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Intel Shows Off Prototype 128GB Thunderbolt Thumb Drive
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Looks like there are already USB3 sticks that can do in the ballpark of 200MB/second reads. And they run about a buck a gig for that speed - the question with this TB version is actual benchmarked speed and cost. In theory, it should be possible to do USB3 SSD thumb drive that gets over 400. The TB version may be a bit faster, but potentially way more expensive than the USB3 version.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=20-220-585&ParentOnly=1&IsVirtualParent=1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=20-220-585&ParentOnly=1&IsVirtualParent=1
USB have quite a bit of protocol overhead, 400MB is a theoretical max for USB3 I believe.
I was thinking the same thing. Use it as a boot drive, and if they make it in large enough capacities, (while 128 is enough), and thunderbolt gets large enough adoption, I could see a lot of people just carrying their whole computer along with them.
Individual flash chips can only write around 30 MB/s
How SSD's are blazing fast is they basically set up a RAID 0 with all the flash chips they contain. That's why, when you open up an SSD, you see an *array* of flash chips.
if they use 8 flash chips in a raid 0 configuration, with the onboard controller acting as the raid card, you get 8*30 = 240 MB/s write speed.
True, but this is a thumb drive not an external SSD. I was merely pointing out that the thumb drive I mentioned had more than enough speed for use as a thumb drive in today's standards.
Sure it'll be great when we can all carry around 128GB super speed SSD thumb drives instead of portable hard drives. Problem is that although the technology exists, it doesn't exist in the right price bracket for it to be viable in today's market.
How would this be any different from a USB booting OS (such as a Windows To Go, Ubuntu) or eSATA?
If more than enough speed is very very low speed, sure. My point was that the speed of USB is irrelevant for regular thumb drives, USB2 or 3 don't make any difference.
This thing will likely be more expensive than a regular thumb drive, but it's not really aimed for the mass market of regular thumb drives either I'm sure.
Makes me think of this Apple patent from 2006... the "Home on iPod" concept.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2007/07/apple-granted-patent-for-ipod-home-directory-portability/
http://appleinsider.com/articles/06/10/11/apples_missing_home_on_ipod_feature_resurfaces_in_filing
Wow, it's a concept older than 2006. From 2003: https://www.macrumors.com/2003/10/08/pulled-panther-feature-home-on-ipod/
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only geeks would want to carry a 128GB thumb drive in their keychains.
give me something which is much smaller and 4GB to carry the important stuff not my entire life.
give me something which is much smaller and 4GB to carry the important stuff not my entire life.
Exactly what I was wondering. The new XQD-S memory cards can do sustained read/write transfer speeds of 168 MBps, thats MBps, so the bottleneck is still with the Flash Nand. Not sure about the speed of the SANDISK memory they're using, but it's probably less than this state-of-the-art XQD-S, that's meant to replace CF for professional applications.
"The company says that its new cards offer sustained read/write transfer speeds of 168 MBps (actual speed)"
Source: http://www.gizmag.com/sony-xqd-s-series-media-cards-launched/23189/
http://www.sony.net/Products/memorycard/en_us/xqd/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XQD_card
At any rate, good to see more TB products released; that can only help adoption of the standard, and eventually, lower prices.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1483374/
This guy got over 400 with SSD in a usb3 case. Maybe it's possible to get similar speeds with USB3 SSD thumb, maybe not.
The article says it's SSD in a thumb drive form factor.
if i could hook it directly to my cortex.. umm methinks the memory.. UMMM I forgot.. error.. error...
at first I was like whoaaa 10 gbps transfer speed, and then I remember there is no thunderbolt devices that I use daily vs usb and that is a shame
I rather take usb 3.0 with half speed but lots of compatible device ex my tv, car tape, etc.
intel and apple needs to push thunderbolt further.
I rather take usb 3.0 with half speed but lots of compatible device ex my tv, car tape, etc.
intel and apple needs to push thunderbolt further.
It's not. That example would be right at the bleeding edge, this is taken right from the USB 3.0 spec document:
TB1 already is faster than SATA III.
TB prices will probably never go down to the point of being as cheap as SATA. Heck, just look at the price of cables, much less the price of devices themselves. And TB is intended as an external standard, they could potentially do an internal version but that doesn't seem likely at this point.
Things to do with this:
- Time Machine
- Bootable drive
- External expansion drive
So think about this... you put your whole computer on this Thunder-Drive (you see what I did there?) and then can go to any Mac you want and run your whole system from where ever!
- Time Machine
- Bootable drive
- External expansion drive
So think about this... you put your whole computer on this Thunder-Drive (you see what I did there?) and then can go to any Mac you want and run your whole system from where ever!
