Sonnet Debuts Fusion Pocket-Sized Thunderbolt 2 SSD

Sonnet today announced that its new Fusion™ PCIe® Flash Drive, a rugged, pocket-size solid-state drive (SSD) storage device, is now shipping and available for purchase. The newest member of Sonnet's growing family of Thunderbolt™ 2 products, the Fusion is an ultra-fast alternative to portable SATA-based hard disk drives and SSD storage products. The device connects to a compatible Mac® or Windows® computer, or at the end of a Thunderbolt device daisy chain, via an attached 0.5-meter Thunderbolt cable.

"The Fusion PCIe Flash Drive delivers blazing-fast performance comparable to a multi-drive RAID storage system, and yet it fits neatly in the palm of your hand," said Greg LaPorte, vice president of sales and marketing at Sonnet Technologies. "Based on the latest Gen 3 PCIe SSD module — the fastest standard SSD type now available — the Fusion PCIe Flash Drive is made for speed. And its 20Gbps Thunderbolt 2 interface provides the bandwidth necessary to sustain ultra-high file transfer speeds, fast enough to support 4K workflows."

"Thunderbolt™ continues to enable unparalleled performance, as evidenced by the Sonnet Fusion PCIe SSD Flash Drive, the world's fastest bus-powered storage device," said Jason Ziller, Intel's director of Thunderbolt Marketing. "A pocketable drive capable of transferring 100 GB of data in less than 80 seconds highlights what Thunderbolt makes possible."

Capable of transferring files at up to 1,350 MB/s, the Fusion PCIe Flash Drive's SSD module incorporates a PCIe Gen 3 flash controller, enabling the device to significantly outperform 6Gbps SATA SSDs and USB 3.0 flash drives. Measuring a compact 2.8 inches wide by 4.1 inches deep by 1 inch tall, the Fusion PCIe Flash Drive features a rugged enclosure crafted out of aluminum, which effectively cools the SSD and eliminates the need for a fan to enable silent operation. The power-efficient design is bus-powered and so requires no power adapter.

"The Fusion PCIe Flash Drive was designed for anybody requiring ultimate performance in a truly portable storage device, unencumbered by the need for a power supply. It's especially well-suited as an ultra-fast shuttle drive or a take-anywhere drive for editing 4K video at offsite shoots," LaPorte added. "OS X users may install an operating system on the Sonnet device to create an extremely fast boot drive, while both OS X and Windows users can use the Fusion PCIe Flash Drive for instant-access media storage or as a high-performance scratch disk."

Designed and built by Sonnet Technologies in California, the Fusion PCIe Flash Drive is compatible with OS X 10.8.5+ (including Yosemite), Microsoft® Windows 8 and 7, and Windows Server 2012 and 2008.

The Fusion PCIe Flash Drive with 256GB capacity (part number FUS-TB2-256) is now available at an MSRP of $499.

The Fusion PCIe Flash Drive with 512GB capacity (part number FUS-TB2-512) has an MSRP of $799. Availability will be announced soon.

More information on Sonnet and its other products is available at www.sonnettech.com.