I think we knew that even before this announcement. I suspect that the Firewire ports will be removed from Macs in 2012, probably about the same time that they remove the optical drives from the remainder of the MacBook line.
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Thunderbolt Details Emerge: Bus Power, Mini DisplayPort, and More
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You also dont have the issue of trying to shove a mDP connector in upside down....USB's connector design is just silly.
But is Thunderbolt pure pci-e? or is there some buffering or other stuff the may add some lag to the video card card link? also can the video card out put to the mini DP side?
also how will the mac pro tie it's add in video card to the Thunderbolt bus take 4 off the x16 pci-e lanes to pull it off?
For at least the next version of the MacPro due this summer/early fall, I think it will retain it's standard video cards with Mini-displayport connectors, but will probably have 1 or more TB ports on the back. There are motherboards out there with dual x16 lanes in addition to many x1/x4 etc lane slots, so adding a few lanes just for the TB ports shouldn't be that tough.
In the long run it's a good question though. I think this IO was more designed with portables in mind, but the ability to be added later to motherboards for desktops. Once adaptors are available, I think FW and USB ports will be dropped from all macs. This is a refresh or two out. Apple hopefully knows people like me who buy MP's for work have a TON of legacy equipment (FW, USB, Fibre Channel) being used that isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
Firewire all over again.
Lightpeak sounded like such a good concept when i first read about it, a universal cable with overwhelming speed... i could see every cable inside of the computer being lightpeak, a single cable onto the computer to power the whole thing, the network cables, the hardware connection cables, tv's hi definition audio.
now i just see another technology that missed the boat, usb 3.0 has been around for a few years and it's only just now scratching the market, firewire was a flop and it was faster than usb for ages, now "thunderbolt" is going down the same way, apologizing for saying this in a apple related forum, intel missed the boat by not talking to microsoft about starting integration of win7 with lightpeak tech a few months back, seeming has sp1 was just launched and all.
microsoft will always push usb... and it's being slow has crap to introduce... has pretty has it sounds either something changes or it's going to flop..
ramble off
Lightpeak sounded like such a good concept when i first read about it, a universal cable with overwhelming speed... i could see every cable inside of the computer being lightpeak, a single cable onto the computer to power the whole thing, the network cables, the hardware connection cables, tv's hi definition audio.
now i just see another technology that missed the boat, usb 3.0 has been around for a few years and it's only just now scratching the market, firewire was a flop and it was faster than usb for ages, now "thunderbolt" is going down the same way, apologizing for saying this in a apple related forum, intel missed the boat by not talking to microsoft about starting integration of win7 with lightpeak tech a few months back, seeming has sp1 was just launched and all.
microsoft will always push usb... and it's being slow has crap to introduce... has pretty has it sounds either something changes or it's going to flop..
ramble off
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No new drivers are required, so what, exactly, is it you wanted Microsoft to "integrate?"
It will be good to see this on the MacBook Air. It is not as necessary on other hardware but still helpful
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Absolutely not. I have an old macally USB keyboard that does that. As well as the earlier apple keyboards on the g3s and g4s. Where do get your ideas?
Absolutely not. I have an old macally USB keyboard that does that. As well as the earlier apple keyboards on the g3s and g4s. Where do get your ideas?
I don't care, the best news is the frenzy whipped up, fanboys emptying their wallets as my stock skyrockets. It's good to be heavily invested for as many years as I have.
Pays for more toys than one can dream of.
Well looks like we have 1 external HDD RAID ready out of the gates and its already featured on the Thunderbolt page at Apple.
http://www.promise.com/storage/raid...lobal&m=192&rsn1=40&rsn3=47&statistic=pegasus
Pegasus Thunderbolt Technology DAS
Specs boys & girls:
Oh yes I'm DEFINITELY going to upgrade!
Now should it be the 13" or the low end 15".
