We are back from NAB2015 with a disk full of interesting storage and expansion products. From the thin flash drives right up to the old Mac Pro sized new Mac Pro enclosure, there was a lot to see. 

We will start off with the latest product from Promise. The Pegasus R2+ is a Thunderbolt 2 media station comprising of two hard disks and a slot or bay for adding 'pods'. The disks can be set to RAID 0/1 and the unit also has a USB 3.0 connector on the back.

Targeted at DITs or editors who do a lot of ingesting, especially on the road, the unit comes with a SD/CF reader as standard with an option for other media formats including HDD and SSD readers. No indication of price yet.

CalDigit were exhibiting two new interesting products. The first was the Tuff. As the name would suggest, it is a ruggedised external drive. It's shock resistant, splash and dust proof so it should be ideal for using on the road.

It features the new USB 3.1 interface supporting up to 10Gb/s bandwidth, although you will find 550MB/s from the 1TB SSD and 130 MB/s from the 2TB HDD version at the moment. The connector is future proofed to USB 3.1 Gen 2 for when those machines become available, but Gen 1 will work with the new MacBook Air and an adaptor cable is supplied for machines with the normal 2.0 or 3.0 connector. The Tuff will start at $139.99 MSRP for the 1TB HDD version.

The second new product from CalDigit was the T4 Nano PCIe SSD RAID. The Nano is s a small 4-bay RAID 0, 1, 5 & JBOD Thunderbolt 2 storage solution. The Nano uses four removable PCIe SSDs that can giver performance up to 1375MB/s - it's designed for 4K workflow.

Aiming again for the DIT and mobile editor, the unit also has an HDMI output. T4 nano will be available for $2,499.99 for the 2TB PCIe SSD version. No links as the product isn't on the CalDigit website yet.

LaCie were also exhibiting drives with the new USB-C connector. The Porsche designed Mobile Drive has capacities from 500GB up to 2TB. The 500GB model is very thin!

Avid bounced back from a series of rather lacklustre trade shows with three interesting new products. We will quickly zoom past their purchase of Orad and the free version of Media Composer. (We would imagine most people here like FCPX!)

If the Avid Artist DNxIO looks slightly familiar, it should do, 'connectivity partner' Blackmagic Design are involved. The box which will be available Q4 2015 will support Blackmagic Resolve, Apple Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro and of course Avid!

Key benefits and features:

• Capture and playback up to 60 frames per second in a range of formats including SD, HD, Ultra HD, 2K and 4K
• Work faster and more efficiently with real-time or accelerated encode, decode, color conversion, up conversion, down conversion, and cross conversion with onboard hardware processing
• Get reliable operation with a redundant power supply
• Connect to a variety of computers using PCIe or Thunderbolt connections
• Easily integrate with existing workflows using multiple connections, including:

Video inputs and outputs

• Quad SDI in and out—both in and out provide dual 12Gbit and dual 3Gbit supporting single, dual and quad link in and out
• Dual 12Gbit optical in/out (modules not included)
• HDMI in and out
• Analog video in and out—component and composite

Audio inputs and outputs

• Balanced analog audio—4 channels in, 4 channels out
• AES/EBU—2 channels in, 2 channels out
• Consumer Hi-Fi inputs for MP3 players and other devices
• Front panel features mic input with 48V phantom power, mic level control, headphone connection, and headphone level control

• Ensure media is in sync with dual timecode in and out
• Control the system from external devices using remote control ports
• Monitor media with confidence using a bright front-panel full 1080HD resolution LCD display
• Get hands-on control over sources of video, audio, timecode, and remote control signaling

Avid also announced ISIS 1000, a less expensive version of their popular multi client storage solution. 24 users can connect with 10GbE to the storage which is scalable from 20TB up to 80TB in 20TB chunks by adding more 2U sized 'engines'.

Although AVID has qualified their own apps, Adobe Premiere Pro CC & 'Apple Final Cut Pro" (no mention of 7 or X) we have successfully edited with the 1000's bigger brothers with FCPX 10.2 on Yosemite and the latest ISIS client.

Further down the hall, Sonnet were exhibiting a small pocket sized SSD storage drive. 

 "Sonnet designed the Fusion PCIe Flash Drive around the latest generation M.2 PCIe SSD module, which is the fastest standard SSD type now available, and a 20Gbps Thunderbolt 2 interface that provides the bandwidth necessary for the device to sustain ultra-high file transfer speeds — fast enough to support 4K workflows. Capable of transferring files at over 1200 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."

Sonnet expects to make the new drive available in June 2015 at an MSRP of $499 for 256GB and $799 for 512GB.

Sonnet were also one of a few companies exhibiting new Thunderbolt expansion systems.

As were Magma.

Last and not least by any measure was JMR's Lightning enclosure for the Mac Pro. No idea on price, but it did catch attention and pick up at least one prize!