With the Pegasus R4 and R6 Thunderbolt RAID Enclosures now shipping, the first review units are starting to appear at various publications. Macworld has some early benchmarks comparing a 6-drive RAID 5 Promise enclosure to a 4-drive RAID 5 SmartStore DS 4600. The comparisons aren't entirely equal as the Promise enclosure doesn't support USB or FirewWire, so they had to make do with comparing different enclosures.

Pegasus SmartNavi
The early results are impressive. Benchmarks showed that the read and write speeds of the Thunderbolt enclosure were 6.8 and 11.5x faster than FireWire 800:

When connected to the iMac, the R6’s AJA System Test read scores came in at 566MBps—6.8 times faster than the DS4600 using FireWire 800. Even more impressive was the R6’s 644MBps AJA System Test write score, which is 11.5 times faster than the FireWire 800 scores of the DS4600.

Even more real-world tests of file and folder copies benefited with speeds ranging from at least 2x faster.

Macworld does plan to compare against eSATA in the future, and other benchmarks should be emerging over the next few days.

Top Rated Comments

superericla Avatar
187 months ago
Wrong. The memory in the iPhone is FLASH memory, the same kind used in SSD drives. Theoretically, the memory capability in the iPhone should be about 200-300mbps, but USB 2.0 is limited to 28mbps sync speeds currently..

It would be totally awesome if they do some out with that universal connector on the new iphone that does USB 3.0, 2.0, and Thunderbolt. Wifi sync is nice, but iphone only works on the 2GHZ wireless band, which is over crowded in most populated metro areas and will not be much faster then USB sync.

Sorry but you're wrong. The iPhone using flash memory may be similar to SSDs in some ways but speed is not one of those. SSDs use multiple NAND chips to achieve the high transfer rates while the iPhone only uses a single NAND chip which of course means it's much slower. Toshiba's 128GB flash NAND chips are estimated at around 55MB per second read and 21MB per second write speeds which doesn't even saturate USB 2. This 128GB flash NAND is faster than the NAND Apple currently uses in iPhones as well.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Icaras Avatar
187 months ago
Well let's see, the last time Apple started a dog and pony show against emerging standards, they lost... Firewire 800 was 3-4x faster then USB 2.0, but never gained wide spread adoption. In fact, it's only been in the last year that Firewire external drives have become mainstream and affordable, but they are still about 20% more expensive then their USB 2 or 3 counter parts.

USB 3.0 is already on almost all the new external hard drives coming out today, there are no thunderbolt drives.... USB 3.0 is already on the majority of new PC's being made and laptops... Only the Macs have Thunderbolt connectors..

I predict the same fate for thunderbolt as Firewire. It will be a premium product designed for high end users with deep pockets, and the rest of us.. will be left in the cold by Apple as they refuse to add USB 3.0 to their Macbook Pros.... Thanks Apple.

I am hoping and PRAYING someone comes up with a USB 3.0 to Thunderbolt adaptor... I'd pay $100 bucks for it.
Firewire had royalty fees. Thunderbolt does not. No one wants to pay Apple to use their cable. This is an open market now. Big difference.

Edit: I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I'm guess you probably also discounted blu-ray from the start too, saying it was a "premium product". Now, here we are, when blu-ray actually outsells DVD on day 1 launches. I remember when DVD players launched first sold at $1000. Like all new, emerging technologies, once support picks up, it's all gravy from there.

Oh, and I don't think Apple failed or "lost" with firewire. They may have failed with industry wide support, but the fact that firewire ports still exist on Macs shipping today is a testament to the protocol's life long endurance. In fact, I still use Firewire devices....How is that a loss?
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Vol7ron Avatar
187 months ago
Wish I could add a thunderbolt interface :( I expected a faster throughput tho.

600 Megabytes per second is amazing considering that they aren't using high end SAS drives or that many spindles.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
gmcalpin Avatar
187 months ago
So it's basically in the same ballpark as a good single SSD drive. Sweet!
Now imagine sticking 8 SSDs in there.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
nutmac Avatar
187 months ago
Too bad I can't buy this box diskless. So that I can choose to outfit them with SSD or cheaper hard disks of my choosing.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Prodo123 Avatar
187 months ago
so obviously i am that newbie guy that has to ask some dumb question, but if you would be so kind to answer that would be awesome.

so i have been keeping up with the TB discussions as much as possible but i think i am just a little confused here, am i right in saying that at the moment there are only raid devices for TB? if so then will there be just a straight forward external HDD in the future or will TB be sticking to RAID type devices?

also with all the discussions on TB's speed, if my computer knowledge isn't lacking then TB has a bit rate of 10Gbps, correct? and 8 bits are 1 byte, so then in a perfect world where the devices a TB cable would be copying to and from, would read and write super fast, would that mean that a TB cable could transfer a file of ±1.25GB in 1 second??