I'm not sure I can wait to see what the next MacBook generation will be. Right now I'm VERY worried that a $300 less MacBook will have essentially the same specs as the 13" or without the Thunderbolt port support and with FW800. Got a feeling that's EXACTLY what Apple will do.
At the moment though I seriously wanna kick Mr. Mansfield in the NADZ for yet again giving the 13" a shoddy IGP only solution. It's THE BEST selling machine Apple has so why do they continually cripple it?! I'm sure it's sales have dropped. I don't want the larger size that the 15" brings either.
1. If SSD prices drop for 256GB considerably (say $100-150US from current pricing) along with more consumers/business purchasing these directly from Apple.
2. Less error reports of SuperDrive going forward.
3. More log reports showing SuperDrive use dropping significantly - submitted to Apple via OSX reports.
4. More developer, consumer, business specifying NO MORE SuperDrive requirement and more weight loss for better portability.
5. Western Digital, LaCie and other accessory manufacturers going gung-ho with their products using Thunderbolt!
These all happening in the next 9mths will bring a case redesign across the board with dual Thunderbolt ports can be accomodated on all machines.
http://www.promise.com/storage/raid...lobal&m=192&rsn1=40&rsn3=47&statistic=pegasus
Pegasus Thunderbolt Technology DAS
Specs boys & girls:
Oh yes I'm DEFINITELY going to upgrade!
Now should it be the 13" or the low end 15".
I'm not sure I can wait to see what the next MacBook generation will be. Right now I'm VERY worried that a $300 less MacBook will have essentially the same specs as the 13" or without the Thunderbolt port support and with FW800. Got a feeling that's EXACTLY what Apple will do.
At the moment though I seriously wanna kick Mr. Mansfield in the NADZ for yet again giving the 13" a shoddy IGP only solution. It's THE BEST selling machine Apple has so why do they continually cripple it?! I'm sure it's sales have dropped. I don't want the larger size that the 15" brings either.
1. If SSD prices drop for 256GB considerably (say $100-150US from current pricing) along with more consumers/business purchasing these directly from Apple.
2. Less error reports of SuperDrive going forward.
3. More log reports showing SuperDrive use dropping significantly - submitted to Apple via OSX reports.
4. More developer, consumer, business specifying NO MORE SuperDrive requirement and more weight loss for better portability.
5. Western Digital, LaCie and other accessory manufacturers going gung-ho with their products using Thunderbolt!
These all happening in the next 9mths will bring a case redesign across the board with dual Thunderbolt ports can be accomodated on all machines.
You forgot to mention that the MacBook Pro's don't have Blu-Ray drives *lol*
Because someone will confuse Thunderbolt for USB. I remember back in the SCSI days; I got sent to do an on-site repair job at the University. Some genius had plugged a Parallel cable into the SCSI port of their Mac and wondered why it wouldn't print. Those were the days.
Forgot to address this earlier but the idea was to have it do both, more like the old Printer/Fax-Modem ports. The current implementation is already two standards in one. We'd may've had two high speed thunderbolt ports if the USB consortium played nicer.
That's what I initially gathered from the initial answer. The other implementations would kill probably adoption rates, esp. since it's only one year to wait for x10 times the performance. My question was if Thunderbolt's trancievers would slow things down or how things would work. If I had an optical port, would I need separate cables to get maximum benefit out of the optical implementation and daisy chain copper stuff at the end? Will there be some sort of power station for self powered devices if that's the case? While the new port is by far superior to the others, it kinda seems like Intel's jumping the gun here. I still don't see the point in having 10Gbps on an external port if the internal hard-drive where all your primary data, inc. the O.S. is stored can't keep up (Even SATA III's slower, right?) and it looks like backwards compatibility's going to be somewhat more complicated than USB's plug and play.
It's really too bad that they don't have the physical spec. ready now so they could just design all the ports to pass through the optical signal, whether they actually used it or not. I really think full length Copper/Optical should at least be optional for power users who need to use both their features, with cheaper single purpose wires for specific applications.
