[NewsPoster]

Expansion manufacturer mLogic is now shipping its PCIe Thunderbolt expansion chassis worldwide. The mLink chassis enables selected PCIe cards such as RAID controllers, 10GigE, Fiber Channel and audio-video capture cards to connect to Mac desktop and laptop computers through the Thunderbolt interface.

The new expansion case allows installation of half-length, Thunderbolt-aware PCIe cards, and boasts two high-performance 10Gbit-per-second Thunderbolt ports. The mLink supports daisy-chaining of up to six Thunderbolt peripherals in the industry's smallest (8.1x2.75x5.9 inch) and lightest Thunderbolt expansion chassis. The mLogic mLink PCIe expansion case can be purchased for $399.

[Zanziboy]

The irony surrounding PCIe Thunderbolt expansion chassis is the requirement that drivers under OSX be "Thunderbolt aware". I always thought this was a little strange as Thunderbolt connectivity should be transparent from a hardware perspective. In addition, when using Thunderbolt on Windows, PCIe cards do not need to be Thunderbolt-aware in order to work with the chassis. Since Thunderbolt was first available on OSX, I would have thought the OS would have been modified to abstract the Thunderbolt interface for PCIe bus connectivity. Perhaps, I am missing something?

[sgs123]

Hot plug.

Many PCIe drivers don't expect their hardware to disappear out from under them.

This needs to be handled gracefully or your system is toast if a cable is unplugged.

[Zanziboy]

Aha! I was was overlooking something.