We then connected a Promise array to the Thunderbolt port on the back of the display. The drive mounted automatically on the MacBook Air's desktop. Next, we connected the Promise RAID to the FireWire 800 port on the back of the display. Again, the drive mounted on the desktop automatically.

The new , , and use the Light Ridge Thunderbolt controller, which offers four bidirectional Thunderbolt channels and supports two DisplayPort connections.

(Image Caption: A 2011 17-inch MacBook Pro connected to the Thunderbolt Display (left). The Promise Pegasus R6 array and Cinema Display are connected to the Thunderbolt Display.)

We connected the Thunderbolt Display to a 2011 and were able to mount the two RAIDs, connect to the LAN through the display's ethernet port, and connect an LED Cinema Display's Mini DisplayPort connector to the second Thunderbolt port on the Promise Pegasus R6. The display was instantly recognized and we were able to drive two 27-inch displays along with the MacBook Pro's built in display--that, my friends, is a lot of screen real estate.