So now it begins - 3rd party equipment by magma

[chfilm]

I just received a newsletter from magma about their new box "roben 3" http://www.magma.com/roben
It looks like this is where apple plans to target the new Mac Pro at. Serious studios with high end hardware demands looking for a way of endless scalability threw thunderbolt. Pretty exciting to see third party equipment of this professional grade for the new Mac Pro already, because I think many people are kinda afraid that we're expecting a second final cut X moment..this seems to be neglecting it.

 

[slughead]

There are no real details yet, I think they're just trying to gauge the marketplace before they jump in, just like that website with rack-mounted nMP serving as webservers.

These are important devices for people who are jumping in with both feet into the nMP world. Hopefully they wont run into bandwidth problems. Roben also has a PCIe expansion chassis with 7 (seven!) PCIe 8x 2.0 slots using EB7-X8G2 connectors--the nMP doesn't have the thunderbolt bandwidth to handle even 2 of those.

 

[wonderspark]

If it can aggregate all twelve PCIe v2 lanes of Thunderbolt coming out of the nMP, I'd be interested, but with healthy skepticism of the price.

Heck, even something that can use eight lanes would be nice, so I can keep using my Areca card without compromises.

 

[slughead]

If it can aggregate all twelve PCIe v2 lanes of Thunderbolt coming out of the nMP, I'd be interested, but with healthy skepticism of the price.

The nMP only has 6 channels. Each controller only has 2 channels (same as PCIe 4x 2.0), and there are only 3 controllers (they share bandwidth between the paired ports). It will almost certainly not be able to aggregate in this way, also.

 

[handsome pete]

Serious studios with high end hardware demands looking for a way of endless scalability threw thunderbolt.

I would imagine most "serious studios" already have an infrastructure in place where thunderbolt doesn't offer any real benefit.

 

[wonderspark]

Originally Posted by wonderspark
If it can aggregate all twelve PCIe v2 lanes of Thunderbolt coming out of the nMP, I'd be interested, but with healthy skepticism of the price.

The nMP only has 6 channels. Each controller only has 2 channels (same as PCIe 4x 2.0), and there are only 3 controllers (they share bandwidth between the paired ports). It will almost certainly not be able to aggregate in this way, also.

Right, when I say twelve lanes, I am referring to the three controllers each providing 4 lanes, in 2.0 flavor. 3x4=12, so we're on the same page.

If this new device cannot aggregate all the Thunderbolt throughput into the equivalent of PCIe 2.0 x8 lanes minimum (x12 lanes preferred), then it's just another handicapped device, and no better than what's out there today, in my opinion.

 

[slughead]

Right, when I say twelve lanes, I am referring to the three controllers each providing 4 lanes, in 2.0 flavor. 3x4=12, so we're on the same page.

If this new device cannot aggregate all the Thunderbolt throughput into the equivalent of PCIe 2.0 x8 lanes minimum (x12 lanes preferred), then it's just another handicapped device, and no better than what's out there today, in my opinion.

Oh my bad, I thought you were mixing up PCIE lane and TB channel. We're on the same page.

 

[MacVidCards]

Yes, with any luck someday there will be a way to aggregate all 6 TB ports so you can connect with 3/4 of the bandwidth available in a 2008.