Belkin Upgrades Thunderbolt Express Dock with USB 3.0 and eSATA, Bumps Price to $399.99

[Mavimao]

I have to admit that I'm quite shocked at the responses of a lot of people on this board. When TB was announced, I never thought for a minute that it would actually replace USB. The latter format is basically THE standard for mice, keyboards, printers, thumbdrives, simple external harddrives, cameras... Basically EVERYTHING 99% of the world's population uses and connects to his or her computer. USB is here to stay folks. It's small, ubiquitous, and multi-functional. But TB is going to bridge the Mac community, and I'll explain why.

First, people are also trying to compare TB with FW, which is fair and unfair at the same time. It's fair in the sense that when FW came out, it was touted as a superior format (which it was, compared to USB), but outside of DV cameras, it never caught on in the consumer market. HOWEVER, professionals never stopped using it, which is why one still finds it on macs today... Abeit mostly on more prosumer machines. However, I think most people will agree that 80% of people will never use it at all. It just takes up space.

Now Apple likes to create simple machines - for better or for worse - with as little clutter as possible. What I am seeing in Apple's new Mac strategy is attempting to create computers for everyone. Back in the old days, Apple would seriously cripple their consumer products so as to push people who wanted something just a tiny bit more powerful to purchase the more expensive pro machines. I remember not being able to do monitor spanning on iBooks, not because the machine couldn't do it (because the hacks were available) but because Apple decided it was strategic to get people to spend as much money as possible.

Now that most of the consumer market is headed towards simple touch-screen mobile devices, Apple needs to rethink their Mac strategy. What I am seeing is them making different spec'ed computers that can be used by consumers, prosumers and pros alike. How do you bridge the needs for all of these different customers? Thunderbolt.

Consumers who don't need the ridiculous speeds and price of TB will simply use USB. What's DIFFERENT from FW is that they no longer have a useless port that never gets used, since it's basically a monitor port. If prosumers or Pros need FW, or gigabit ethernet or eSATA, they have it whether it's the tiny 11" Macbook Air, the cheap Mac Mini or Mac Pro - AND they can pick and choose which connections they really need.

Imagine a video editor with a decked out MacPro at work who wants to take some work with him on the road, he can now use a Macbook Air to make some edits, come back and plug in the TB and he is set! This was unimaginable 10 years ago!

EDIT: Just for the record, I'm not saying that a MBA or a MacMini is going to replace a macpro. Not at all; I understand the needs and uses for each machine. What I AM saying is that Pros and especially prosumers have much more choices based on their individual needs.

 

[mikerr]

Well for most - an external HDD or two is mainly what the external interface is used for. Most people want fast and cheap storage.

So Mac users are limited to USB2 - which greatly limits the speeds of HDDs (around 1/3 of their actual speed)
but USB3 gives you full speed transfer, limited only by the drive, and USB3 peripherals are barely more expensive than usb2.

TB based HDDs will be faster at some point in the future, but at the moment its an expensive white elephant.

 

[MovieCutter]

why are you still utilising an inferior product? computation times would increase, reliabiltiy (Lion is pretty crippled, especially in terms of stability/etc), capacity or RAM/storage/graphics performance/price/etc are all much better.

the only thing that i can think of, is that you LOVE Apple so much - and are blind to this fact. in all honesty, i am too!

Because FCPX is an inferior product for my needs. I've been using FCP since the day it was released, and myself and my clients still use FCP 7. I still need to collaborate with other editors and MG artists using FCP 7 and Macs. We haven't moved to Premiere yet. So until we do, I'm on a Mac, and would be even when I do move to Premiere.

I've been using Mountain Lion on a production machine with no issues. I have the latest iMac and MBP maxxed to the gills with RAM and the fastest CPU available with it and 12-core Mac Pros at the office (AE doesn't see GPU power). Why do I need to move to Windows when I've already invested in the Mac platform?

 

[dysamoria]

For every person they says "who uses FireWire":

Pro audio and pro video. Regularly. It's the same market that will adopt thunderbolt...

...though, I still think the prices are far too high for thunderbolt to succeed. There is only one pro audio interface with thunderbolt. It's brand new. It's very expensive and the thunderbolt interface is only an optional extra cost ADD ON. Reminds me of mLAN. Another great idea that was assassinated by its own inventor (Yamaha; horrific drivers, far too expensive, less than poorly adopted).

But, yeah, FireWire is quite useful. I have more than four devices to plug in that are all FireWire. In fact, daisy chaining is required because I only have 2 FireWire ports.

My external DVD-R drives work far better on FireWire than USB. My pro audio interfaces are only FireWire. (though I gotta say: the fact that Access got as much accomplished with the Virus TI as they have, with it only having a miserable USB 1.1 interface, is amazing).

 

[deconstruct60]

USB 3.0 is 5GBps per port, and all Macbooks have at least 2 ports. You're not losing any speed.

