PROMISE Pegasus Guide: Pegasus5 R12, R12 Pro, M4, Pegasus32 Compared
If you shoot, edit or grade for a living, storage decides how your week goes. A PROMISE Pegasus is a direct-attached RAID box: one Thunderbolt cable from the unit to your Mac or PC, no network in between. This guide explains the Pegasus line as PROMISE lists it, how the models differ, and how to pick one. We are the official PROMISE Technology distributor in India, so we hear the same questions from editors and photographers every week.
What is PROMISE Pegasus?
Pegasus is PROMISE’s range of RAID storage for creative professionals. On the Colo Exim PROMISE page it is described as storage for photographers, filmmakers, editors and others who handle large media files. Every Pegasus uses PromiseRAID, the company’s hardware RAID engine, so the RAID work happens inside the box and not on your computer’s processor.
Direct-attached means the drives appear on your machine like a very large, very fast external disk. You do not need a server, a switch or an IT person. That is the main reason colourists and editors like the format: plug in, mount, work.
The Pegasus generations
PROMISE’s Pegasus page currently groups the range like this: Pegasus5 R12 (with the R12 Pro), Pegasus M4, Pegasus R4i and J2i, and the Pegasus32 Series. The names tell you the Thunderbolt generation or the target machine.
- Pegasus32 Series: Thunderbolt 3 at 40Gbps, or USB 3.2 Gen 2 at 10Gbps. Models are the R4 (4 bay), R6 (6 bay) and R8 (8 bay).
- Pegasus M4: a compact 4 bay unit with pre-installed SSDs, built for work on the move.
- Pegasus R4i and J2i: internal storage for the Mac Pro, not external boxes.
- Pegasus5 R12 and R12 Pro: the newest, with Thunderbolt 5 and 12 bays.
Pegasus5 R12 versus R12 Pro
This is the comparison most readers come for. Per PROMISE’s product page, Pegasus5 R12 combines Thunderbolt 5 (80Gbps), a 12 bay desktop enclosure for 3.5 inch SATA hard drives, and the PromiseRAID engine with Predictive Data Migration (PDM). PROMISE says PDM watches drive health and moves data off a drive that looks likely to fail. It also lists support for multi-stream editing of 4K, 6K and 8K content and raw capacity up to 288TB.
The R12 Pro keeps those 12 hard drive bays and adds four M.2 NVMe SSD slots, which PROMISE calls a 12 and 4 hybrid design. The practical idea is tiering. Big, cheap hard drives hold your archive and finished projects. The NVMe slots hold the project you are cutting this week.
On speed, PROMISE lists up to 3,000 MB/s for the Pegasus5 R12 and up to 6,000 MB/s for the R12 Pro. The Colo Exim PROMISE page repeats the 6,000 MB/s figure for the Pro, and it is a maximum quoted by the manufacturer. Your real numbers depend on drives, RAID level and your computer. We have not run our own tests, so we do not publish any.
One more detail from PROMISE: Thunderbolt 5 functionality is supported on these units, and official certification was listed as in process. Ask us for the current status if that matters to your studio.
Availability of the Pegasus5 R12
Product status labels on a manufacturer’s site and a distributor’s listing do not always match on a given day. Colo Exim lists the Pegasus5 R12, and promise.com has carried different status wording for it over time. Before you plan a purchase around this unit, confirm current availability with Colo Exim directly.
Pegasus M4, R4i, J2i and Pegasus32
Pegasus M4
M4 is a 4 bay enclosure with pre-installed enterprise SSDs in 2TB or 4TB configurations, using 2.5 inch SATA drives. The interface is Thunderbolt at 40Gbps (USB 3.1 Gen 2 on one port), with a second port for daisy chaining. PROMISE quotes over 2,000 MB/s and weight of 1.9kg. It supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10 and JBOD. It suits a DIT, a travelling editor or a photographer who offloads on location.
Pegasus R4i and J2i
These two are for Mac Pro owners. The R4i is an MPX module for the 2019 Mac Pro, with four 8TB hard drives (32TB raw) preconfigured in RAID 5. PROMISE quotes up to 680 MB/s in RAID 5. The J2i is a 2 bay internal enclosure that ships with one 8TB, 14TB or 20TB drive, and PROMISE lists it for both the 2019 and 2023 Mac Pro. If you do not own a Mac Pro, skip both.
Pegasus32
Pegasus32 is the Thunderbolt 3 generation. The R4, R6 and R8 are 4, 6 and 8 bay hardware RAID enclosures. PROMISE lists up to 144TB raw on the R8 and read and write speeds up to 2,800 MB/s with SSD, noting its own testing and that figures vary by environment. It needs a computer with a Thunderbolt 3 or USB 3.2 Gen 2 port. A Thunderbolt 3 Pegasus32 also makes sense when your computer has no Thunderbolt 5 port.
