Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

I'm starting to appreciate Thunderbolt

A

Adamantoise

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 1, 2011
991
388
Yeah I know, there aren't any uses for it at the moment.

However, yesterday I had to move 45GB worth of pictures from my desktop to my laptop. I considered moving them to my external HDD using USB 2.0, but then realized it would have taken me hours to copy from PC to HDD and then from HDD to Mac.

So I settled on Ethernet (connected PC to Mac directly) and even that moved at an estimated rate of 95MB/s (according to Activity Monitor)

However, I think for applications such as these, the advantage of Thunderbolt becomes very apparent. It didn't hit me till I sat down to do the math that TB would have moved at 1.25GB/s (I know real life speed would be hampered by HDD read/write speed but still that's impressive)

I'm pretty excited to see what kind of accessories use this port.
 
Adamantoise said:
Yeah I know, there aren't any uses for it at the moment.

However, yesterday I had to move 45GB worth of pictures from my desktop to my laptop. I considered moving them to my external HDD using USB 2.0, but then realized it would have taken me hours to copy from PC to HDD and then from HDD to Mac.

So I settled on Ethernet (connected PC to Mac directly) and even that moved at an estimated rate of 95MB/s (according to Activity Monitor)

However, I think for applications such as these, the advantage of Thunderbolt becomes very apparent. It didn't hit me till I sat down to do the math that TB would have moved at 1.25GB/s (I know real life speed would be hampered by HDD read/write speed but still that's impressive)

I'm pretty excited to see what kind of accessories use this port.
Click to expand...
SATA II spinning platter HD's are capped at about 95MB/s by hardware limitations, thunderbolt would not have moved your files any quicker than ethernet did.
 
snaky69 said:
SATA II spinning platter HD's are capped at about 95MB/s by hardware limitations, thunderbolt would not have moved your files any quicker than ethernet did.
Click to expand...

Yeah I did mention that. But still, SSDs will soon be the norm, I'm not sure what their read/write cap is but it's pretty exciting to think that in a couple years we could be moving all this data in a matter of seconds.

I'm also interested in seeing some thunderbolt accessories like video cards, 3g/4g antennas, and various adapters.

I never really had to move that amount of data until recently, and it just occurred to me how really crappy USB 2.0 is as a standard.
 
Yes but your still in a catch 22. By then you will just have more data. Sure it will be faster but will still take the same amount of time. lol
 
edk99 said:
Yes but your still in a catch 22. By then you will just have more data. Sure it will be faster but will still take the same amount of time. lol
Click to expand...

Could very well be true. SSD's would've made your transfer much faster though, that,s for sure.
 
MEGADETH1 said:
How exactly do you set this up?
Click to expand...

Just grab an ethernet cable and connect the two. Open up migration assistant and select what you want to transfer. (I believe)

(You can also try using AirDrop! This may be even easier and about the same speed because it doesn't rely on your internet connection, rather a peer to peer connection)
 
Epic Xbox Revie said:
Just grab an ethernet cable and connect the two. Open up migration assistant and select what you want to transfer. (I believe)

(You can also try using AirDrop! This may be even easier and about the same speed because it doesn't rely on your internet connection, rather a peer to peer connection)
Click to expand...

So this will work for Windows->Mac? Just connect an Ethernet between them, or a crossover cable?
 
snaky69 said:
SATA II spinning platter HD's are capped at about 95MB/s by hardware limitations, thunderbolt would not have moved your files any quicker than ethernet did.
Click to expand...

Actually, I would suspect there would be a speed advantage were you to connect them via Target Disk Mode over Thunderbolt, because there would be less overhead in the processing. Probably slight, however, so I don't disagree in principle with your post.

jW
 
Mal said:
Actually, I would suspect there would be a speed advantage were you to connect them via Target Disk Mode over Thunderbolt, because there would be less overhead in the processing. Probably slight, however, so I don't disagree in principle with your post.

jW
Click to expand...

You cannot cheat physics. Overhead is not the problem and the bandwidth is available, but you cannot get a hard disk drive to transfer its data faster than its ceiling.
 
Epic Xbox Revie said:
Just grab an ethernet cable and connect the two. Open up migration assistant and select what you want to transfer. (I believe)

(You can also try using AirDrop! This may be even easier and about the same speed because it doesn't rely on your internet connection, rather a peer to peer connection)
Click to expand...

I didn't even know there was a Migration Assistant program for PC.

I just connected both machines with a straight Ethernet cable and deactivated the Wireless connections (to avoid ip conflicts), then I checked the ip address of the PC using 'ipconfig' in the command prompt.

In Finder I then hit 'Command+k' and put in smb://'pc ip address' and I hit connect.

Your PC should appear as a new mounted volume in Finder and you can move files between the two.

But next time I'll be using the Migration Assistant, I think it's a much easier setup.
 
getz76 said:
You cannot cheat physics. Overhead is not the problem and the bandwidth is available, but you cannot get a hard disk drive to transfer its data faster than its ceiling.
Click to expand...

Do the 2011 MBPs support SATA III HDDs? What is their theoretical read/write ceiling?

SSDs are just out of my price range at the moment.
 
Just bought a top-of-the-line 27" iMac with Core i7 @ 3.4Ghz. Beautiful machine, but . . .

The things that frustrates me are:

1. There are NO products to interface with these wonderful Thunderbolt ports.
2. New USB-3 products are appearing every day.
3. There is NO USB-3 on my new iMac.
4. I suspect that USB-3 will become the future
5. There is no Thunderbolt>USB3 converter available.

My new machine is totally locked out of the high speed peripheral future. :mad:
 
accessoriesguy said:
yes 2011 MBP's support SATA III enjoy.

a 120GB SSD will run you about $200 with the latest San Force Controller.
Click to expand...

Couple years ago, I think I could get by with 120GB ... But not so much now.

I certainly don't need 500GB, but if I were to get an SSD it would have to be 256GB. My RAW pictures alone consume 45GB ... When I process them (the good ones) in CS5 and save as 16 bit TIF they grow even larger. Music consumes at least 12GB.

I'll look out for cheap SSDs though, hopefully they become affordable soon enough (i.e. 256GB for $150)
 
lugesm said:
Just bought a top-of-the-line 27" iMac with Core i7 @ 3.4Ghz. Beautiful machine, but . . .

The things that frustrates me are:

1. There are NO products to interface with these wonderful Thunderbolt ports.
2. New USB-3 products are appearing every day.
3. There is NO USB-3 on my new iMac.
4. I suspect that USB-3 will become the future
5. There is no Thunderbolt>USB3 converter available.

My new machine is totally locked out of the high speed peripheral future. :mad:
Click to expand...

Yes it's annoying right?

I just looked at Lacie's external hard drives. So many beautiful USB 3.0 drives and no TB ones (yet).

They do have a thunderbolt drive planned this Summer though, so be on the look out.

http://www.lacie.com/technologies/technology.htm?id=10039
 
lugesm said:
You are 'technically' correct, but that is a "don't care" truth !

I was aware of that product, but I don't expect to see a mad rush of ordinary users to buy such an expensive system.

$2,000 . . . already ! I think I can live without that one.

Who needs a 12TB backup system?
Click to expand...

Who ever said Thunderbolt was for ordinary users? I have more than 12tB of storage on my network.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back