AKITIO has unveiled the Thunder3 Duo Pro, which it says is the industry's first hardware RAID and display dock solution designed to unleash the groundbreaking speed and simplicity of Thunderbolt 3. 

Developed to handle the data protection and performance requirements for today's ever-growing media libraries, the Thunder3 Duo Pro offers fast transfers with the added flexibility of a DisplayPort video output in a form factor small enough for a desktop, says Richard Wright, vice president of Sales & Marketing for Akitio. 

Utilizing Thunderbolt 3, the Thunder3 Duo Pro can deliver transfer speeds up to 770 MB/s while simultaneously providing two 4K video streams to connected displays, roughly 8x faster than USB 3.1 Gen 1 and 4x faster than USB 3.1 Gen 2.  Thunder3 Duo Pro is ideal for consumers and professionals who desire high capacity external storage with advanced RAID support and robust data protection, says Wright.


The Thunder3 Duo Pro is offered as a 2-bay RAID enclosure supporting four RAID modes (RAID 0 striping, RAID 1 mirroring, SPAN, and Non-RAID).  Thunder3 Duo Pro features two Thunderbolt 3 Ports, a USB 3.1 Gen 1 (Type-B) port, and a DisplayPort video output to connect the latest 4K 60HZ displays. The second Thunderbolt 3 port on the Thunder3 Duo Pro operates the same as a Thunderbolt 3 computer port by supporting Thunderbolt 3 (up to five daisy chained), USB 3.1 (10Gb/s), and DisplayPort devices. 

For added convenience, Thunder3 Duo Pro can accommodate 2.5-inch SSD/HDD and 3.5-inch HDD drives. It’s completely "tool-less", so drives can be easily installed or uninstalled. The Thunder3 Duo Pro can also run fanless (zero decibels).

It gives Sony Vegas and Adobe Premier Pro users the ability to edit and playback multiple streams of HD and/or 4K content with enough headroom to daisy chain multiple 4K displays simultaneously. The Thunder3 Duo Pro also provides massive storage space for other popular applications such as Lightworks, Corel VideoStudio, Pinnacle Studio, Cakewalk, Cubase, and ProTools. 

You can connect multiple Thunder3 Duo Pro enclosures together for even more storage capacity. The Thunder3 Duo Pro will be available in the first quarter of the year from akitio.com starting at $389 for the enclosure only (no drives installed).