No, for quite a few reasons: 1. The enclosure isn't very large, so a long video card wouldn't fit. 2. It doesn't have a power connector for video cards that require more than the PCIe bus provides. 3. Even the PCIe bus is limited by the 12V, 6A power supply (less than 70W available to the card.) 4. It only has a x4 PCIe slot, that doesn't appear to be open-ended, so no x16 cards.
In theory, you could throw a low-power x4 video card in, but those aren't "powerhouses" by any means. They're meant purely for adding more displays. Again, I suppose you COULD do that, but there are dedicated graphics Thunderbolt chassis on their way soon that would be far cheaper than buying this just to use it for a video card.
So yes but with limitations. 1300$ minus the 1100$ for the SSD is not to bad if you need it. I know the GPU "real' enclosure are comming but still currius to know if anandtech would have the time to try something like that? With the new finfet GPU comming could make things even more interesting on the low power side pcie power only type enclosures.
I'm surprised that no one is mentioning the fact that the development kit mentioned by Ganesh is available for $280 with free shipping and comes with a x16 PCI-E connector, Thunderbolt cable and everything needed to get started.
It also has a pretty standard power connector for providing bus power up to 75W. For more powerful video cards, one could easily buy one of those kits, install it in some off the shelf mini-ATX/mini-ITX/fancy custom case with a reasonably large ATX power supply (350W would be plenty for a single card) and have a nice custom made graphics card enclosure.
I'm sure the mod community would find plenty of fun in packaging this development kit in a dedicated GPU case :-)
This price really isn't that bad considering the intel ssd inside is $1100. The company then has to include the aluminum housing, circuitry, and make a little profit on the device.
I'm looking for a similar product for TB2 for video editing. It needs to be really fast, 256GB or bigger (if cheap, 256 and I'll make a RAID, if more expensive and really fast, 512), and I'd prefer if it weren't too big and power hungry, but I'll accept big and power hungry. Does anyone have any suggestions? I'd like it to be as cheap as possible of course, but it also needs to be fast enough to handle 4k at ProRes 4:2:2 HQ with 2, maybe occasionally 3 simultaneous streams. My current SSD doesn't always play nice when I edit video. At least I'm pretty sure that's my bottleneck, although it could also be my GPU, since it is "only" a 3,5TFLOPS card. Anyway, suggestions on SSDs for TB2?
As far as I know, TB3 is backward compatible with TB2 using the right adapter/cable. I'm ready to pull the trigger on Sonnet Fusion (this may be something you can use?), just waiting for reviews and availability.
You have to be careful. For video editing you will age the memory quickly. This is rated for 70GB PER DAY. I could do that in minutes, especially with DNxHR/ProRes 4K capture, not even measuring renders and peripheral file like music, photos and exports.
You can easily use 10 - 100 times that in a day. Easily half the age of that drive.
I see your point. Whilst I could also easily use 70GB in way less than a day, I do not edit on a day-to-day basis, more like twice a month, so do you think I would run into problems? if yes/maybe, what would you suggest instead? And another thing, I need something I can buy in Europe. As far as I can tell, this is not available in Europe, and neither does the Sonnet Fusion seem to be. Thanks for the advice though
That's the difference between enterprise-grade hardware guarantees and consumerville stuff. Mind you, that guarantee is way below the failure time. It's just to cover Intel's butt.
This would actually be pretty sweet for someone heavy into content creation but who prefers a laptop over a desktop... You can obviously make the argument that nobody should have that preference (certainly not at a professional level), but still...
Having an external 750 that can house say, your Lightroom library, Premier scratch space, and a bunch of photos or 4K video you're currently working on is certainly gonna see some benefits over many internal laptop SSD solutions... If nothing else it gives you more space (w/o a perf. sacrifice) than what most laptops would come with, even if it's an SM951.
A niche product for sure, but it's actually priced a lot more aggressively than many of LaCie's DAS.
How many reviews do you need to 'convince' you to buy a product you are already going to buy? Some of us only need to read a couple and then like something else to read about.
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osxandwindows - Thursday, June 2, 2016 - link
Where are the PCIe adapters for thunderbolt 3?osxandwindows - Thursday, June 2, 2016 - link
When I first saw the title I thought, hell yea.A PCIE thunderbolt 3 enclosure.
AppleJon - Thursday, June 2, 2016 - link
Would taking the drive out and putting a graphics card in the pcie slot be something possible?CharonPDX - Thursday, June 2, 2016 - link
No, for quite a few reasons:1. The enclosure isn't very large, so a long video card wouldn't fit.
2. It doesn't have a power connector for video cards that require more than the PCIe bus provides.
3. Even the PCIe bus is limited by the 12V, 6A power supply (less than 70W available to the card.)
4. It only has a x4 PCIe slot, that doesn't appear to be open-ended, so no x16 cards.
In theory, you could throw a low-power x4 video card in, but those aren't "powerhouses" by any means. They're meant purely for adding more displays. Again, I suppose you COULD do that, but there are dedicated graphics Thunderbolt chassis on their way soon that would be far cheaper than buying this just to use it for a video card.
AppleJon - Thursday, June 2, 2016 - link
So yes but with limitations. 1300$ minus the 1100$ for the SSD is not to bad if you need it. I know the GPU "real' enclosure are comming but still currius to know if anandtech would have the time to try something like that? With the new finfet GPU comming could make things even more interesting on the low power side pcie power only type enclosures.rsandru - Friday, June 3, 2016 - link
I'm surprised that no one is mentioning the fact that the development kit mentioned by Ganesh is available for $280 with free shipping and comes with a x16 PCI-E connector, Thunderbolt cable and everything needed to get started.It also has a pretty standard power connector for providing bus power up to 75W. For more powerful video cards, one could easily buy one of those kits, install it in some off the shelf mini-ATX/mini-ITX/fancy custom case with a reasonably large ATX power supply (350W would be plenty for a single card) and have a nice custom made graphics card enclosure.
