ThunderBolt SuperDrive?

As slim DVD writers like the SuperDrive write very slowly, USB 2.0 will suffice. TB will not have an effect on burn speeds when using a SuperDrive then.

Undo said:

Thanks for the reply. What about for DVD read? Would ThunderBolt have any advantage for playing movies?

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No, as most movies for entertainment and consummation are compressed and often have data rates of 1MB/s and less. USB 2.0 will be more than enough for that.
Even when playing Blu Rays with their 4+ MB/s USB 2.0 will suffice.

TB is for fast data transfer like 10s of GBs and more or like transferring data to an external display.
Current mainstream optical media is slow.

Thunderbolt Superdrive

For me I'm looking for a thunderbolt Superdrive, not for the speed, but so I can connect it to some other TB device and not have to use up an available USB port for just a Superdrive

jrirvine said:

For me I'm looking for a thunderbolt Superdrive, not for the speed, but so I can connect it to some other TB device and not have to use up an available USB port for just a Superdrive

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Not going to happen, sorry. If you need more USB ports, may I suggest either a USB hub or a Thunderbolt dock.

Mac usb hub

Do you know of a super high quality USB Hub that actually works well? Most of them I've tried so far are cheap and many USB devices are cranky on them. Especially when I'm using an iMac as a POS station and have cash drawer, receipt printer, regular printer, barcode scanner, magnetic card swipe, and then to use a USB thumb drive now and then on it....Wait! How many USB ports are on an iMac? Not enough for a Point of Sale. I'd spend the money if apple would make their own powered USB hub for IMac's, Books, Or Pro computers, with plenty of well spaced out ports in matching metal alloy cases. Nothing is worse than connecting a cheap plastic thingy to my Mac and having most items on the hub simply not respond, but work fine when plugged into the iMac directly. If more items could be chained together with TB ports it would be a dream.

I've been using this USB3 hub since May 2013 on two different iMacs:

http://www.amazon.com/Kanex-4-Port-SuperSpeed-Adapter-USB3HUB4X/dp/B00AIPE7IS/

I doubt we'll ever see a thunderbolt-based optical writer, i.e., DVD/CD, BluRay, etc.

Isn't going to happen.

USB 3.1? Perhaps.

Thunderbolt? No.

Fishrrman said:

I doubt we'll ever see a thunderbolt-based optical writer, i.e., DVD/CD, BluRay, etc.

Isn't going to happen.

USB 3.1? Perhaps.

Thunderbolt? No.

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Technically, there is no point in fast interface for a media, that by definition is capped at 60Mbit/s (the BD3D format, all the older disk-based media is lower than that). That is just 1/4th of USB2.0 capabilities. Where's the point?