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CES 2012: Belkin Thunderbolt Express Dock to Launch in September at $299
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Expensive, yes. USB 3? Sheesh. Do you even know why you want USB 3?
I know why I want USB 3.0:
- faster than any SSD drive's speed can currently saturate
- inexpensive
- *lots* of PC users have USB 3.0
- fully compatible with basically every computer made in the last 10 years
- more than 6 products that work with USB 3.0
- all current and past USB peripherals work with all future USB 3.0 ports
Whats Thunderbolt got going for it?
by the way ... here's the press release.
http://www.belkin.com/pressRoom/releases/uploads/BelkinThunderbolt_010812.html
It's really just the worst joke of the year, already...
I had high hopes for thunderbolt, and love my apple products, now a hackingtosh with usb3 support on osX seems just great...
So not only belkin is making a big mistake here, go on apple, it's time do some effort!
It may have been common pricing in the beginning to start a product like dvd writers or ssd's. but for a connection at this stage of evolution is just a slap in our (consumer)faces!
//and the part that showes it immediately how wrong they are, is how they changed their beautiful design of a mockup to this POS... so much worse then any outdated external disk!
Not placing my precious apple on a rotten plank!
http://www.belkin.com/pressRoom/releases/uploads/BelkinThunderbolt_010812.html
It's really just the worst joke of the year, already...
I had high hopes for thunderbolt, and love my apple products, now a hackingtosh with usb3 support on osX seems just great...
So not only belkin is making a big mistake here, go on apple, it's time do some effort!
It may have been common pricing in the beginning to start a product like dvd writers or ssd's. but for a connection at this stage of evolution is just a slap in our (consumer)faces!
//and the part that showes it immediately how wrong they are, is how they changed their beautiful design of a mockup to this POS... so much worse then any outdated external disk!
Not placing my precious apple on a rotten plank!
T-Bolt is around $100
One announced (but, as usual not yet shipping) T-Bolt product puts a $100 premium on the T-Bolt version vs. the PCI or USB version.
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/
No cable included, so really a $150 premium.
One announced (but, as usual not yet shipping) T-Bolt product puts a $100 premium on the T-Bolt version vs. the PCI or USB version.
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensity/
No cable included, so really a $150 premium.
Good to know. I didn't have a data point like the one you provided, so thanks for that. Still, it's around what I expected.
Think about what this device actually does ...
Not wanting to be the only positive comment in this thread over 8 pages, I'd just like you to consider what this product actually does ...
- It's not a docking station. A docking station replicates existing functionality through paralleling the connectors already available. E.g on my old Dell laptop, there was a 100-pin connector on the bottom that mirrored my ports to the docking station. Very little active technology was used in the docking station as it was all mirroring
- It's not really a hub. A hub will take one interface type (e.g. USB 2.0, FW, ethernet) and duplicate it by acting as a host itself to the new ports. It has enough active technology in it to act as a host controller only.
- TB by itself inherently (i.e. in the Apple implementation) supports two things: high speed serial packetised data and display info. I expect that the display data is carried by the same protocol as the raw data, so in essence what TB is is just a really, really, really fast serial connection. Someone else said that it is PCIe in four connectors...
- Think of the engineering requirements behind this device. I'd say the reason that there aren't TB hubs available yet is that it is so damn hard to do! For each of the individual interface types available, the engineer needs all of the information to be carried by TB without interfering with the actual protocol of managing connections, host/target, data flow rates/monitoring etc - as well as not soaking up so much of the available bandwidth that will affect any other data flows
- Other manufacturers know this is a hard problem. How many other multi-interface hubs are available on the market that use a single cable connectivity? I've been looking at the Moshi iLynx FW/USB hub - guess what, you use a FW *and* a USB cable to plug it in. I'd expect that this device simply has separate FW and USB controller ICs onboard all packaged nicely
- Some monitors have integrated USB controllers in them, so you can plug devices or SD cards directly in. The USB info is carried on separate data lines through the DVI connector - these are also just a single technology hub
It amuses me the amount of "wtf why is it sooooo expensive it should only be (insert a ridiculously cheap amount here) fail fail", "this isn't a hard thing to do" etc etc - of course that opinion is based on their extensive experience in microelectronic engineering design, product design, high speed data protocol design and general all round wizardry. If it's so easy, create a startup and do it yourself!!