USB 3.0 is 5Gbps ( not GBps which is 8 times faster ) total. Each USB port on the same controller ( which will be the case in a Mac or one of these TB devices ; one controller) is sharing the same 5Gbps bandwidth.

Same with Thunderbolt (TB). Bus bandwidth isn't increasing per physical port.

Second, you'd probably never see 5Gbps out of these Thunderbolt devices. The TB controller can be set up as either a x4 or four way x1 PCI-e switch to the internal PCI-e devices. Most likely this USB 3.0 controller in the device is hooked to a x1. Just like the Ethernet controller, SATA controller, and Firwire controller. Each getting a x1 PCI-e slice of the pie. A x1 PCI-e v2.0 connection is 4Gbp/s. Good enough to give most of the USB 3.0 throughput but not all. Likewise good enough to give most of a SATA III (6Gbp/s) connection but not all (but would be enough for a SATA II 3Gbp/s one.)

 

[57004]

Thunderbolt is a lot more than just a connector for external hard drives.

True but most of the other things it can do can also be done with USB 3.0 and much cheaper. I was only referring to hard drives as an example.

Especially for a dock like this, the only real advantage to having TB on it is the monitor out (having everything through one cable). The rest of the ports can be done by USB 3.0 at full speed as well.

So all you're getting for the markup is the convenience of connecting your display through the hub. I don't think that's going to appeal to a lot of people.

Thunderbolt is a great and well designed technology but I'd love to see prices come down so it can actually gain some traction in the market. Otherwise it will end up being a nice product like Firewire.

 

[polaris20]

I have two Voyager Q HDD docks which have FW800, eSATA and USB 2. For single HDDs, eSATA might not be much faster than FW800 but if I happen to put a SSD in it, eSATA should clearly pull ahead (whether that is worth getting an eSATA cable and whether that whole chain of TB-Belkin-eSATA-Voyager-SSD actually works in practice is another question).

Right, but that's when you're comparing it to USB2 and FW800. If it were USB3 and Thunderbolt, I still don't see the point.

 

[Mundty]

The people running Belkin are hilarious, they actually think this thing is going to sell? This thing probably costs them $50 to produce, and the Thunderbolt interface makes up a huge majority of that cost. That's like an 800% mark up.... what a bunch of greedy idiots.

 

[deconstruct60]

...though, I still think the prices are far too high for thunderbolt to succeed. There is only one pro audio interface with thunderbolt. It's brand new.

Two (Ok, one will ship. ).

Universal Audio box with an optional TB connector.
http://www.uaudio.com/apollo

Apogee ThunderBridge box
http://news.apogeedigital.com/index...nces-thunderbolt-connectivity-for-symphony-io
[Essentially they to a Symphony 64 PCI-e card and modified it so board is hooked to TB instead of PCI-e pins and stuffed in a power supply. ]

There are probably more "wrap you existing card in a box" offerings coming within the next 6 months from several of the other Audio/Video card vendors.

It's very expensive and the thunderbolt interface is only an optional extra cost ADD ON.

Frankly most of these "Pro" Audio PCI-e cards are also expensive. (tend not to be $100, or less, cards. ). When the vendors take their $400-800 card , wrap it in a external box , and add a Thunderbolt connection to it the result isn't going to get dramatically cheaper.

I suspect the "wrap the PCI-e card offering in a box" will sell better into the established client base where people already own a PCI-e card from the vendor. The TB model will make it so the "break out" connection between the Mac Pro and the external equipment will be the same as to the newer Macs with TB and these newer boxes. Essentially, the new Macs can use the legacy connections. That's is exactly one of Thunderbolt's main value proposition.

For the universal audio box ... the Thunderbolt connector will be valuable for those who need their external box to do more. There is more throughput and hence more channels when upgrade to the Thunderbolt connection to the host computer.



P.S. on the some of the general comments in the thread about ("should cheaper " ). That's where folks are loosing the price comparison gap here. The Belkin box would be
1 PCI-e SATA card + 1 Gbe PCI-e card + 1 USB 3.0 card (with some USB audio built in or tacked onto the controller on-board) + 1 FW800 PCI-e card. That's not going to add up to a very low amount either. Not $399, but north of $100 for some quality cards. There is some markup here for packaging it all up in a relatively small device. (they are probably not using the cheapest/hottest components to implement the embedded controllers. )

 

[manu chao]

Right, but that's when you're comparing it to USB2 and FW800. If it were USB3 and Thunderbolt, I still don't see the point.

The point is, these two Voyager Q docks of mine do not have USB 3 or TB. Thus, using them with eSATA is an improvement for me. eSATA is irrelevant if you have USB 3 or TB but there are a lot of 'legacy' devices out there that have eSATA but not USB 3 or TB. Adding an eSATA port adds value to these legacy devices.

