The recently held Macworld 2012 paved the way for some tech manufacturers to feature their upcoming gadgetry. Western Digital snatched the opportunity to introduce its latest storage unit called WD MyBook Thunderbolt Duo which is suitable for video editors and hardcore tech consumers who need a lot of hardware capacity and blazing fast transfer speeds.
As the name implies each chassis houses 2 x 3.5-inch HDD in either 4TB (2 x 2TB) or 6TB (2 x 3TB) configurations. However, the beauty of this external drive can be seen when you focus on its external ports. Each Thunderbolt Duo package has 2 x Thunderbolt ports which can be used independently or daisy-chained with other Thunderbolt Duo drives via an interconnect cable and have a RAID 0 setup. The latter means that you can enjoy massive storage and speedy transfer speeds.
According to WD, theoretical transfer speeds for this external drive can reach up to 700MBps and 500MBps for read and write speeds, respectively. Thunderbolt technology has taken center stage when it’s introduce on various Apple devices. Thunderbolt / “Light Peak” is the latest interface technology developed by Intel for connecting peripheral devices with greater bandwidth (higher transfer speeds) at minimal costs. Thunderbolt is capable of as much as 10GBps throughput per channel which is even greater than USB 3.0 ports.
The company has yet to name its final price and launch date for its WD MyBook Thunderbolt Duo but hinted that it will be shipped on Q1 with an “aggressive price”. Perhaps, we’re dreaming if we say that it will be offered at an affordable rate. Then again, everything is possible. Stay tuned.
