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SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Promises 10Gbps Data Transfers, Coming in 2014

tatonka said:
It is actually the article itself that is steering the discussion in this direction by putting the two technologies right against each other in another misguided attempt to put a spin on the story ...
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Yes, the MacRumors editors sure have their part to play in this rivality that exists only in the minds of some less informed Apple users. Even Intel's own staff is saying both technologies are complementary rather than competitors but yet, the Mac community keeps trying to pit them as rivals.

tatonka said:
That said. The majority of people don't care about the underlying technology, they compare what they can do with a device or what marketing promised them they could do. In the case of Thunderbolt it was ultrafast external disks, external graphic card among others. Little to none has materialized so far .. thus the grudge.
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Well, that's not quite true. We have had quite a few DAS enclosures that support TB that have been released. Promise, Drobo, LaCie and others have released their ThunderBolt products.

What is missing is the "consumer, should just be USB" devices that everyone thinks are coming for Thunderbolt. Of course those are missing, they are just not cost-efficient uses of Thunderbolt.
 
chabig said:
Exactly. We haven't seen 10Gbps USB3 cables yet. There is a good change they will require the same technology. That means they'll be pricey too.
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We've got 10Gb Ethernet over cheap Cat6e cable. Those aren't tuned, they can be any length between 0-100 meters and can even get away without shielding.
 
KnightWRX said:
Well, that's not quite true. We have had quite a few DAS enclosures that support TB that have been released. Promise, Drobo, LaCie and others have released their ThunderBolt products.

What is missing is the "consumer, should just be USB" devices that everyone thinks are coming for Thunderbolt. Of course those are missing, they are just not cost-efficient uses of Thunderbolt.
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That is what happens when one takes the PR crap too far. When Thunderbolt was introduced in the MBPs .. it was introduced as something a consumer could potentially benefit from. Like a MBA with an external graphics card.
The collaboration with Intel was always pushed just as the integration into PCs that has yet to happen in a standardized fashion.

Can't blame the people too want something, Apples own PR machinery made them want.
 
tatonka said:
That is what happens when one takes the PR crap too far. When Thunderbolt was introduced in the MBPs .. it was introduced as something a consumer could potentially benefit from. Like a MBA with an external graphics card.
The collaboration with Intel was always pushed just as the integration into PCs that has yet to happen in a standardized fashion.

Can't blame the people too want something, Apples own PR machinery made them want.
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The problem is Apple should have cleared it with Intel. Even in February 2011, Intel was saying Thunderbolt would be slow to launch and was not being made as a competitor to USB :

Intel Thunderbolt Rollout Won't Be Lightning Fast
[Jason Ziller, director of Thunderbolt planning and marketing], who was once chairman of the USB Implementor's Forum, said that USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt were "complementary." "We don't see this replacing USB," he said. 'We see it as complementary to USB... Intel will fully support and work with that technology."
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Like I said, after all this time, the products we've seen, the marketing done by Intel, the specification itself and what it is being used for, that people still don't get that Thunderbolt and USB are not in competition with each other is just appalling.
 
Honestly, what Apple needs to do is release their own accessories. A couple USB 3- Thunderbolt adapters, gigabit ethernet adapters, hubs, external pci slots, external graphics cards, and all at a reasonable price. That would actually allow Thunderbolt to flourish, and not be basically an unused port for vaporware.
 
iphone495 said:
I still prefer USB, much more widely adapted than TB.
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I also love how MR and other Apple-fan sites completely downplay USB 3.0 and other "pc technologies".
Thunderbolt, which moves data at up to 10Gbps in both directions, appears mostly on Apple devices currently, but devices tend to be more expensive than their USB 3.0-compatible counterparts...
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"tends to be more expensive"???? More like "ALWAYS MUCH MUCH more expensive." USB 3.0 external hard drives are about $12 more than their USB 2.0 counterparts...and are easily found in $100 external hard drives of 2TB and larger. And do 2.0-only drives even exist anymore? How much are TB drives? At least double...if not triple and quadruple the price of the USB 2.0 drives. Also, USB 3.0 and TB are designed for transferring large amounts of data...hundreds of gigs or more...so USB3 and TB are not used for mice, keyboards, and likely printers. They are going to concentrate on storage devices, and maybe as TB has tried, some kind of 1-plug-does-everthing thing.

A quick look at newegg.com shows 4 TB external drives for sale while 226 USB 3.0! And that's still years after both specs have been released. TB drives there start at 4TB (ok, cool...but how many consumers do you know need 4TB RAID configs for their external drive to save some music, pix, backups, etc?) and therefore start at $579...while USB 3.0 1TB drives start at $69, 2TB start at $109. We can't compare every single spec (mainly because TB starts so high in storage, price, and features) but how did the TB people expect to sell a product that most consumers don't need, can't afford, and are only for Macs? Sure, tell me the product is aimed at high-end, Mac-businesses, that NEED this kind of speed and what do you get? You get about 300 sales a year.