 

[LordVic]

1 PCI-e SATA card + 1 Gbe PCI-e card + 1 USB 3.0 card (with some USB audio built in or tacked onto the controller on-board) + 1 FW800 PCI-e card. That's not going to add up to a very low amount either. Not $399, but north of $100 for some quality cards. There is some markup here for packaging it all up in a relatively small device. (they are probably not using the cheapest/hottest components to implement the embedded controllers. )

Except you're using retail price for those full featured products.

What you basically have here is 1/4 of the parts you find already existing on most of today's motherboards. What they've done is just throw a bunch of highly available, and relatively cheap controller chips on a modified pci-e 'mother'board. tack on the bridge for Thunderbolt, and charge 399.99.

I cannot say it cost nowhere near that much to make this thing as we dont know what other costs are associated with the Development and products. But it's safe to say that the internal components of this device are no where near the price tag.

If you can buy a motherboard, that has every single one of theseports on them, with controller chips and interfaces and everything else a mobo has for < $100, how is this 399.99.

 

[panzer06]

snip

If you can buy a motherboard, that has every single one of theseports on them, with controller chips and interfaces and everything else a mobo has for < $100, how is this 399.99.

The people running Belkin are hilarious, they actually think this thing is going to sell? This thing probably costs them $50 to produce, and the Thunderbolt interface makes up a huge majority of that cost. That's like an 800% mark up.... what a bunch of greedy idiots.

Where are you folks getting the $$$ you're referencing? The entire TB supply chain is over-priced. The only MB I could find was a very expensive ASUS $449 on newegg. Intel claims there will be 100+ peripherals and accessories for TB by the end of 2012. Let's hope some volume will move us to a more reasonable price point. Let's just be careful claiming individual products are full of profit w/o knowing for certain they didn't pay inflated prices for the components.

I very much want TB to go mainstream but as with all new tech we will endure the sky high prices until the parts are more readily available from multiple competing sources.

Cheers,

 

[polaris20]

The point is, these two Voyager Q docks of mine do not have USB 3 or TB. Thus, using them with eSATA is an improvement for me. eSATA is irrelevant if you have USB 3 or TB but there are a lot of 'legacy' devices out there that have eSATA but not USB 3 or TB. Adding an eSATA port adds value to these legacy devices.

So......get a Voyager dock with USB3? Aren't they like $30-40? Again, I don't think it's beneficial to add it to a new product coming out in 2012, and in turn raising the cost of the device, when Thunderbolt AND USB3 are on it. It's not nearly as versatile of a port, it takes up space better left to other stuff, and it's raising the price of the device.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/NewerTech/Voyager/Hard_Drive_Dock

Oh hey, a USB3.0 Voyager for $38.

 

[manu chao]

So......get a Voyager dock with USB3? Aren't they like $30-40? Again, I don't think it's beneficial to add it to a new product coming out in 2012, and in turn raising the cost of the device, when Thunderbolt AND USB3 are on it. It's not nearly as versatile of a port, it takes up space better left to other stuff, and it's raising the price of the device.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/NewerTech/Voyager/Hard_Drive_Dock

Oh hey, a USB3.0 Voyager for $38.

And the FW one is still $119, take two and add shipping and you get $250+.

 

[polaris20]

And the FW one is still $119, take two and add shipping and you get $250+.

What do you need FW800 dock, if you have a dock with USB3 for $38?

We're sitting here arguing personal preferences. I don't think it needs eSATA, especially when it's contributing to a higher price, because there are two better solutions already provided. Period.

 

[manu chao]

What do you need FW800 dock, if you have a dock with USB3 for $38?

Let's say, I am not ready yet to buy something that cannot be daisy-chained with my gazillion of FW devices.

We're sitting here arguing personal preferences. I don't think it needs eSATA, especially when it's contributing to a higher price, because there are two better solutions already provided. Period.

Every external HDD case (or dock for that matter) contains a bridge to SATA. I, thus, don't think adding an eSATA port can be very expensive.

 

[polaris20]

Let's say, I am not ready yet to buy something that cannot be daisy-chained with my gazillion of FW devices.

Every external HDD case (or dock for that matter) contains a bridge to SATA. I, thus, don't think adding an eSATA port can be very expensive.

Clearly it must cost something, since every device that also has eSATA is more expensive, including this device.

 

[Lahmy88]

Very good product! Very bad price!

I'll be interested to see whether Apple updates the Thunderbolt display with USB 3.0 etc. (don't hold ya breath on eSATA from Apple though lol)

 

[dusk007]

It is not even a very good product. For a very good product there'd need to be stuff like you find it in usually Docks from Dell, HP, Toshiba or Lenovo.
What is missing are Display connectors. How about one HDMI, one DVI. So people can use and attach all the old cheap displays we have.