TB is just a pipe - albeit a really fast one. Here's a quote from Wikipedia - "Thunderbolt controllers on the host and peripherals multiplex the PCIe and DisplayPort data into packets at the transport layer and demultiplex them at the destination." That's all it does. It's up to manufacturers how they want to actually implement devices to use that data channel. Here's an example from Sonnet of a PCIe card that has USB2.0 and FW800 - http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tango800pcie.html. To make this into a TB hub Sonnet will need to repackage this into a new form factor and integrate the TB controller. To add new interfaces, Sonnet will need to create a PCIe bus in the hub and then effectively add new PCIe cards to support them. How much would that cost? $59 ?? $29 ??
You are dreaming. Just wait until smarter people than you* solve the problem then you can find something else to complain about - maybe the colour?
*There are some people on here that are smarter than the average MacRumors reader - this isn't aimed at them, rather the 8 previous pages of wtf'ers.
Not wanting to be the only positive comment in this thread over 8 pages, I'd just like you to consider what this product actually does ...
- It's not a docking station. A docking station replicates existing functionality through paralleling the connectors already available. E.g on my old Dell laptop, there was a 100-pin connector on the bottom that mirrored my ports to the docking station. Very little active technology was used in the docking station as it was all mirroring
- It's not really a hub. A hub will take one interface type (e.g. USB 2.0, FW, ethernet) and duplicate it by acting as a host itself to the new ports. It has enough active technology in it to act as a host controller only.
- TB by itself inherently (i.e. in the Apple implementation) supports two things: high speed serial packetised data and display info. I expect that the display data is carried by the same protocol as the raw data, so in essence what TB is is just a really, really, really fast serial connection. Someone else said that it is PCIe in four connectors...
- Think of the engineering requirements behind this device. I'd say the reason that there aren't TB hubs available yet is that it is so damn hard to do! For each of the individual interface types available, the engineer needs all of the information to be carried by TB without interfering with the actual protocol of managing connections, host/target, data flow rates/monitoring etc - as well as not soaking up so much of the available bandwidth that will affect any other data flows
- Other manufacturers know this is a hard problem. How many other multi-interface hubs are available on the market that use a single cable connectivity? I've been looking at the Moshi iLynx FW/USB hub - guess what, you use a FW *and* a USB cable to plug it in. I'd expect that this device simply has separate FW and USB controller ICs onboard all packaged nicely
- Some monitors have integrated USB controllers in them, so you can plug devices or SD cards directly in. The USB info is carried on separate data lines through the DVI connector - these are also just a single technology hub
It amuses me the amount of "wtf why is it sooooo expensive it should only be (insert a ridiculously cheap amount here) fail fail", "this isn't a hard thing to do" etc etc - of course that opinion is based on their extensive experience in microelectronic engineering design, product design, high speed data protocol design and general all round wizardry. If it's so easy, create a startup and do it yourself!!
TB is just a pipe - albeit a really fast one. Here's a quote from Wikipedia - "Thunderbolt controllers on the host and peripherals multiplex the PCIe and DisplayPort data into packets at the transport layer and demultiplex them at the destination." That's all it does. It's up to manufacturers how they want to actually implement devices to use that data channel. Here's an example from Sonnet of a PCIe card that has USB2.0 and FW800 - http://www.sonnettech.com/product/tango800pcie.html. To make this into a TB hub Sonnet will need to repackage this into a new form factor and integrate the TB controller. To add new interfaces, Sonnet will need to create a PCIe bus in the hub and then effectively add new PCIe cards to support them. How much would that cost? $59 ?? $29 ??
You are dreaming. Just wait until smarter people than you* solve the problem then you can find something else to complain about - maybe the colour?
*There are some people on here that are smarter than the average MacRumors reader - this isn't aimed at them, rather the 8 previous pages of wtf'ers.
Out of all your points, not one of them explains why you need the speed of USB 3.0, or thunderbolt for that matter. The people who really need these technologies are not whining about the price - which is just about everyone on this forum it seems.
