Thunderbolt PCIe for sandy bridge systems

[Dnk_Productions]

I have been looking around but a lot of the information is older as ivy bridge mobo's have native thunderbolt ports and support. Anyone heard anything or seen anything about integrating a thunderbolt PCIe into a sandy bridge system (I have X79, 6 core, so all I am really missing is thunderbolt so I my drobo 5D doesn't feel like something that my grandfather might buy)

 

[nobodynose]

I have been looking around but a lot of the information is older as ivy bridge mobo's have native thunderbolt ports and support. Anyone heard anything or seen anything about integrating a thunderbolt PCIe into a sandy bridge system (I have X79, 6 core, so all I am really missing is thunderbolt so I my drobo 5D doesn't feel like something that my grandfather might buy)

As far as I know, there are no PCIe solutions for adding Thunderbolt to a system. PCIe doesn't have the bandwidth to carry Thunderbolt (it's the other way around; you can get PCIe expansion bays for Thunderbolt, since it can carry PCIe bandwidth).

 

[Dnk_Productions]

As far as I know, there are no PCIe solutions for adding Thunderbolt to a system. PCIe doesn't have the bandwidth to carry Thunderbolt (it's the other way around; you can get PCIe expansion bays for Thunderbolt, since it can carry PCIe bandwidth).

That's unfortunate, I figured I won't get thunderbolt speeds but I was really just hoping to find a faster solution for connecting my drobo 5D to my sandy bridge mobo (gigabyte X79 UD3). I figured because there are PCI RAID controllers that support SATA III that there would be a PCI (RAID type of controller card) that has a thunderbolt input. I don't need the spec'd 10gb/s but getting rid of the USB3.0 bottleneck would be great.

My solution (assuming that connections are simply based on bandwidth; which they aren't...but)

Drobo thunderbolt port--- TO ---PCI card (that acts like a SATA III controller) with thunderbolt port.

Thunderbolt to SATA III adaptor (thunderbolt carries power anyway and even if power is needed grab it from the power supply)

Is there a reason why either of these solutions aren't easily possible?

 

[DBP]

That's unfortunate, I figured I won't get thunderbolt speeds but I was really just hoping to find a faster solution for connecting my drobo 5D to my sandy bridge mobo (gigabyte X79 UD3). I figured because there are PCI RAID controllers that support SATA III that there would be a PCI (RAID type of controller card) that has a thunderbolt input. I don't need the spec'd 10gb/s but getting rid of the USB3.0 bottleneck would be great.

At the purely theoretical level USB3.0 is up to 5 Gb/s vs the 10 of Thunderbolt. The protocols are different of course so it's not that simple, but what throughput are you getting with USB3 at the moment? Is the bottleneck at the Drobo end? (in which case Thunderbolt would not fix the problem)

My solution (assuming that connections are simply based on bandwidth; which they aren't...but)

Drobo thunderbolt port--- TO ---PCI card (that acts like a SATA III controller) with thunderbolt port.

Thunderbolt to SATA III adaptor (thunderbolt carries power anyway and even if power is needed grab it from the power supply)

Is there a reason why either of these solutions aren't easily possible?

There were some PCIe-to-Thunderbolt cards prototyped (including a DisplayPort input from a GPU to feed into the Thunderbolt, and putting four PCIe lanes into the Thunderbolt) but they didn't pass Intel's Thunderbolt certification and thus will not make it to the market.

The Thunderbolt-to-SATA adapter does exist, at least for SATA II. But the advantage of that is for systems without PCIe slots which make it easy to just add SATA cards instead. But that wouldn't help your Drobo 5D.

 

[Dnk_Productions]

At the purely theoretical level USB3.0 is up to 5 Gb/s vs the 10 of Thunderbolt. The protocols are different of course so it's not that simple, but what throughput are you getting with USB3 at the moment? Is the bottleneck at the Drobo end? (in which case Thunderbolt would not fix the problem)

They really shouldn't be allowed to push USB3.0 as up to 5Gb/s. Pegasus with fast HDD don't even perform at 5Gb/s. Be interested to see what the fastest real world rates anyone has consistently gotten with USB3.0

Drobo USB3.0: 76/142 W/R
Drobo thunderbolt: 123/199 W/R
-AJA (video frame size: 1920x1080 8bit)

These numbers get significantly worst when a ton of little files are involved. During backups I've seen the drobo crawl along from 20-50 writes with USB3.0.