400 bucks and you cannot even plug in 2 Displays. WTF.

 

[repoman27]

USB 3.0 is 5Gbps ( not GBps which is 8 times faster ) total. Each USB port on the same controller ( which will be the case in a Mac or one of these TB devices ; one controller) is sharing the same 5Gbps bandwidth.

Same with Thunderbolt (TB). Bus bandwidth isn't increasing per physical port.

Second, you'd probably never see 5Gbps out of these Thunderbolt devices. The TB controller can be set up as either a x4 or four way x1 PCI-e switch to the internal PCI-e devices. Most likely this USB 3.0 controller in the device is hooked to a x1. Just like the Ethernet controller, SATA controller, and Firwire controller. Each getting a x1 PCI-e slice of the pie. A x1 PCI-e v2.0 connection is 4Gbp/s. Good enough to give most of the USB 3.0 throughput but not all. Likewise good enough to give most of a SATA III (6Gbp/s) connection but not all (but would be enough for a SATA II 3Gbp/s one.)

I think all too many people miss the point that adding more ports to the same controller does not provide any additional bandwidth. One of the advantages of docks like the Belkin is that they are actually providing more controllers and thus more usable bandwidth.

USB 3.0 and PCIe 2.0 both have a nominal signaling rate of 5 Gbps, and both use 8b/10b encoding which drops them to 4 Gbps (500 MB/s). Both also have additional protocol overhead, but generally USB has more overhead and higher latency than PCIe, so a USB 3.0 XHCI paired with a PCIe 2.0 x1 back end is for the most part very well matched.

Some SATA 6 Gb/s controllers have become notorious for pairing a 2-port SATA 6 Gb/s design with a PCIe 2.0 x1 back end. This leads to a controller which claims to provide a combined 12 Gbps, that is really only 9.6 Gbps sans 8b/10b encoding (which SATA uses as well), but instead hits a wall at 4 Gbps because of the PCIe 2.0 x1 connection, and with PCIe protocol overhead can't exceed 410 MB/s in the real world. Marvell's 88SE92xx line-up introduces a 2-port SATA 6 Gb/s controller paired with a PCIe 2.0 x2 interface, which is good news, but then they also include a 4-port model with an x1 back end—yikes! SATA 6 Gb/s controllers that aren't built in to the PCH/southbridge/chipset always come up short it seems, because they never get to operate at more than 83.33% of their designed spec due to the mismatch with PCIe.

 

[nuckinfutz]

It is not even a very good product. For a very good product there'd need to be stuff like you find it in usually Docks from Dell, HP, Toshiba or Lenovo.
What is missing are Display connectors. How about one HDMI, one DVI. So people can use and attach all the old cheap displays we have.

400 bucks and you cannot even plug in 2 Displays. WTF.

It may support two displays depending on the TB chipset used.

 

[LordVic]

[/COLOR]

Where are you folks getting the $$$ you're referencing? The entire TB supply chain is over-priced. The only MB I could find was a very expensive ASUS $449 on newegg. Intel claims there will be 100+ peripherals and accessories for TB by the end of 2012. Let's hope some volume will move us to a more reasonable price point. Let's just be careful claiming individual products are full of profit w/o knowing for certain they didn't pay inflated prices for the components.

I very much want TB to go mainstream but as with all new tech we will endure the sky high prices until the parts are more readily available from multiple competing sources.

Cheers,

I'm not talking about the thunderbolt controllers themselves. But the rest of the devices. The network controllers, USB controllers, Sound controllers. The entirety of the device, aside from Thunderbolt can be easily created for well < $100 as you can see on your average laptop and motherboard price.

Motherboards, Aside from the thunderbolt controller have had all these things for years. In fact, my current mother board cost me $65 and contains everything sans the Thunderbolt port, Yet have far far more advanced technology, including controllers for CPU's and memory, sockets and well, everything else thats bloody well in side a computer.


are you going to tell me that the thunderbolt controller chip on this product is costing several hundred to produce and put in place?

I understand there are more costs associated than just simply what the chipsets and PCB cost.

but $399? you have to be kidding me

 

[nuckinfutz]

Guys and Gals

Much ado about nothing

DVD players launched at over $500

LCD screens were all over a $1000 when they launched.


This is the technology roadmap for new stuff. The early adopters buy at prices consumer balk at. The technology becomes more integrated and cheaper and more people buy in.

You either need these Docks in a bad way or you want one but not at $250-400

 

[Sackvillenb]

I suppose it's too much to ask that companies make a dock that doesn't cost a preposterous amount of money? Considering that it's a dock...

 

[MagicBoy]

I suppose it's too much to ask that companies make a dock that doesn't cost a preposterous amount of money? Considering that it's a dock...

It's full of controller chips for the ethernet, firewire, eSATA, sound ports etc.

It's quite different to a Lenovo/Dell laptop port replicator.