It's a port replicator that use TB to connect to the machine (and that's about the main difference with a dockingstation...this doesn't dock). Previously that either was usb2 or some proprietary port. Even IBM would offer these for around $149 which is a big price difference from the $299 Belkin is asking. However, as with many products this is just the MSRP which probably will drop. Most products don't sell for the MSRP. Let's just hope others will follow so we'll get some competition and some lower prices.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)
To everyone saying that FireWire has no market/products, maybe you ought look through a pro-audio hardware catalog some time.
To everyone saying that FireWire has no market/products, maybe you ought look through a pro-audio hardware catalog some time.
Smart move!^^ Writing a Wall-of-text only to end it with calling 8 pages of Macrumor members stupid. Did you expect your comment/input to be taken seriously?
The docking station I use (the only one I've seen(*) for an MBP) is $299:
http://www.bookendzdocks.com/Curren...Station_for_15_Unibody_Apple_Macbook_Pro.html
(*) Via google, I found http://www.hengedocks.com/ which offers much cheaper docks, but you can't use the built-in screen while it's docked.
Not to mention any of hundreds of video camera models with mini DV, DVCAM, or HDV recording mediums. Or any performance oriented hard drive.
Cloning 3TB of data from one disk to another for offsite storage and archiving - I don't need a hugely expensive RAID array, just an inexpensive disk that doesn't take 24 hours to clone.
If the thing had USB 3.0, I'd buy one, even at $299.
You won't really see USB 3.0 at its finest until you give it a RAID array to work with, but I agree, if you're transferring that kind of data, it is a decent improvement over firewire 800.
iCloud is free up to 5gb
55gb is 100 bucks. and you are capped at 55gb as i read the iCloud page
iCloud no control over data.
my cloud my data = Private as I want
t-bolt is too good so apple has decided to make it expensive as heck. in my example an iMac can push 24tb with ease even at the crazy prices hdds have moved to. it would still be under 2k before the flood under 1k...
iCloud would charge
100 for 55gb
1000 for 550gb
10000 for 5.5 tb
Apple has decided that t-bolt is too good and is going to kill it so it does not compete with iCloud .
here is a link to iCloud prices
http://www.apple.com/icloud/what-is.html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/10/04Apple-to-Launch-iCloud-on-October-12.html
"Pricing & Availability
iCloud will be available on October 12 as a free download to iPhone, iPad or iPod touch users running iOS 5 or a Mac running OS X Lion with a valid Apple ID. iCloud includes 5GB of free cloud storage for Mail, Document Storage and Backup. Purchased music, TV shows, apps, books and Photo Stream do not count against the storage limit. iTunes Match will be available starting in the US later this month for $24.99 a year. Using iCloud with a PC requires Windows Vista or Windows 7; Outlook 2010 or 2007 is recommended for accessing contacts and calendars. Additional iCloud storage upgrades are available to purchase starting at $20 a year for 10GB, $40 a year for 20GB and $100 a year for 50GB."
the quotes are mine. iCloud is the next cash cow for apple thus high t-bolt prices.
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disagreed!
for me all those points are reason enough to be wanting a faster connection than usb 2, firewire, eSata..
thunderbolt could be that, more than usb3. because of the embedded video+sound but they should do something now, other than this travesty!
People like video editors often have to work on windows machines because the total cost of the installation (may be multiple machines, media sharing, servers, support....). even though when they work standalone, the most of them work on an apple laptop/desktop.
the cost of an apple computer is justified for most of them, and so are some peripherals, but this is a step backward.
Just look at where of all places thunderbolt is introduced...!!!??? Apple computers. Did it come with extra cost? did they put it in the high end workstation? (not yet). no, instead they put it in their most lightweight computers, they even stopped the macbook line. just because thunderbolt can be so wonderful to do everything you ever wanted to, even with the tiniest machines...
that's the reason why apple left a functional superdrive out, and opt for a more wide solution, which isn't mainstream, yet
the reason why I want a real dock is because i travel everyday with my mac mini, and for the hard disks and monitors and other accessories to connect easy and fast when i get home. So for a consumer system, where that price tag is to high.
and no, this technology isn't easy to just make a usb hub with different connectors. when you look at the dissected thunderbolt cable, you can only wonder... but at this price? there's hardware that may be more complicated with blu ray lasers,...
this is just all about poor marketing and ugly design. what was a great idea/ mock up, got lost in the execution and $-dreaming.
