The first Thunderbolt compatible peripherals—Promise's Pegasus RAIDs—started shipping on Tuesday. Using the RAIDs with a Thunderbolt equipped Mac, though, requires a rather expensive $50 cable that is only available from Apple. We dug into the design of the cable to find out why Apple felt justified in charging $50 for some plastic-wrapped copper wire, and why Thunderbolt may have a hard time gaining traction outside of the higher-end storage and video device market—a fate similar to Apple's FireWire.
Promise's RAIDs do not come supplied with a Thunderbolt cable. Instead, users are directed to buy a Thunderbolt cable directly from Apple, which costs $49 for two-meter length. We contacted Promise to find out why a Mini DisplayPort cable could not be used in its stead, since the Thunderbolt port is based on Mini DisplayPort. A support technician told Ars that Apple's cable is a "smart" cable that "has firmware in it."
Read the comments on this post
No comments:
Post a Comment