To put it in perspective, you could copy 3 entire Blu-ray drives, which is 25GB of uncompressed 1080p glory, from your computer to 3 daisy-chained disk arrays in around 28 seconds for all, while you have 2 ACDs hooked up on the end which are streaming 2 1080p videos from the disk arrays as you copy the Blu-rays. Amazing, huh?
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

M5 MacBook Pro

Apple Announces New 14-Inch MacBook Pro With M5 Chip

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:07 am PDT by
Apple today updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, which is also available in updated iPad Pro and Vision Pro models. In addition, the base 14-inch MacBook Pro can now be configured with up to 4TB of storage on Apple's online store, whereas the previous model maxed out at 2TB. However, the maximum amount of unified RAM available for this model remains 32GB. Like...
Apple iPad Pro hero M5

Apple Debuts New iPad Pro With M5 Chip, Faster Charging, and More

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:16 am PDT by
Apple today announced the next-generation iPad Pro, featuring the custom-designed M5, C1X, and N1 chips. The M5 chip has up to a 10-core CPU, with four performance cores and six efficiency cores. It features a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerator in each core, allowing the new iPad Pro to deliver up to 3.5x the AI performance than the previous model, and a third-generation ray-tracing ...
iphone air thickness

Apple Said to Cut iPhone Air Production Amid Underwhelming Sales

Friday October 17, 2025 8:29 am PDT by
Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air amid underwhelming sales performance, Japan's Mizuho Securities believes (via The Elec). The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing...
maxresdefault

Here's Everything Apple Announced Today

Wednesday October 15, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by
We didn't get a second fall event this year, but Apple did unveil updated products with a series of press releases that went out today. The M5 chip made an appearance in new MacBook Pro, Vision Pro, and iPad Pro models. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. We've rounded up our coverage and highlighted the main feature changes for each device below. MacBook Pro M5...
HomePod mini and Apple TV

Apple's Next Rumored Products: New HomePod Mini, Apple TV, and More

Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year. The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
Vision Pro M5 Announcement

Apple Updates Vision Pro With M5 Chip, Dual Knit Band, and 120Hz Support

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:14 am PDT by
Apple today updated the Vision Pro headset with its next-generation M5 chip for faster performance, and a more comfortable Dual Knit Band. The M5 chip has a 10-core CPU, a 10-core GPU with Neural Accelerators, and a 16-core Neural Engine, and we have confirmed the Vision Pro still has 16GB of RAM. With the M5 chip, the Vision Pro offers faster performance and longer battery life compared...
14 inch MacBook Pro Keyboard

New 14-Inch MacBook Pro Has Two Key Upgrades Beyond the M5 Chip

Thursday October 16, 2025 8:31 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with an M5 chip, and there are two key storage-related upgrades beyond that chip bump. First, Apple says the new 14-inch MacBook Pro offers up to 2× faster SSD performance than the equivalent previous-generation model, so read and write speeds should get a significant boost. Apple says it is using "the latest storage technology," ...
MacBook Pro M5 Screen

New MacBook Pro Does Not Include a Charger in the Box in Europe

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:59 am PDT by
The new 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 chip does not include a charger in the box in European countries, including the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, and others, according to Apple's online store. In the U.S. and all other countries outside of Europe, the new MacBook Pro comes with Apple's 70W USB-C Power Adapter, but European customers miss out....
airpods max 2024 colors

AirPods Max 2: Everything We Know So Far

Tuesday October 14, 2025 8:43 am PDT by
Apple's AirPods Max have now been available for almost five years, so what do we know about the second-generation version? According to Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the new AirPods Max will be lighter than the current ones, but exactly how much is as yet known. The current AirPods Max weigh 0.85 pounds (386.2 grams), excluding the charging case, making it one of the heavier...
iOS 26

iOS 26.0.2 Update for iPhones Coming Soon

Friday October 17, 2025 7:35 am PDT by
Apple's software engineers continue to internally test iOS 26.0.2, according to MacRumors logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions. iOS 26.0.2 will be a minor update that addresses bugs and/or security vulnerabilities, but we do not know any specific details yet. The update will likely be released by the end of next week. Last month, Apple released iOS 26.0.1,...