I can't wait to see what people will come up with for Thunderbolt. I am disappointed that Apple hasn't released a cable for your iPhone/iPad though =/
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Intel to Support Both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt in 2012 'Ivy Bridge' Platform
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Yes because everyone loves to carry around external breakout boxes with their sleek portable Macbooks....
And $10? For Thunderbolt? You are DREAMING. You can't even get a decent USB2 hub for $10.
Twice the performance of USB3? That would be Thunderbolt's maximum possible data rate. No single consumer hard drive on earth supports that kind of speed (let alone even USB3's top speed) so I haven't a clue what you're getting at. Why would someone pay MORE to get a drive that is no faster than a USB3 drive? They would almost certainly have to as demand determines price/availability and there is nearly zero demand for TB devices at this point in time while USB3 are backwards compatible with the vast majority of the computers on the planet. My sales figures are based on the relative cost of drives with Firewire interfaces (the closest example that already exists to Thunderbolt in terms of technology versus low demand) against drives that only support USB2 and/or USB3. There is always a large premium for a drive with a FW interface, even today when a fair amount of computers exist with FW interfaces (i.e. SOME demand). Therefore TB compatible drives will likely cost considerably more money than USB3 drives for the SAME underlying drive. You will pay a premium for the interface just like Firewire to offset the higher costs of low production numbers created by little demand compared to USB3/2 interfaces. There will be no speed advantage on a consumer drive because no consumer drive even comes CLOSE to the limits of either interface. So unlike YOUR $10 scenario, I didn't just make a number up out of thin air. Furthermore, the scenario is hardly half-baked given USB drives are already common at places like Best Buy (I personally already own TWO 3TB USB3 drives) so the unlikely 'friend' in the stated scenario would be more likely to already own a USB3 drive than a currently non-existent TB drive that will undoubtedly cost MORE when it does finally arrive.
TB is more suited to high-end professional use where maximum overall data throughput (probably across multiple banks of drives per interface) and low overhead is desired (e.g. professional video, future high-speed server banks, live audio, etc.) The average consumer doesn't want to pay $50-100 more for FW800 drive interface over USB2 today (nor is their computer even likely to have FW if it's not a Mac) even if does have a benefit over USB2. They certainly aren't going to want to pay a potentially larger premium to get the same relative performance (perhaps with a bit of CPU overhead differences) versus USB3 with today's drives that don't come near USB3 levels, let alone Thunderbolt.
Be my guest and continue to insult and rant and dream big of TB heaven where USB doesn't exist. I live in a more practical and logical world.
Yeah because everyone loves to carry around an external hard drive with their sleek portable MacBooks.Yes because everyone loves to carry around external breakout boxes with their sleek portable Macbooks....
And $10? For Thunderbolt? You are DREAMING. You can't even get a decent USB2 hub for $10.
God forbid you carry around an inch long adapter in your laptop bag. Is that too much for you?
Oh and here's some adapter prices for you:
http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10428&cs_id=1042802&p_id=5311
http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10404
LOL, are you kidding me bro? Do you think USB 3 peaks out at it's max 5 Gbps? YOU are the one dreaming if you believe that. Here's some more evidence for your FUD:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCz_c_rDAXw
USB 3 would completely choke in that situation let alone in a simply hard drive speed comparison. Give me a break. Here's another example for you to look at for some REAL WORLD USB 3 speeds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrtwtSjzjZI
In reality with USB 3 you get about 480 Megabits as opposed to the promised 5 Gpbs meaning Thunderbolt will be even faster than two times.
So you are just ASSUMING that they will cost $250 more than USB 3 drives. OK, let's make that clear. You have no evidence to support that your $250 price difference has any validity other than the fact that FireWire drives were more expensive when it's already been explained twice and back why Thunderbolt won't be as 'exclusive' as FireWire. It's going to be on every Ivy Bridge chipset just like USB 3.0 is. Everyone's going to be using it, it's another checkmark for them to list. Why do you think PC manufactures still sell machines with eSata?
LOL, words can't describe how wrong you are. You think HDD speeds cap out at 480 Mbps? Maybe in your 'practical world' where you enjoy using inferior technology because it's 'what you're used to' that's the case. But for everyone else Thunderbolt will be a massive performance gain. Let alone when external SSD's really start hitting the market. USB 3 will really be proven for the piece of trash that it is and get wasted on all bandwidth comparisons. USB 3 is capped at a theoretical transfer rate of 5 Gbps. Thunderbolt is currently at 10 Gbps and can scale up to 100 Gbps in the future.
Same relative performance? LMAO
Thunderbolt is suited for the future of high data transfer speeds that SSD's are capable of. Who wants the bottleneck to be the port on their computer? Because that's all USB 3 is going to be.
