Thunderbolt Cable Teardown Reveals Electronics and Firmware

[CFreymarc]

Not entirely surprising.

...

This is why the first thunderbolt peripherals are DAS RAID arrays and FCAL HBAs. This is stuff really intended for the professional market at the moment, not consumer devices, as there isn't a consumer device need for this crazy (yes, it's crazy!) amount of bandwidth. Not until production significantly catches up will things start to become cheap enough to make consumer devices.

There are a whole new generation of high frame rate, HD video that is going to take bandwidth like this and eat it alive. Watch.

This is why Apple is pushing Thunderbolt. Even in it's first incarnation it is an insane amount of overkill. It will not be quickly obsolesced.

It is going to go the way of SCSI IMO. That is a fast interface that is very complex but eventually is replaced by a connection of near speed but less complexity. The material science behind fiber optics has been uphill for the past thirty years. My crystal ball is that a sub-set of the USB 3.0 will challenge Thunderbolt but we are going to see both like USB 2.0 / Firewire for the next few years.

 

[keruah]

So I wonder how USB 3.0 works now, I bet it has no chip inside. I'm guessing Apple will be forced to adopt that too eventually, as they realize that every new device will support it. Or Apple won't support it ever, and it's just going to be a mess.

More speed = more processing power needed. It can cause problems. USB is old tech, it will have to be more like Thunderbold in future versions.

 

[libizboy74]

My .02 on TB

Here's what kind of annoys me...

So I wait forever to buy a 17" macbook Pro....

In the past, apple gave us everything the pc guys had PLUS the cutting edge stuff (you could get a usb floppy even before they went away)

In this case, the rest of the world is getting USB 3.0, which is now the common denominator....

Now I have the 17" pro, which I HAD to buy in order to get the expresscard slot, but it doesn't even have a card reader that the low end models have, so I end up with the expresscard taken up with that, and switch that out for a usb 3.0 expresscard... or an esata card (you never know what you might need in the field in the video profession), but now I can only use one of those at a time, until this ever talked about usb 3.0 TB adapter comes out...

Keep in mind this was $2500 worth of laptop....

This just seems like a huge step backward to me... should I have held out till Ivy Bridge?

Does anyone else feel the burn on this? Some weird decisions I think.

 

[kustardking]

Here's what kind of annoys me...

So I wait forever to buy a 17" macbook Pro....

In the past, apple gave us everything the pc guys had PLUS the cutting edge stuff (you could get a usb floppy even before they went away)

In this case, the rest of the world is getting USB 3.0, which is now the common denominator....

Now I have the 17" pro, which I HAD to buy in order to get the expresscard slot, but it doesn't even have a card reader that the low end models have, so I end up with the expresscard taken up with that, and switch that out for a usb 3.0 expresscard... or an esata card (you never know what you might need in the field in the video profession), but now I can only use one of those at a time, until this ever talked about usb 3.0 TB adapter comes out...

Keep in mind this was $2500 worth of laptop....

This just seems like a huge step backward to me... should I have held out till Ivy Bridge?

Does anyone else feel the burn on this? Some weird decisions I think.

I feel the burn. Creative use of mac hardware is 100% unsupported. Apple does it part by providing censored versions of technology to simplify life for the majority of users. I love Apple design, but feel quite the opposite about their decisions on feature inclusion.

 

[stylewriter]

Yes it is, but usb bandwidth is so small and cpu operations so simple, that you can't choke any modern cpu with usb transfers.
Problems with usb comes when something else chokes your cpu and then usb can't maintain the transfer rate.
Problems with usb3 transfers in OsX could also be caused by bad drivers.

The lack of DMA used to be a problem with USB1 until CPUs got so fast that the task was small. Then it became a problem again with USB2, until CPUs got so fast that the task was small. USB3 is here, and the lack of DMA is a problem again...

 

[Torrijos]

HomeMadeTest®

My machine :

• 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• OS X 10.6.8
• Transcend USB 3.0 ExpressCard Adapter
• LaCie Drivers
• Two LaCie Minimus USB 3 drives (1 & 2 TB)

Test taken just after rebooting the machines, no additional program running (besides activity monitor).
Before the test the machine has around 90% CPU idle (activity monitor running), then I copy a folder containing 6 .mp4 videos for a total of 4.5GB (the "test").
During the copy the CPU only has around 40% idle.
As soon as the copy is over the CPU returns to 90% idle.

Believe me, you can feel the charge on the computer, then again I new what I was getting into, but I was hoping that by the time I finally change computer Apple would have either adopted USB 3 or that some TB devices would have USB3 hubs included (like a screen maybe ^^).

Still my machine isn't that bad, I can play game like Half-Life 2 (not perfectly though) and the processes that bring it to its knees are usually heavier than a simple file transfer.

 

[toke lahti]

This is why Apple is pushing Thunderbolt. Even in it's first incarnation it is an insane amount of overkill. It will not be quickly obsolesced.

