Smallest Thunderbolt PCIe expansion chassis launched
updated 09:00 pm EST, Tue December 11, 2012
New mLink device mounts single PCIe card
Expansion manufacturer mLogic is now shipping its PCIe Thunderbolt expansion chassis worldwide. The mLink chassis enables selected PCIe cards such as RAID controllers, 10GigE, Fiber Channel and audio-video capture cards to connect to Mac desktop and laptop computers through the Thunderbolt interface.
The new expansion case allows installation of half-length, Thunderbolt-aware PCIe cards, and boasts two high-performance 10Gbit-per-second Thunderbolt ports. The mLink supports daisy-chaining of up to six Thunderbolt peripherals in the industry’s smallest (8.1x2.75x5.9 inch) and lightest Thunderbolt expansion chassis.
The mLogic mLink PCIe expansion case can be purchased for $399.
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The irony surrounding PCIe Thunderbolt expansion chassis is the requirement that drivers under OSX be "Thunderbolt aware". I always thought this was a little strange as Thunderbolt connectivity should be transparent from a hardware perspective. In addition, when using Thunderbolt on Windows, PCIe cards do not need to be Thunderbolt-aware in order to work with the chassis. Since Thunderbolt was first available on OSX, I would have thought the OS would have been modified to abstract the Thunderbolt interface for PCIe bus connectivity. Perhaps, I am missing something?