Your 'practical world' when you were just talking about how no one will pay a premium for USB 3. Well the reason why no one's going to pay a premium for USB 3 is because it's a garbage update over USB 2.0. Thunderbolt will scale to the future. USB 3 is going to be trapped in limbo no matter what new peripherals come out down the road and given that it took them 8 years to release it a couple of years down the road when Thunderbolt is scaling even faster than USB 3. The only thing USB 3 is going to be used for down the road is nothing that USB 2 couldn't handle.
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You keep talking about a non-existent adapter that costs $10 and comparing mini-display port adapters that merely convert signal paths isn't even in the same realm as converting to an entirely different interface. In other words your 'adapter' prices are 100% BS and you know it.
Don't tase me bro!
Seriously, you going to compare a demonstration with a professional mass storage array that isn't available to the public yet and which I said at the bottom of my last post is a perfect use for TB (i.e. with professional editing software) with the Lacie consumer grade 5200 RPM SLOW USB3 drive? Dude, you have to compare apples to apples. You're comparing a race car to a Chevette.... That neither proves nor disproves anything about the full capability of USB3. The ad on that box is marketing BS about the "interface" not the drive they're selling (which is a slow 5200 RPM SATA drive which all top out between 40-60MB/sec PERIOD, regardless whether they use SATA, USB3, Firewire 800 or Thunderbolt). Show me a 7200 RPM (or better yet a 10,000+ SCSI rated) drive connected to USB3 AND TB (or even FW800) and then compare their actual speeds. OR find an array that goes fast like the one Intel was using that also has USB3 on it and compare their actual speeds 1 to 1. Showing me Steak Diane on one plate and a hot dog on the other doesn't prove the cook who made the hot dog doesn't know how to cook. It simply proves he was given a hot dog to cook.
In reality, you need an actual hard drive test that makes sense not comparing a Porsche to a lawn tractor....
No more than you assuming you're going to get a $10 USB3 adapter. At least my assumption is based on Firewire statistics and early adoption rates. Yours is based on dreaming.
I think the 5200 RPM 2.5" drive that came with my MBP capped out around 50MB/sec using a SATA II interface (or 450mbps). Does that prove my SATA chip set SUCKS? NO, IT DOES NOT. When I replaced it with a 7200 RPM Hitachi, it now caps out around 110MB/sec (or 880mbps, well above FW800's theoretical cap even). Even my PPC G4 gets 105MB/sec caps with its 1.5TB 7200 RPM Seagate Barracuda drives (and SATA does eat CPU as well; if I try to run two of them at the same time I still get a total of around 100MB/sec with the CPU pegged at 95-100%. The older PCI bus is also in the way. Thus it's not the SATA interface there that's the problem either, but you might think so if you make assumptions based only on one test number and no idea what's in the computer being used or any statistics about the CPU or Bus while its being used. Your YouTube videos comparisons are absurd in that regard. Cheap mass storage devices (like the Lacie) aren't made for performance. Show me TB making that same drive do over 100MB/sec. It won't happen.
I never said any such thing. I said they won't pay a premium for Thunderbolt for every-day use. If you're just going to lie and change what I said, I won't bother replying anymore.
USB 3 won't be a premium over anything. It's going to be dirt cheap and a simple performance upgrade for everyone. It already is cheap for new computers and a pretty cheap add-on for existing ones; you cannot add TB to existing computers so there's another problem it has to contend with, especially trying to get a large user base in any reasonable length of time. The longer it takes to get a large installed user base, the longer the prices will stay high on any TB products. It's plainly obvious that TB is going to be a high-end niche product just like FW800, at least for the forseeable future. While Intel's demo is totally cool, it doesn't remotely represent the AVERAGE PC user in any shape or form. Most people aren't editing 4 simultaneous streams of 1080p video on a mega-buck professional high-speed drive array.
I have NO problem with TB technology or its usefulness in certain applications. I do contend that most people aren't going to give a crap about it one way or the other since their computers will not have it or need it for their everyday uses. More to the point, most computers (save maybe those from Apple) will have ALSO have USB3, allowing the user to make the best possible choices for their needs. USB3 will not fail or go away simply because it is a cheap upgrade to USB2 that is fully backwards compatible. Computers will have it just for that reason alone even if the user doesn't make good use of it.
IF TB ever achieves mass acceptance, it will be years into the future. It takes time to build a user base on a totally new technology. USB3 is a simple dump and replace and still works with everything USB2. TB works with NOTHING that already exists (save a few Mini-display port monitors and that's only because it carries Mini-display port video signals). The fact that Intel plans to do USB3 alongside TB on their next chipset shows even they understand that TB is going to be high-end/niche product for some time to come.