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1 minute of Red One 4K RAW footage takes roughly 17-19GB, so a 30 minute film takes up anywhere from 510GB to 570GB.
It records 12MB files 24 times per second.
This makes the MBA relevant for many. The prime reason I've held off on a MBA, and been holding onto my 17 uMBP is the ExpressCard slot.
Hardly. FB/LP does not power external hardware. USB3 is still the fastest practical protocol for bus powered external hard drives. One cable is all you need. eSATA and FB will require at least two.
I still don't understand the economic case for USB3.
It only does short runs, it can't handle device to device communications, only device to peripheral.
Most High Bandwidth workflows are team situations, certainly the ones with resources to pay for new tech are. So USB3 is the bandwidth really useful for?
Lower bandwidth device either offer enough value to add a battery and go wireless or are already mature with no value to add over USB2 in which case they aren't going anywhere.
I guess we need to see what Thunderbolts device to device restriction are but if the controller is feeding pure PCIe which already has a MAC layer built in it should be no issue at all to have two computer talk to each other or share a drive just like Firewire can.
In which case Thunderbolt and Wireless will only compliment each other in the same way Wired vs Wireless are always compliments with a bit of cross over.
If you look at the office situation where there has been a move to situational spaces instead of fixed work spaces in a lot of businesses. Then having thunderbolt monitors connected to the heavy lifting gear in the server room for concentrated workflows. While everyone is armed with a wireless tablet or laptop so they can move freely as adhoc teams develop to meet a demand. Need to do some heavy lifting plug your portable into the Monitor and bingo it's just like you have a monster machine on your desk. Without the wasted resources.
The battle will be Thunderbolt Optic vs Ethernet.
FB? If you're talking FireWire, then it does provide significantly more power than USB. So does Thunderbolt (what you're still calling LP), which provides even a bit more than FireWire. In fact, Lacie's new Little Big Disk that will be Thunderbolt powered is a two-SSD RAID that's fully bus-powered, so 500GB of really fast storage with only one cable. And that's a situation that can really take advantage of the speed that Thunderbolt offers.
In fact, I'd bet we'll be able to see (if manufacturers choose to) desktop drives that are bus-powered using Thunderbolt, something USB can't even dream of. Bus-powered USB drives are a fairly recent development, and a number of them still use a dual cable to achieve it, though of course the better quality ones have worked around the issue by simply reducing the amount of power they need.
jW
Nope, their level of commitment will never be the same as with TB, a technology that they themselves pioneered with Apple.
It was a big Media Markt, and I visited specifically the external HDs section - in fact, 90% of the drives there are USB 2.0 only, plus a few with FW 800 or eSATA - if they had one with USB 3.0 it was too much.
Haven't had the time to check this, but will let ya know in case I find something about it.
checking with my favourite online store
funny how the majority of intel chipset motherboards for sandy-bridge desktops (for preorder) support USB 3.0
intel: 11 out of 15
Asus: 14 out of 14
gigabyte: 7 out of 9
MSI: 12 out of 15
so 44 out of 53 at one store (all intel chipset equipped mind you)
so currently that's 83% of the new 1155pin sandybridge motherboards feature USB 3.0 ...
and i counted 32 different external harddisks supporting USB 3.0
if it hadn't been for the stupid sandy bridge sata bug then there would be multiple hundred thousands motherboards already delivered
Not native support, and not relevant stats since TB has just been launched.but yep, I hear ya:
http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/24/intel-promises-native-usb-3-0-support-someday/
This sounds like the same "strong" commitment that John Sculley expressed in his open letter to Apple // users back in 1989 or so...that Apple would actively support that platform "for years to come", and not just the Macintosh...
other question, I'll mainly use my MBP for presenting videos, photos and presentations (via mini display port adapter to VGA) with a standard beamer. How is that going to change with the new thunderbolt?
It doesn't change at all. Your old adapter will still work.
For your previous question, you'll have to buy Thunderbolt-equipped peripherals to enjoy the new speed.