Can you please explain in a simple way, how is cutting the bandwidth of displayport to half, not quick obsolescence?

 

[doctor-don]

They would be OK, up to 3 1/2 (at 115MB/s sustained data rate per disk with the port specification real data rate of 400MB/s), a fourth disk (or other high bandwidth device) and you're underperforming. There is also the question of CPU utilization by USB which isn't nice... My machine is quite old but copying a file between 2 USB 3 drives and my core 2 duo MBPro slows to a crawl.

Sounds like you are using a USB 1.0 dock instead of a USB 2 dock.

 

[Torrijos]

Sounds like you are using a USB 1.0 dock instead of a USB 2 dock.

¿Dock? What are you talking about mate ^^

I've made a post detailing a few transfers I ran to confirm the situation.
Those were pure USB3 transfer, the data rates seen couldn't have been possible otherwise.

 

[toke lahti]

Before the test the machine has around 90% CPU idle (activity monitor running), then I copy a folder containing 6 .mp4 videos for a total of 4.5GB (the "test").
During the copy the CPU only has around 40% idle.
As soon as the copy is over the CPU returns to 90% idle.

Believe me, you can feel the charge on the computer, then again I new what I was getting into, but I was hoping that by the time I finally change computer Apple would have either adopted USB 3 or that some TB devices would have USB3 hubs included (like a screen maybe ^^).

I'm not sure if file transfer taking 50% of your cpu power should be a problem.
Or maybe only then when you need more than 50% to something else.
But when you are otherwise idle, taking half of cpu power should not slow your transfer or computer's functionality in any way.
Need for power could also be result of bad quality drivers, so they might get less power hungry in the future.
At least if usb3 gets popularity in macs and then there is financial interest within 3rd party. eSata EC's didn't get this and situation is pretty bad with OsX.

Usb gen has pretty closely a decade of prime time (or at least usb2 had).
We are now in the 2nd year of usb3, so I guess that in half life of usb3, drivers will work much better. Even if cpu power average does not increase because of lighter computers (Airs getting ARM etc.).

 

[Torrijos]

I'm not sure if file transfer taking 50% of your cpu power should be a problem.
Or maybe only then when you need more than 50% to something else.

The thing is even common usage, like moving the mouse over the dock magnifying it, suddenly becomes choppy.

Anyway, I came to say that a twitt from the guy from Anandtech said that a Promise 4-disks Enclosure with SSDs reached a 1GB/s data rate (which should be the max throughput possible with this implementation of TB due to overhead) around 2.5 times the real data rate of USB 3.

 

[KillerTree]

I really hope $50 cables don't become standard

 

[Bytor65]

I don't think the logic makes much sense. Include expensive electronics so you can use cheaper copper. That doesn't save anything.

You can get full duplex fiber optic cables with connectors for under $10.

It seems like they would have been better off skipping right to fiber. Now when they do get around to fiber, it will need the electronics in the cable again, not only that but that cable will need optical transmitters and receiver inside the every cable as well, making optical cables extremely expensive.

 

[John.B]

I don't think the logic makes much sense. Include expensive electronics so you can use cheaper copper. That doesn't save anything.

You can get full duplex fiber optic cables with connectors for under $10.

It seems like they would have been better off skipping right to fiber. Now when they do get around to fiber, it will need the electronics in the cable again, not only that but that cable will need optical transmitters and receiver inside the every cable as well, making optical cables extremely expensive.

Do we have to do your homework for you? Go look up what Thunderbolt does. Then come back and explain how you are going to power peripherals with fiber, or how much the additional hardware to support fiber would add to the cost of peripherals.

Eventually, Thunderbolt will support fiber (spoiler alert: it's already in the spec) but copper is the right approach today because it's less fragile, supports power, and will make it much easier on peripheral manufacturers. The optical stuff will eventually show up, but probably only on the high end storage arrays and video devices to begin with (similar to how server storage uses HBAs and optical today).

 

[Chrisg2014]

At least I know now why it cost so much. I thought it was just a wire. But now I know it's a Smart wire.

 

[ntrigue]

Just wanted to chime in and say the Apple Store has the Thunderbolt cable now for $49.

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

Right and Wrong.
No it wont be affordable for a while. Its been almost 10 years since the release of IEEE1394 FireWire 800 yet you still pay a fair bit extra for devices that support this. A firewire 800 cable on the apple store is 39.99.
Someone has to adopt it. True, its not a consumer product yet, but they have captured a pro market and I bet a lot of people who do video editing ARE running out to buy one.

I've a good shielded, very flexible, 3 meter length FW800 cable here, for 10 US$. It is not our fault, that you think you must buy such cables in the Apple (Online) Store. You can also buy RAM from Apple for 200 US$, or the same, mac-certified (Elpida or Samsung) RAM for just 40 US$ on the free market.