A Noob question about Thunderbolt spec's.

[transmaster]

One of the things that I find exasperating about Apple is finding out the spec's for stuff. It is like Rolls Royce cars back in the day when talking about engine spec's the literature just stated "Adequate".

The Question. This is related to the external SSD thing. Does a Thunderbolt cable enable more power output? I am looking at thunderbolt enclosures. Most of them use the PCIe NVME M.2 SSD's. They plug directly into a Thunderbolt port and powered by the Mac, and also report as an internal drive. It is because the Thunderbolt can supply more power or the MVME drive uses less?

I am a digital packrat. I started with PC's that were hotrods with Intel 286's and a massive 32megs of RAM, and wait for it....80 MD HHD's. When HDD went over 1GB I started channeling Desert Packrats, "If I delete this I will surely need it". 😜

 

[ColdCase]

I think the Thunderbolt standard defines the power which may vary with TB version.

This thread says 15 watts: A TB4 cable must support at least 15 w, dunno about previous versions, but off hand there may not be a difference between TB3 and TB4. TB4 can support a higher data rate than previous versions when you use a TB4 cable.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/how-much-power-can-the-thunderbolt-ports-provide.2342602/

 

[webbga]

Apologies if you have already viewed this, but I go to this guy for simple and easy to understand Mac explanations:

 

[transmaster]

Thanks, I was in transition to the USB "C" connector before I got the Mac'. I never paid any attention to Mac connectors. I used the lightning with my iPhone and such and that was it.

 

[majus]

I am looking at thunderbolt enclosures. Most of them use the PCIe NVME M.2 SSD's.

So am I and what I have found is that none of the best ones have PCIe 4.0, which is what I want. I contacted Sonnet and they said they are keeping a close watch on the release of Thunderbolt 5. They see that as a potential need to upgrade their chassis to PCIe 4.0 but they can't give a timeframe.

 

[DeltaMac]

One reason for the scarcity of info about PCIe gen4, I think, is that there are already some NVME drives going to gen5. I think that the various companies will quickly follow on to that spec. Crucial has already released one, the T700 - read speed up to 12.4 GB/sec - https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-T700-Gen5-NVMe-CT2000T700SSD3/dp/B0C3K7MTSY

 

[majus]

If Apple adopts PCIe 5.0 by 2025 I will be surprised. We are fortunate that backwards compatibility of the standard in each generation is there.