Promise Pegasus R6 & Mac Thunderbolt Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on July 8, 2011 2:01 AM ESTTarget Display Mode with an iMac
In our 2011 iMac review I mentioned that you could use the new iMac as an external display if, and only if, you had a Thunderbolt cable connecting it to a 2011 MacBook Pro. When I reviewed the iMac, you couldn't buy a Thunderbolt cable. Now you can.
The process is pretty simple. Just connect any 2011 MacBook Pro to any 2011 iMac via a Thunderbolt cable. Hit Cmd + F2 on the iMac's keyboard and boom, your brand new iMac is now a secondary display for your MacBook Pro. Note that you need a modern Apple keyboard for this to work. Older Apple keyboards and some non-Apple keyboards won't send the right key code and will refuse to activate target display mode on the iMac.
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The iMac has to be fully powered on when this happens. You do lose all keyboard/mouse support on the iMac, however the machine doesn't go to sleep when in this mode - it'll remain on, although likely in a low power state. Any applications you have open on the iMac will remain open. Any music playing on the iMac will continue to play and you don't get use of the iMac's speakers from your MacBook Pro.
15-inch MacBook Pro (2011) + 27-inch iMac (2011) running in Target Display Mode
For 2011, this is admittedly an odd usage model. I'm not sure how many people want to connect their brand new MacBook Pro to a brand new iMac and use the latter as just a display. Down the road I can see this being a good feature as it lets you upgrade to faster MacBook Pros and still use your iMac as a larger display if you'd like.
I would prefer it if the iMac allowed itself to boot into a minimal environment where only the display and necessary ICs were powered, leaving the CPU, GPU, hard drive and the rest of the system mostly powered down. I suspect Thunderbolt complicates this as the controller needs a number of components powered up before it'll function. Perhaps future versions of the iMac can find a way around this limitation however.
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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