–Edgar (edgar.chang@h3platform.com)

[Brady Cheng]

Maybe this product can satisfied the fantasy of “pure” Thunderbolt shared more closely!
https://www.accusys.com.tw/products/thunderbolt-storage/a16t2-share-new.html

Connect multiple MAC computers to A16T2-Share and start sharing your files within the storage.

The A16T2-Share couples the functionality of a complete SAN solution within a single Thunderbolt storage device, the high performance of Thunderbolt 2.0 without any protocol conversion latency, and the reliability derived from an independent hardware RAID system.These features give A16T2-Share its uniqueness that differentiates it from other Thunderbolt storage products, and helps create a brand new working experience for Thunderbolt users.

[Brady Cheng]

Hi Antonio,

If your New Mac Pro is using 10.10.x, you will not perform XSAN 2
XSAN4 is the only one version OS Yosemite used.

[Steve Chandler]

Yeah this definitely seems like a first of it’s kind thing. When it was announced I was really skeptical (having researched Thunderbolt ethernet and been horrified at the results) but they do seem to have this figured out. The info that has been leaking out about it is all very open and transparent, no sales double speak going on. Obviously they are still hiding their technique, but the company has a long history with making shared storage PCIe solutions, which Thunderbolt is a natural expansion of.

They REALLY need to just release a price already so we can all move on with our lives.

[Bob Zelin]

They did
It’s $10,000 us for 64 terabytes
3 users no expansion for additional users
Requires additional Mac mini server with Xsan or tiger share

Are you ready to buy it now?

Bob Zelin

Bob Zelin
Rescue 1, Inc.
bobzelin@icloud.com