You are correct from the technology side of this. However the value to the customer does not depend on how difficult it is to make this dock. The user doesn't and shouldn't care.
If the benefit of this dock is not worth more than $50 or $100 for most people than a $299 version of this dock will not be viable on the market regardless how well engineered it is.
The only added value to this dock would be USB3 and that was not included.
If I was serious about getting speed out of a 4 tb raid drive, I would never even think of esata or usb 3.0. esata is too slow (3gb/s), usb 3.0 as well (5 gb/s), usb 3 is also a cpu hogging crap way of doing high speed hard drives (see usb 2.0 vs firewire, i'd prefer esata over usb 3) and I personally have no interest in usb 3. Firewire 800 is much peferred to usb 3 for me for pretty much anything and is close to the max speed of a single current magnetic drive. My drives actually sound much better using esata or firewire vs usb. Esata is great, unless you want speed from raid.
Also, you said a dock that would allow you to use a 4 tb array would add value? just get the 4 tb thunderbolt raid array which does 800 MB/sec real world and you don't need any dock. It's not even SSD. 1250 MB/sec is the max for current thunderbolt, not sure how close ssd raid would get to that.
For those who say it's going to fail or go away, that's like saying the monitor output will fail and go away, thunderbolt is just a bonus for those who want the best and don't care about what it costs. Life is short, time is money, just spend the grand on the thunderbolt raid array and compute away faster than any other options other than building that array into your mac pro.
OWC thunderbolt raid array
note the graph comparing usb 3 and esata vs thunderbolt. just over a grand for 4 TB 800 MB/sec is a deal IMO. I lol at all the people who compute slowly because they don't think speed is worth the $$. Think how much of you life you waste waiting for hard drives... that's priceless.
and for the dock the article is about, price does seem a little steep for what you're getting, I would like to see esata on there, i might even have some usb 3.0 stuff by then, but not till september? hahahahaha
Why are people so still concerned about USB's CPU load? Also, SATA comes in 6 Gbps flavor now.
I LIKE IT!
Yes, it's outrageously over-priced, it doesn't come with USB 3.0, it won't even be available for another 9 months, and I know I simply will not purchase one.
BUT look at what it does...
Imagine coming home with your Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, or other laptop with a thunderbolt port, and not having to plug in...
-an ethernet cord for internet
-a USB dongle for your wireless mouse
-a USB dongle for your iPod
-a USB cord for your printer
-a firewire 800 cord for an external hard drive
-a pair of headphones
-an external HDMI-connected monitor
Instead, all you have to do once you lay your computer down on the desk is plug in the power cord and plug in a single thunderbolt cable which connects all the above listed things directly to your computer through a single port!
Yeah, $300 is probably too much for such a device, but the convenience and lack of so much cord clutter such a product can provide is surely a great design. I look forward to a cheaper version of this coming out in the next few years, and we'll FINALLY get to reap the benefits of this very underused thunderbolt technology.
Yes, it's outrageously over-priced, it doesn't come with USB 3.0, it won't even be available for another 9 months, and I know I simply will not purchase one.
BUT look at what it does...
Imagine coming home with your Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, or other laptop with a thunderbolt port, and not having to plug in...
-an ethernet cord for internet
-a USB dongle for your wireless mouse
-a USB dongle for your iPod
-a USB cord for your printer
-a firewire 800 cord for an external hard drive
-a pair of headphones
-an external HDMI-connected monitor
Instead, all you have to do once you lay your computer down on the desk is plug in the power cord and plug in a single thunderbolt cable which connects all the above listed things directly to your computer through a single port!
Yeah, $300 is probably too much for such a device, but the convenience and lack of so much cord clutter such a product can provide is surely a great design. I look forward to a cheaper version of this coming out in the next few years, and we'll FINALLY get to reap the benefits of this very underused thunderbolt technology.