I have said in the past that IF Intel had used the USB3 style connector and essentially had USB compatibility + MORE bandwidth THEN they might start appearing on everything. But they chose instead to use a connector that is hardly on anything (but newer Macs) and that isn't much different than starting over with a totally new connector and no compatibility with anything (outside breakout boxes that are essentially PCI cards in a box). When it comes down to it, TB is basically the entire PCIe bus on a single external connector.
Did you miss the USB to PS2 ports or are you just avoiding that? Are you also avoiding how I said it's too difficult for you to carry around an inch long adapter?
LOL, the drive he was using WAS 7200-RPM so I'm not even going to bother reading the rest of this paragraph.Don't tase me bro!
Seriously, you going to compare a demonstration with a professional mass storage array that isn't available to the public yet and which I said at the bottom of my last post is a perfect use for TB (i.e. with professional editing software) with the Lacie consumer grade 5200 RPM SLOW USB3 drive? Dude, you have to compare apples to apples. You're comparing a race car to a Chevette.... That neither proves nor disproves anything about the full capability of USB3. The ad on that box is marketing BS about the "interface" not the drive they're selling (which is a slow 5200 RPM SATA drive which all top out between 40-60MB/sec PERIOD, regardless whether they use SATA, USB3, Firewire 800 or Thunderbolt). Show me a 7200 RPM (or better yet a 10,000+ SCSI rated) drive connected to USB3 AND TB (or even FW800) and then compare their actual speeds. OR find an array that goes fast like the one Intel was using that also has USB3 on it and compare their actual speeds 1 to 1. Showing me Steak Diane on one plate and a hot dog on the other doesn't prove the cook who made the hot dog doesn't know how to cook. It simply proves he was given a hot dog to cook.
http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?id=10492
See above.In reality, you need an actual hard drive test that makes sense not comparing a Porsche to a lawn tractor....
Your assumption is based on comparing two different technologies and assuming they will fare the same. My assumption was comparing ADAPTER prices. How expensive do you think adapters are?
You can get them for super cheap if you know where to look.
Once again, YOU ARE BASING THIS ON PRESENT DAY SPEEDS THAT ARE ACHIEVABLE. This isn't a discussion about current theoretical limits, it's about the limits of the future because that's where these technologies will actually matter. The fact is that when we move to SSD transfer speeds USB 3 will get demolished.
"640kb ought to be enough for anybody."
I never said it would go away. It said it will be used for the same things USB 2 is used for which is low bandwidth peripherals like mice which you don't need USB 3 for which is why it is essentially a useless upgrade.
Yes, believe it or not we are talking about the future and the future for Thunderbolt looks a hell of a lot better than the future of USB 3 since it isn't locked at a certain bandwidth. Technology moves fast. The reason Intel decided to support USB 3 is simply because it is (as they said) complimentary to Thunderbolt. Once again you use Thunderbolt for things that need the speed and you use USB for low bandwidth peripherals.
It has USB compatibility, hell it has compatibility with pretty much any IO on the planet. The connector is simply a means to an end and it scales much better for the future when said port is smaller.
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You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how those adapters work. Going from thunderbolt to USB 3 would require active electronics embedded in the adapter. The $6 MDP to HDMI adapter is just copper internally because the signaling is compatible from the source.
Again, you have a fundamental flaw in your argument that you're not addressing. It doesn't matter if the bus is capable of delivering massive speed when the source is incapable of serving data fast enough. Any single-drive enclosure that is currently available will be incapable of maxing out a USB 3 connection.
When they contain active electronics, they get expensive. Apple's own MDP to dual-link DVI adapter is a great example, at $99.00. USB 3 and Thunderbolt are not electrically compatible, and therefore it is impossible to have a simple copper-only dongle that has a TB port on one end, and USB on the other.Your assumption is based on comparing two different technologies and assuming they will fare the same. My assumption was comparing ADAPTER prices. How expensive do you think adapters are?
You can get them for super cheap if you know where to look.
Then why do you keep pointing to that article as proof that USB 3 is incapable of reaching it's theoretical maximum?
USB 2 is the universal standard for high speed devices. If you think otherwise, you must have never used a USB thumb drive.
Thunderbolt in a copper implementation is capped at 10Gbs. For higher speeds, the physical connections become impractical for "normal" devices, which is why Intel designed TB as a transport bus, say for a single cable between a tower and a monitor, which would then break the TB bus back into it's component protocols, including USB 3.
Which as I said above, makes it practical for a transport bus. For replacing USB? Not so much. Backwards compatibility alone will likely dictate the continual presence of USB 3 ports on virtually every computer for years to come.
Is it "difficult" to carry an adaptor? Of course not (weight and size wise).
But in real life, you run into situations where you don't have it on hand. Like the noon conference at my residency program where we had problems with the laptop on which an attending was to give a presentation. One of the other residents had a MBP and volunteered its use, but...no DP adaptor to connect to the projector. I can only imagine how many times that scenario must occur each day at businesses, etc.
