Promise Pegasus R6 & Mac Thunderbolt Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 8, 2011 2:01 AM ESTThe Thunderbolt Cable
Despite the $999 - $1999 price tag of the Promise Pegasus, it does not ship with a Thunderbolt cable. Apple currently offers a 2 meter long Thunderbolt cable for $49. As iFixit discovered this is an active cable with a Genum GN2033 transceiver in each connector:
Gennum GN2033 Transceiver in Apple's Thunderbolt cable - Image Courtesy iFixit
Thanks to all of the added components in the cable each connector is approximately 50.8mm long, much longer than the end of a standard DisplayPort cable.
The Genum transceiver and auxiliary components do generate heat under load. Using an IR thermometer I measured a connector surface temperature of 27.6C at the end plugged into my test MacBook Pro. The end plugged into the Pegasus R6 was warmer (presumably because of its close proximity to the drive cage) at 32.9C. Neither is too hot to handle but both are warmer than you typically expect from a cable plugged into the side (or back) of your computer.
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PrincessNybor - Tuesday, July 12, 2011 - link
I'm actually looking forward to using Target Display Mode when I pick up my new 27" iMac this month (just holding out for Lion). My work computer is a 15" MacBook Pro with Thunderbolt, and while the display is good for a portable, I'd love access to a 27" display! Some of the applications I work with won't be installed on the iMac, since that will be a personal desktop and not a work machine. This is a good solution for others in my situation.osteopathic1 - Thursday, July 14, 2011 - link
I just plugged in my old 23" Cinema Display DVI into a $6 minidisplay port/DVI adapter and it worked like a charm.onebear - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - link
Please see this discussions from Apple Support forum.https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3181015
It is not working with iMac 2011. And having many unsolve issues.
nanofunk.net - Saturday, January 7, 2012 - link
there are lots of known problems and promise won't answer or react on any of them.see a roundup of problems here:
http://www.nanofunk.net/caution-with-promise-pegas...
also there are other issues as reported in the apple forums:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3181015?start...
the only thing we can currently do is to boycott promise until the give an official statement and release a bugfix to support larger HDDs and address the issues/bugs (drive-ejecting bugs, etc.)
Rdubs - Friday, April 20, 2012 - link
Anyone know if I can throw in 4x 4tb 3rd party drives into a R4?What's the limit? Can't find a list of what mfg' s hard drives play well
with R4.
Many thanks
frabber - Thursday, October 25, 2012 - link
anybody know whether this is possible? with some kind of thunderbolt enabled motherboard?odedia - Monday, April 14, 2014 - link
WD RED 4TB drives are pretty affordable now, for the price of the 8Tb R4, I can get a diskless R4 and 4 red drives, resulting in 16tb total. They question is, would the RED drives match the performance of the R4? They are 5400 rpm drives, though quite reliable (much better than a green drive).badex - Thursday, December 31, 2015 - link
Hi,Have had my pegasus R4 for a couple of years. its been effective but i think i'd like to take a step up to using SSD drives. what SSD drives would you recommend for the pegasus R4?
thanks