TB has been dying since the day it was released...mainly due to 1)insane costs, 2)extremely (and I mean extremely) limited number of devices (like 4) 3)Mac-only, 4)high-end Mac-only. It's been 2 years ago that TB was officially released and yet feels FAR longer than that due to all the hype in 2010 and 2009. TB may be adopted by some businesses that have high end Macs and have $2000+ to fork over to get higher speeds, but that's it. For the 99.99999% of the rest of the world, we'll use the USB 2.0 and 3.0 standard, that is so familiar with everyone and every single device on the planet. TB is and has been, dead.
 
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genovelle said:
The interesting part is that many PCs have HDMI connectors which take up more space, only do video and the cables cost the same amount. No one complains about that. Thunderbolt can support up to 7 devices including the video as well.
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Maybe because HDMI cables don't cost anywhere near $59? They're closer to $0.59 really. And come bundled with almost anything that uses them.
 
This is going to be good for USB, but I'm in the "it won't kill thunderbolt" camp. TB is the new docking solution (even though Mac laptops will never really be "dockable" like their PC counterparts.) USB simply can't offer that one slot connection to a display, keyboard, mouse, external drive, etc. that TB can.
 
apfeljonas said:
Honestly, what Apple needs to do is release their own accessories. A couple USB 3- Thunderbolt adapters, gigabit ethernet adapters, hubs, external pci slots, external graphics cards, and all at a reasonable price. That would actually allow Thunderbolt to flourish, and not be basically an unused port for vaporware.
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I don't think so. Apple's accessories may help a bit, but as long as it takes hundreds of dollars to use the connector, it's dead on the water. Someone needs to find a way to get it working at affordable price, or it'll take the way of Rambus RAM.
 
Rocketman said:
Hmmm. 2015. By then TB 2.0 fiber will be entrenched. Intel and Apple are both backing it and the other "standards" will be on the "many" PC's.

Oh wait. It's already shipping. 2013.

http://global-sei.com/news/press/12/prs105_s.html

Oops not 10gbps one direction. 20 Gbps two direction. Now. Services computers, devices, displays up to 7 daisy chained.
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lol. Just because Apple and Intel conjure up a standard doesn't mean the rest of the industry will follow suit. There is no precedent that superior interfaces or formats will catch on. Just look at Betamax or Firewire. I don't expect TB to catch on anytime soon, despite being superior to USB and encompassing DisplayPort.
 
iphone495 said:
I still prefer USB, much more widely adapted than TB.
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Right, and in 2015 you think TB will be in the same configuration? :eek:

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iReality85 said:
lol. Just because Apple and Intel conjure up a standard doesn't mean the rest of the industry will follow suit. There is no precedent that superior interfaces or formats will catch on. Just look at Betamax or Firewire. I don't expect TB to catch on anytime soon, despite being superior to USB and encompassing DisplayPort.
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LOL, only Apple and Intel. :rolleyes:
 
Cant wait for this but even at the current speed my choice is usb3 over thunderbolt. Thunderbolt is just too costly and tbh there really are not too many thunderbolt devices.
 
And...the death knell for the prospect of more reasonably priced TB products. Who was I kidding anyway - FireWire was always more expensive. My Firewire connection was always more reliable than USB 2.0, which says something about the technology, but there just comes a point when we have to cash in our chips.
 
Rocketman said:
Hmmm. 2015. By then TB 2.0 fiber will be entrenched. Intel and Apple are both backing it and the other "standards" will be on the "many" PC's.

Oh wait. It's already shipping. 2013.

http://global-sei.com/news/press/12/prs105_s.html

Oops not 10gbps one direction. 20 Gbps two direction. Now. Services computers, devices, displays up to 7 daisy chained.
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And just like traditional TB, this won't take off either. So what exactly is your point? Intel is half heartedly (and that's being generous) supporting TB. Just look at the motherboards out there with Intel chipsets. See how many support USB 3 and how many support TB. Then look at the cost difference.

chrisbru said:
This is going to be good for USB, but I'm in the "it won't kill thunderbolt" camp. TB is the new docking solution (even though Mac laptops will never really be "dockable" like their PC counterparts.) USB simply can't offer that one slot connection to a display, keyboard, mouse, external drive, etc. that TB can.
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TB doesn't need USB for it to die. It's killing itself with the asking price, which leads to minimal adoption which leads to minimal support. It's a niche product now, and will be even more so with time.
 
Thunderbolt will increasingly be king in the Apple world until there is a better replacement for data+video. That is going to be a very long wait - we are at the start of the Thunderbolt generation.

Its interesting what will happen in the windows world, a percentage of notebook makers will switch to thunderbolt for video (with data seen as a bonus feature), the rest will continue to use the existing ports or wait for a new cheap port? I can't imagine who would want to bring to market a competing premium video+data port to the mass consumer market.

USB 3 will of course come to mac, and will compliment the thunderbolt port. What comes after that is exciting, I hope its a single port that can do everything, and will be as generic as USB. Its entirely possible that could indeed be thunderbolt. And even more exciting is what comes after that, its nearly certainly going to be a wireless standard.
 
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