Comparison table
| Model | Interface | Bays and drives | Speed stated by PROMISE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pegasus5 R12 | Thunderbolt 5, 80Gbps | 12 x 3.5 inch SATA HDD, up to 288TB raw | Up to 3,000 MB/s |
| Pegasus5 R12 Pro | Thunderbolt 5, 80Gbps | 12 x 3.5 inch SATA HDD plus 4 x M.2 NVMe SSD | Up to 6,000 MB/s |
| Pegasus32 R4 / R6 / R8 | Thunderbolt 3, 40Gbps, or USB 3.2 Gen 2 | 4, 6 or 8 bays; up to 144TB raw on R8 | Up to 2,800 MB/s with SSD |
| Pegasus M4 | Thunderbolt 40Gbps | 4 x 2.5 inch SATA SSD, 2TB or 4TB | Over 2,000 MB/s |
| Pegasus R4i | MPX module, 2019 Mac Pro | 4 x 8TB HDD, 32TB raw | Up to 680 MB/s in RAID 5 |
| Pegasus J2i | SATA3, Mac Pro internal | 2 bays; one 8TB, 14TB or 20TB drive shipped | Not stated |
All figures are manufacturer maximums from promise.com and the Colo Exim PROMISE page. Compare them as ceilings, not promises.
How to choose by workflow
- Photographers: raw files are many and fairly small. Capacity and protection matter more than peak speed. A Pegasus32 or an R12 with hard drives is usually enough.
- Editors on 4K and 6K: you need steady throughput over several streams. Look at the R12 or Pegasus32.
- Colourists and 8K or VFX work: this is where the R12 Pro’s NVMe tier is aimed. Keep the active grade on NVMe and the archive on disks.
- Location and travel: M4. Small, SSD based, easy to carry.
- Mac Pro owners wanting internal storage: R4i or J2i.
Work out capacity first. Add up your current projects, then your yearly shoot volume, then add headroom. Remember that RAID uses part of the raw capacity for protection, so usable space is always lower than the raw figure on the spec sheet. Then count drives: more bays means more flexibility in RAID level and room to grow.
If several editors need the same footage at once, a single direct-attached box becomes a bottleneck of its own. That is shared storage territory, and our page on SNS shared storage for studios covers that route.
RAID levels in plain words
A RAID level is a rule for how files are spread across several drives. Per Wikipedia’s overview of standard RAID levels, these are the common ones:
- RAID 0 (striping): data is split across drives with no redundancy. Fast, but one drive failure loses everything.
- RAID 1 (mirroring): an exact copy on two or more drives. Safe, but you pay in capacity.
- RAID 5: striping with distributed parity. It needs at least three disks and survives one drive failure.
- RAID 6: two parity blocks. It needs at least four disks and survives two drive failures.
- RAID 10: striping of mirrors. Speed plus redundancy, at a cost in usable space.
For video work on a bigger unit, RAID 5 or RAID 6 is the usual starting conversation. The right answer depends on how many drives you run and how much downtime you can accept while a drive is rebuilt.
RAID is not a backup
RAID keeps a working volume running when a drive dies. It does not protect you from deleting the wrong folder, a corrupted project, a power surge that hits the whole box, theft, fire or ransomware. Wikipedia puts it plainly: RAID is one building block of a larger data loss prevention scheme and cannot replace a backup plan.
Keep a second copy of anything you cannot reshoot, on a separate device, and a third copy off site if the work is valuable enough. A second Pegasus, a set of archive drives or cloud storage all count. A Pegasus is where you work. The backup is where you recover.
Where to buy PROMISE Pegasus in India
Colo Exim is the official distributor of PROMISE Technology in India. Tell us your computer, your camera or codec, your yearly data volume and how many people touch the footage, and we will suggest a model. The full range is on our PROMISE Technology page, and you can see the other brands we distribute if your studio needs more than storage.
Ready to talk through your setup? Make an inquiry or call us on +91 93204 96801.
Frequently asked questions
What is PROMISE Pegasus?
Pegasus is PROMISE Technology's range of direct-attached hardware RAID storage for photographers, editors and colourists. It connects to a computer over Thunderbolt and uses the PromiseRAID engine.
What is the difference between Pegasus5 R12 and R12 Pro?
Per PROMISE, both use Thunderbolt 5 and 12 bays for 3.5 inch SATA hard drives. The R12 Pro adds four M.2 NVMe SSD slots and a higher stated maximum of 6,000 MB/s, against up to 3,000 MB/s for the R12.
Is Pegasus5 R12 available in India?
Colo Exim lists it, but status labels on promise.com can differ from a distributor's listing. Confirm current availability with Colo Exim before you plan a purchase.
Which Pegasus suits a Mac Pro?
The Pegasus R4i is an MPX module for the 2019 Mac Pro, and the J2i is an internal 2 bay enclosure listed for the 2019 and 2023 Mac Pro. Other Pegasus models connect externally over Thunderbolt.
Which RAID level should I use?
RAID 0 is fastest but has no protection. RAID 5 survives one drive failure and RAID 6 survives two. The best choice depends on drive count, capacity and how much rebuild downtime you can accept.
Is RAID a backup?
No. RAID keeps a volume running after a drive failure, but it does not protect against deletion, corruption, theft or ransomware. Keep a separate backup copy of important work.
