Early Thunderbolt vs FireWire RAID Benchmarks

[fat jez]

would that mean that a TB cable could transfer a file of ±1.25GB in 1 second??

Probably nearer 1GB with the overheads, but in theory, yes.

 

[Torrijos]

...am i right in saying that at the moment there are only raid devices for TB? if so then will there be just a straight forward external HDD in the future or will TB be sticking to RAID type devices?

You are right, right now TB is mainly used for RAID systems since they are the only way to really use the bandwidth available...
Although it seems that peripherals will appear just like those available (for the pro) for FW. The next drive to come out is probably going to be LaCie little big disk, a small enclosure with two SSDs in RAID0 (to reach a high data rate) but a version with mechanical disks is in the works.

also with all the discussions on TB's speed, if my computer knowledge isn't lacking then TB has a bit rate of 10Gbps, correct? and 8 bits are 1 byte, so then in a perfect world where the devices a TB cable would be copying to and from, would read and write super fast, would that mean that a TB cable could transfer a file of ±1.25GB in 1 second??

The thing is that you have to add a few bits to implement the communication protocols between devices (the overhead)... For this generation of TB (relying on PCIe v2) it seem to be around a 20% overhead.
USB3 too has a big overhead...
From a 5Gb/s signaling you get (after 8b/10b encoding) 500MB/s, and after you put the flow control, the packet framing and the communication protocols overhead you get around a real 400MB/s.

 

[Prodo123]

so obviously i am that newbie guy that has to ask some dumb question, but if you would be so kind to answer that would be awesome.

so i have been keeping up with the TB discussions as much as possible but i think i am just a little confused here, am i right in saying that at the moment there are only raid devices for TB? if so then will there be just a straight forward external HDD in the future or will TB be sticking to RAID type devices?

also with all the discussions on TB's speed, if my computer knowledge isn't lacking then TB has a bit rate of 10Gbps, correct? and 8 bits are 1 byte, so then in a perfect world where the devices a TB cable would be copying to and from, would read and write super fast, would that mean that a TB cable could transfer a file of ±1.25GB in 1 second??

To put it in perspective, you could copy 3 entire Blu-ray drives, which is 25GB of uncompressed 1080p glory, from your computer to 3 daisy-chained disk arrays in around 28 seconds for all, while you have 2 ACDs hooked up on the end which are streaming 2 1080p videos from the disk arrays as you copy the Blu-rays. Amazing, huh?

 

[Labaguette]

i have to admit i am not impressed by these speeds via TB. i mean - 644MB/s write speeds? hell yeah i get 250MB/s from my Scorpio Black Software RAID in MacBook Pro... overseeing that these are desktop drives i am disappointed they don't even reach 150MB/s per drive!

 

[thejadedmonkey]

600 Megabytes per second is amazing considering that they aren't using high end SAS drives or that many spindles.

I don't see TB taking off for one reason; USB 3.0 can do a (theoretical) 600 Megabytes in 1.55 seconds. Make it 2 seconds. Will people spend the extra money for non-standard equipment when what they have is "good enough"

That's why I think the people saying that TB is doomed to be Firewire 2.0 are correct.

 

[RobQuads]

I don't think TB will be a Firewire failure but its still not going to be a major success IMO purely because USB is so cheap, already widespread in anything new and 'most' people don't need it.

 

[organerito]

How many times must it be said. Apple SUPPORTS USB 3.0 You can use it. Seriously, try it. I'll link you to videos of it being used on a Mac if you really want. INTEL is to blame for Apple Products not having native USB 3.0 support because INTEL doesn't support it natively in the Sandy Bridge Chip Set. Everyone else that has USB 3.0 compatibility and is running an Intel based processor (to my knowledge and understanding) is using a third party chip sets to support USB 3.0

Wanna get mad about USB 3.0? Bitch at Intel, stop blaming Apple. Because Apple supports it.

/ Rant (its a pet peeve that people still don't understand who or why certain things are the way they are)

Blah,Blah, Blah...etc.
Apple sell computers without USB 3. There are other PC makers selling them with USB 3 even if it is a third party chip. Again, it is Apple who don't sell computers with USB 3, not Intel. Intel have never sold me and Apple computer. When I have a problem with an Apple device, I don't go to Intel. Nice try

 

[I'm not a newb]

the tale of two macbook pro's

13"
5400 RPM 320GB
Thunderbolt
Migration Assistant
73GB of Data
5 GB of it Apps
68 GB of it User

Time = 33 minutes

ut.

 

[mattraehl]

13"
5400 RPM 320GB
Thunderbolt
Migration Assistant
73GB of Data
5 GB of it Apps
68 GB of it User

Time = 33 minutes

ut.

38 MBytes/sec, nothing to write home about, the 5400 RPM disks were your bottleneck, FW800 would have been just as fast.

I transfered my old 24" iMac to my 21.5" using FW800, ~750 GB of data in ~4.5 hours.

 

[jayhawk11]

38 MBytes/sec, nothing to write home about, the 5400 RPM disks were your bottleneck, FW800 would have been just as fast.

I transfered my old 24" iMac to my 21.5" using FW800, ~750 GB of data in ~4.5 hours.

Precisely. People don't understand that there has to be a hardware upgrade before the connection upgrades start to make a difference.

 

[centauratlas]

Pegasus 3TB?

Anyone know if the 2TB (or 1TB for that model) drives can be swapped out for 3TB drives?