There were some PCIe-to-Thunderbolt cards prototyped (including a DisplayPort input from a GPU to feed into the Thunderbolt, and putting four PCIe lanes into the Thunderbolt) but they didn't pass Intel's Thunderbolt certification and thus will not make it to the market.

The Thunderbolt-to-SATA adapter does exist, at least for SATA II. But the advantage of that is for systems without PCIe slots which make it easy to just add SATA cards instead. But that wouldn't help your Drobo 5D.

It didn't pass their specs because they figure that it would take away from the demand and intrigue of their thunderbolt computers (which the average consumer doesn't know how to take advantage of anyway). "Strange" that they let sonnet offer thunderbolt adaptors for macbook pro's (thunderbolt to expresscard). "Strange" because the performance of all those adaptors are embarrassing vs direct thunderbolt rates. Guess if it doesn't benefit apple then it won't be released...long live hackintosh

 

[DBP]

They really shouldn't be allowed to push USB3.0 as up to 5Gb/s. Pegasus with fast HDD don't even perform at 5Gb/s. Be interested to see what the fastest real world rates anyone has consistently gotten with USB3.0

Drobo USB3.0: 76/142 W/R
Drobo thunderbolt: 123/199 W/R
-AJA (video frame size: 1920x1080 8bit)

These numbers get significantly worst when a ton of little files are involved. During backups I've seen the drobo crawl along from 20-50 writes with USB3.0.

Were those MB/s figures?

As an experiment I just put an OCZ Vertex4 into a NewerTech Voyager S3 USB3->SATA2 dock. Running BlackMagic Disk Speed Test I got consistent 285 MB/s read and write. Not bad for a 3 GB/s SATA connection over USB3.

Drobos were never known for their speed, although the new models with their mSATA SSD caches are allegedly a lot better. Apparently better than the old FW800 connections, but only 140 MB/s over USB3 and 200 MB/s over Thunderbolt is not going to set any records.
With their speed issues the old Drobos were best used as backup drives rather than primary storage, but all the reviews I'd seen talked about them now being reasonable for use as primary (working) storage. And to many people 200 MB/s (and even 140 MB/s) is a good speed for primary storage.

 

[DBP]

As an experiment I just put an OCZ Vertex4 into a NewerTech Voyager S3 USB3->SATA2 dock. Running BlackMagic Disk Speed Test I got consistent 285 MB/s read and write. Not bad for a 3 GB/s SATA connection over USB3.

The USB->SATA controller obviously makes a difference. Using a Seagate GoFlex portable adapter the same drive got 208 MB/s write and 205 MB/s read. Just to mix things up, that's not the limit of that controller either: I've seen other drives get over 310 MB/s through USB3 with it.

 

[Dnk_Productions]

Yes they are MB/s. I use the Drobo for my backup, but want to have the option to edit directly from the drive for small changes to projects (for either projects that I have archived or if someone else needs to work from a projects

My editing drives are RAID0 3x2TB HDD getting 400+MB/s R/W, which although are fast speeds I think that I would be much better served going with a 3x256GB RAID0 SSD array; the issue here is that I am out of ports since gx said that I shouldn't use the Gsata ports on the X79 UD3 (going to start another post and integrate another convo about RAID, working arrays, and backup system...since this ain't the place)

Having a conversation with Drobo is funny, no one there really knows what is going on with the 5D or 5N. I heard "we don't know yet because the devices are new". There troubleshooting steps are three pages long rather than having them analyze the issue and then direct you to the most possible solution. That being said I feel comfortable with the dual redundancy and wouldn't have an issue is my hack pro didn't fail which lost my RAID array.