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LaCie eSATA Hub Thunderbolt external drive arrives

updated 08:30 pm EDT, Thu April 5, 2012

 

LaCie eSATA Hub lands, offers daisy chaining


The LaCie eSATA Hub Thunderbolt series external drive has hit the market. First seen at CES 2012, the new drives give users the added flexibility of using its eSATA port to connect existing eSATA drives over Thunderbolt. LaCie say that the eSATA Hub will boost transfer speeds and will allow users to daisy chain the drive with other Thunderbolt peripherals.

The eSATA Hub is aimed primarily at Mac users and professionals in particular. LaCie also suggest that it will come in very useful for creative professionals and others who have already upgraded their Macs to versions without ExpressCard/34 slots, and can now make the most of previous eSATA purchases.

When daisy chaining, users can connect up to 12 eSATA drives (6 Hubs x 2 eSATA drives per Hub). This can be achieved while still maintaining full eSATA 3Gb/s speeds. LaCie also adds that a side benefit is less cable clutter, multiple connections can be replaced with a single cable thanks to the bandwidth of the Thunderbolt I/O.

The LaCie eSATA Hub Thunderbolt drive is available now through LaCie’s online store and its storage partners for $199.00.







By Electronista Staff

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peripherals, upgrades/storage, eSATA, LaCie, Thunderbolt

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Previous Comments

  1. chas_m

    Moderator

    Joined: Aug 2001

    -1
    04/05, 09:07pm | report spam | reply

    Pricey! But ...

    Without being privy to the exact costs of licensing Thunderbolt I can't say, but my Spidey-sense is that early-to-market companies like LaCie are gouging us here. Still -- if you need it, at least it has what you need (ie two ports) to make your eSATA drive fly. It's nice to see eSATA really arrive on the Mac, just wish that price would come down to around the cost of a FW hub (and when was the last time you saw one of those?).


  1. ggirton

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Nov 1999

    +2
    04/05, 10:29pm | report spam | reply

    Um... Duh?

    My January 2007 MacBook Pro has a leetle slot on the side that when I plug the leetle eSATA controller in, eSATA really arrived. And that was five years ago. Fast, too.


  1. facebook_Joshua

    Via Facebook

    Joined: Apr 2012

    -1
    04/06, 12:12am | report spam | reply

    Port Multipliers?

    Anyone know if this will support port multipliers? I've got a SansDigital 8 bay tower I'd love to use with this thing.


  1. Paulrm

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Aug 2001

    +1
    04/06, 01:11am | report spam | reply

    Uh, yo, headline writers...

    This is NOT an external drive! It's a hub for connecting non-thunderbolt eSATA stuff.


  1. testudo

    Forum Regular

    Joined: Aug 2001

    0
    04/06, 01:06pm | report spam | reply

    Re: Port multipliers

    Based on the specs, nope. It says you can have up to 12 drives by daisy chaining 6 of these and using 2 per device.


  1. testudo

    Forum Regular

    Joined: Aug 2001

    -1
    04/06, 01:12pm | report spam | reply

    Re: Pricey! But ...

    Without being privy to the exact costs of licensing Thunderbolt I can't say, but my Spidey-sense is that early-to-market companies like LaCie are gouging us here.

    Or they're charging a price to make their money back, because they know the number of people buying these things will be relatively small, regardless of price. Few mac users have eSATA to begin with, and so who's the market?

    Still -- if you need it, at least it has what you need (ie two ports) to make your eSATA drive fly. It's nice to see eSATA really arrive on the Mac,

    No, it would have been nice 4 years ago for Apple to include eSATA on the mac built-in, rather than live in their niche Firewire world and claiming no one adds peripherals anyway. Then skip USB 3 (because no one supports it) and jump to thunderbolt (because, even though no one supports it, it's "NEW" so it seems like Apple's on the cutting edge; or has another Firewire on it's hands, one or the other).

    And, as was stated, I had eSATA on my mac years ago using that expansion slot that Apple now has determined has no benefit, because who wants cards to insert and carry with them in their computer when you can have dongles that you have to carry separately and might lose!


  1. testudo

    Forum Regular

    Joined: Aug 2001

    -1
    04/06, 01:17pm | report spam | reply

    Price and market


    The eSATA Hub is aimed primarily at Mac users and professionals in particular.

    Um, I would think it's aimed only at Mac users, since only macs have thunderbolt.

    LaCie also suggest that it will come in very useful for creative professionals and others who have already upgraded their Macs to versions without ExpressCard/34 slots, and can now make the most of previous eSATA purchases.

    Another reason it's only good for Mac users. Like 90% of the PC users for the CP market would already be able to support eSATA out of the box, or, at the very least, be able to add an expansion card to get it.

    Only Mac users with a 17" MBP or a MacPro have this capability at all, and both those computers start at around $2500. Which kind of shows what Apple thinks of people needing such capabilities. Most don't.

    The LaCie eSATA Hub Thunderbolt drive is available now through LaCie’s online store and its storage partners for $199.00.

    BTW, price is actually $250, since you'll need to fork over another $50 for a thunderbolt cable.


  1. testudo

    Forum Regular

    Joined: Aug 2001

    -1
    04/06, 01:23pm | report spam | reply

    Cabling

    LaCie also adds that a side benefit is less cable clutter, multiple connections can be replaced with a single cable thanks to the bandwidth of the Thunderbolt I/O.

    Less cable clutter? Seriously? Well, if I link up 6 of these to connect 12 hard drives, I've got 12 cables from hard drive to computer, or 12 cables from hard drives to hubs, 5 cables between hubs, 1 cable to computer from a hub. But I'm sure I'm missing something, for it sure seems like I added 6 cables, and didn't subtract one.

    BTW, if you look at the bottom picture, they used a generic monitor to hook up to the hub, yet you don't see the miniDisplayPort dongle hooked up to it that would convert it to some other type (since no one else uses that connector, and I think only Dell has DisplayPort, as they were the ones first pushing it as the new standard).


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