I'm sure the mod community would find plenty of fun in packaging this development kit in a dedicated GPU case :-)
samer1970 - Friday, June 3, 2016 - link
why do that ? Thundebolt3 GPU cases already exist , you can buy them from Razer , and powercolor .. and many chinese companies.danbob999 - Thursday, June 2, 2016 - link
Another thunderbird device. Another overpriced device.damianrobertjones - Thursday, June 2, 2016 - link
$1300Really? STOP MILKING CONSUMERS you idiotic companies. It's annoying.
Peterman1 - Thursday, June 2, 2016 - link
This price really isn't that bad considering the intel ssd inside is $1100. The company then has to include the aluminum housing, circuitry, and make a little profit on the device.samer1970 - Friday, June 3, 2016 - link
they should sell the case barebone then !patrickjp93 - Saturday, June 18, 2016 - link
They sell a $280 enclosure complete with 16x PCIe slot and a TB3 cable, so get over yourself you damn wank.tuxRoller - Thursday, June 2, 2016 - link
I know Ganesh likes doing these storage reviews but I can't help but think that they are targeting a vanishing niche.Meteor2 - Friday, June 3, 2016 - link
Well I find them interesting. Yeah it's $1,300 today but tomorrow it won't be.casperes1996 - Thursday, June 2, 2016 - link
I'm looking for a similar product for TB2 for video editing. It needs to be really fast, 256GB or bigger (if cheap, 256 and I'll make a RAID, if more expensive and really fast, 512), and I'd prefer if it weren't too big and power hungry, but I'll accept big and power hungry. Does anyone have any suggestions? I'd like it to be as cheap as possible of course, but it also needs to be fast enough to handle 4k at ProRes 4:2:2 HQ with 2, maybe occasionally 3 simultaneous streams. My current SSD doesn't always play nice when I edit video. At least I'm pretty sure that's my bottleneck, although it could also be my GPU, since it is "only" a 3,5TFLOPS card.Anyway, suggestions on SSDs for TB2?
bill44 - Friday, June 3, 2016 - link
As far as I know, TB3 is backward compatible with TB2 using the right adapter/cable.I'm ready to pull the trigger on Sonnet Fusion (this may be something you can use?), just waiting for reviews and availability.
crimsonson - Friday, June 3, 2016 - link
You have to be careful. For video editing you will age the memory quickly. This is rated for 70GB PER DAY. I could do that in minutes, especially with DNxHR/ProRes 4K capture, not even measuring renders and peripheral file like music, photos and exports.You can easily use 10 - 100 times that in a day. Easily half the age of that drive.
casperes1996 - Friday, June 3, 2016 - link
I see your point. Whilst I could also easily use 70GB in way less than a day, I do not edit on a day-to-day basis, more like twice a month, so do you think I would run into problems? if yes/maybe, what would you suggest instead?And another thing, I need something I can buy in Europe. As far as I can tell, this is not available in Europe, and neither does the Sonnet Fusion seem to be.
Thanks for the advice though
samer1970 - Friday, June 3, 2016 - link
When you buy SSD look for TBW ratingintel 750 is bad it has ONLY 219TB writes
intel P3700 however has 36500TB writes !!!
for just double the price (3700) you get 166 TIMES the writes of 750 .. so it is NOT EXPENSIVE AT ALL TO GET P3700
intel 750 is a bad choice ... for double the price you get
patrickjp93 - Saturday, June 18, 2016 - link
That's the difference between enterprise-grade hardware guarantees and consumerville stuff. Mind you, that guarantee is way below the failure time. It's just to cover Intel's butt.samer1970 - Friday, June 3, 2016 - link
When you buy SSD look for TBW ratingintel 750 is bad it has ONLY 219TB writes
intel P3700 however has 36500TB writes !!!
for just double the price (3700) you get 166 TIMES the writes of 750 .. so it is NOT EXPENSIVE AT ALL TO GET P3700
intel 750 is a bad choice ... for double the price you get 166 times better
Impulses - Friday, June 3, 2016 - link
This would actually be pretty sweet for someone heavy into content creation but who prefers a laptop over a desktop... You can obviously make the argument that nobody should have that preference (certainly not at a professional level), but still...Having an external 750 that can house say, your Lightroom library, Premier scratch space, and a bunch of photos or 4K video you're currently working on is certainly gonna see some benefits over many internal laptop SSD solutions... If nothing else it gives you more space (w/o a perf. sacrifice) than what most laptops would come with, even if it's an SM951.
A niche product for sure, but it's actually priced a lot more aggressively than many of LaCie's DAS.
invinciblegod - Friday, June 3, 2016 - link
Is it possible to use an adapter to attach a thunderbolt 1-2 device downwards on the chain?ganeshts - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
Should be possible.. I am getting hold of an adapter shortly, and will be able to tell one way or the other pretty soon.poohbear - Saturday, June 4, 2016 - link
What are these reviews of obscure products? Where's the GTX 1070 review??lmcd - Saturday, June 4, 2016 - link
Given that different editors do different pieces this is one of the most ignorant Anandtech comments of all time.jabber - Sunday, June 5, 2016 - link
How many reviews do you need to 'convince' you to buy a product you are already going to buy? Some of us only need to read a couple and then like something else to read about.jbrizz - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
One would think this is targeted towards people doing video editing, but 128TBW (70GB per day) seems a bit low for that kind of use case.