Thunderbolt 3-enabled computers continue to gain compatibility with various exotic and special-purpose devices. ATTO this week released its ThunderLink 3128 SATA/SAS Thunderbolt 3 adapter, which can allow a Thunderbolt 3 host to connect to up to eight SAS 12 Gbps/SATA 6 Gbps drives. The device is aimed primarily at enterprise users who have equally high-grade storage devices, such as SAS HDDs/SSDs or even tape drives, used for archival purposes.
ATTO’s ThunderLink 3128 (TLSH-3128-D00) features two Thunderbolt 3 ports (for daisy chaining) as well as two SF-8644 miniSAS external headers, which in total can connect up to eight SAS/SATA storage devices using SAS SF-8644 fanout cables (and appropriate adapters for SATA drives). When expanders and port multipliers are used, the adapter can plug up to 3,500 HDDs/SSDs or even LTO-8 tape drives to a single computer, thought this is obviously an extreme use case. As for power, the ThunderLink 3128 requires an external power brick. Qsfp28 Active Dac Cable
The manufacturer claims that the Thunderbolt 3 to SAS adapter has been certified for both Apple MacOS- and Microsoft Windows-based PCs as well as for various “popular media and entertainment applications.” For example, LTO-8 tape drives allow to store 12 - 30 TB of data (uncompressed - compressed) on a single cartridge with up to 900 MB/s sequential read/write speed. Such a cartridge costs ~$165, which is significantly cheaper than high-capacity HDDs or SSDs. Those who need to archive large amounts of data generated on their iMac Pro/MacBook Pro or other workstations can take advantage of the ThunderLink 3128 and tape drives. Alternatively, they can use enterprise-class SSDs or HDDs.
Qsfp+ Active Optical Cable ATTO’s ThunderLink 3128 adapter is now available directly from the company for $895. Since we are dealing with an accessory for enterprise-class storage devices, the price does not look excessive.