Question about Thunderbolt 4 cable into Thunderbolt/USB 4 port

[MK25toLife]

Hello, I recently got a Thunderbolt 4 cable. I am still old school and like to back up my 500GB iPhone 15 Pro to my Macbook Pro 13-inch, M2, 2022. It turns out my MBP does not have a Thunderbolt 4 and has only two USB 4 ports.

When I tried to back up my phone with the new cable, it didn't really seem like it was all that much faster. Is this b/c I am going into a USB 4 port rather than a Thunderbolt 4 port? I got the new cable b/c I wanted to be able to back up my phone a lot faster but since my MPB doesn't have a Thunderbolt 4 port, is the cable essentially useless for what I want it for?

 

[joevt]

There's no difference between Thunderbolt 4 and USB4 on Apple Silicon Macs except for maybe the number of displays you can connect to a single USB-C port.

I don't think any iPhones support USB4/Thunderbolt 4. The USB-C port of an iPhone supports USB 3.2 gen 2x1 10 Gbps.

Open System Information.app on the Mac. Search for the iPhone in the USB tab. It should say it's connected at 10 Gbps. Look for the iPhone in the USB4/Thunderbolt tab. I don't think it will be there.

 

[MK25toLife]

There's no difference between Thunderbolt 4 and USB4 on Apple Silicon Macs except for maybe the number of displays you can connect to a single USB-C port.

I don't think any iPhones support USB4/Thunderbolt 4. The USB-C port of an iPhone supports USB 3.2 gen 2x1 10 Gbps.

Open System Information.app on the Mac. Search for the iPhone in the USB tab. It should say it's connected at 10 Gbps. Look for the iPhone in the USB4/Thunderbolt tab. I don't think it will be there.

Thanks for the response, i am still confused though because in the compatibly section for the thunderbolt 4 cord below, both my iphone and mbp are listed. Am i missing something here?

Thunderbolt 4 USB‑C Pro Cable 1 m - Apple

Apple Store Search Results

www.apple.com

 

[PaulD-UK]

Apple's info for the iPhone 15 Pro:

• USB‑C connector with support for:
• Charging
• DisplayPort
• USB 3 (up to 10Gb/s)
• USB 3 cable with 10Gb/s speed required
• ProRes video recording up to 4K at 60 fps with external recording.

If you want to benchmark the transfer speeds of your phone - which won't benefit from a Thunderbolt 3 cable - then do so according to Apple's specs.
That means benchmarking video file transfer speeds.

Nowhere has Apple suggested that they have optimised their Backup software to benefit from USB 3.2 Gen 2 10GB/s transfer speeds.
If fact Backup software, where checking the data transfer accuracy of a zillion very small files is essential, is the last type of software where speed is more important than accuracy.

 

[joevt]

The Thunderbolt 4 cable supports USB and Thunderbolt and DisplayPort modes (up to 20Gbps per line).

Your iPhone does not support more than USB 10 Gbps (1 line for 10 Gbps transmit, another line for 10 Gbps receive, leaving 2 lines for DisplayPort).

Your iPhone supports DisplayPort up to 4K60 which is either 4 lines of HBR2 (5.4 Gbps per line) or 2 lines of HBR3 (8.1 Gbps per line). I'm not sure which. Maybe it can do 4 lines of HBR3 but 4K60 doesn't require all that bandwidth.

 

[iStorm]

Thanks for the response, i am still confused though because in the compatibly section for the thunderbolt 4 cord below, both my iphone and mbp are listed. Am i missing something here?

Thunderbolt 4 USB‑C Pro Cable 1 m - Apple

Apple Store Search Results

www.apple.com

The compatibility just means you can use it with those devices. Thunderbolt cables are backwards compatible with older USB standards. It doesn't mean those devices use Thunderbolt or that it'll work at Thunderbolt 4 speeds with those devices.

Notice how the cable is also compatible with the iPad mini and base iPad. We know those definitely don't have Thunderbolt. The cable still works because of the backwards compatibility, but it won't transfer data any faster than a typical USB-C cable.

In your case, since the iPhone doesn't have Thunderbolt, you can save a lot of money by getting a USB-C cable that supports USB 3.2 Gen 2 instead.