It's a poor solution compared to having USB 3 built in.
So did you miss the USB to PS2 adapters I posted?
Again, any single drive enclosure doesn't need USB 3 and that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the future, a couple of years down the road there will be affordable external SSD's and you will have an SSD in your machine and the only bottleneck is going to be your connector.
Wow, you are using an Apple adapter for price comparisons.
Apple sells mini-display port to HDMI adapters for $30 when you can buy them for $5. Find a better example.
Uhh, I'm not? USB 3 has overhead and I've yet to see it actually go its maximum, when have you ever seen USB 2 reach 480Mbps?
You may have never used a USB thumb drive? L.o.l.
USB 2 is TERRIBLE at high speed data transfer, 'standard' or not. A PS2 port could still be standard for all I care.
The copper implementation is limited only by the cable and not the port.
I never said it would replace USB. I said they compliment each other. I said USB 3 is hardly needed as all of the heavy lifting is done through Thunderbolt then you leave the low bandwidth peripherals (that USB 2.0 was capable of handling) to USB 3.0.
In real life you should carry around your laptop in a bag or sleeve that has everything you need in it. USB 3 is not a necessity and the majority of devices will continue to be USB 2.0 compatible as well before 3.0 takes off and Thunderbolt steals all of the high bandwidth peripherals.
I refuse to waste any more time arguing with someone that doesn't understand what he's talking about and thinks a niche format will rule the world in short order and that adaptors are 10 cents on the dollar for complex new high speed connectors. Good luck arguing with this guy. I'm done wasting my time.
Yeah, I said Thunderbolt would take over the world when I said that USB and Thunderbolt were complimentary.
Thunderbolt for high bandwidth, USB for low bandwidth.Yeah, super complex high speed adapters that we've seen done time and time again in an affordable manner.
Glad you're done arguing. Clearly you only had two points to try and refute and it would be embarrassing for you to just leave the rest of my previous post with no replies.
Yeah, I said Thunderbolt would take over the world when I said that USB and Thunderbolt were complimentary.
Yeah, super complex high speed adapters that we've seen done time and time again in an affordable manner.
Glad you're done arguing. Clearly you only had two points to try and refute and it would be embarrassing for you to just leave the rest of my previous post with no replies.
I suppose it depends on practicalities and average user needs.
We know, in general, these days especially, Apple is aiming at the large non techie market. This area I cannot really see benefiting from Thunderbolt.
Myself, I love the latest spec, and would be happy to have thunderbolt.
It all depends on prices, and need for the speed. If most devices for most people don't need the speed, then I guess it won't be fitted, and it will remain a high end niche system.
For me, sure yes, let's fit it on everything. I just doubt in reality it's going to happen, and if it does remain high end only then is there much point in fitting it to mass market devices for the average joe in the street?
These protocols last like a decade. 60 MB/s is slow today, can't imagine it being bearable in 5-10 years.
Yeah, I said Thunderbolt would take over the world when I said that USB and Thunderbolt were complimentary.
Yeah, super complex high speed adapters that we've seen done time and time again in an affordable manner.
Glad you're done arguing. Clearly you only had two points to try and refute and it would be embarrassing for you to just leave the rest of my previous post with no replies.
No, it's more like I'd get banned if I really said what I thought. I'm clearly dealing with someone that knows very little about USB.
You have to admit this thread is really funny.
How many times have we heard Apple lovers say it's not all about "specs" and the general public are not interested in "specs" and rubbish others when they say how much better spec their PC might be.
And yet, now that Apple has the high specs, all of a sudden THIS IS the most important thing.
No average consumer is ever going to notice the difference between USB3 and Thunderbolt, in fact USB3 will be better for the general user experience as it's backwards compatible.
But now, sod the typical consumer, the only thing that matters now is specs.
Oh, you have to laugh don't you
It is par for course.
Just like we didn't need quad core cause it was too hot for no benefit. Or we didn't need 3G in the 2007 iPhone cause WiFi was good enough. Or that we don't need LTE cause HSDPA+ is fast enough.
It's something I observed as well. It's an entertaining phenomenon
Specs only matter if you have them.
My laptop has USB3, but until I get a USB3 flash drive I don't think it'll ever be used to its fullest.
It would be pointless until an iPad/iPhone came out that supports Thunderbolt. The current dock connector is limited to USB 2.0 speeds.
I stop reading everything you said after this statement. You are clueless dude. Go back to school or finish school or jsut stop typing.
I think I would have rather held off for one of those oppsed to this sandy bridge and this thunderbolt.
I have a job, a wife and a kid and you want me to go back to school when I graduated college five years ago? All because I said to buy an adapter that WILL be cheap when/if it's necessary to have one?
Whatever helps you feel like you're more accomplished.
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