Thunderbolt Details Emerge: Bus Power, Mini DisplayPort, and More

[fpnc]

Engadget has posted a story on Thunderbolt, and they say this about forward compatibility with optical:

...the port you'll find in new MacBook Pros and storage devices can actually take an optical cable when those are cost-effective enough to roll out, because Intel will eventually bake the optical transceivers into the cables themselves.

Now, that's pretty cute, but I don't think it will allow speeds over 10Gbps with the current ports. Still pretty nice, but I wonder how expensive that type of cable will be?

 

[diddl14]

My problem with the current implementation of Thunderbolt is that I fail to see how it can deliver an image signal to an high res.

I guess it depends on the definition of high res. The current 27" Cinema display with 2560x1440 would take up less than 50% of the TB bandwidth. That leaves about 5Gb/s for upsteam and still 10Gbit for downstream. In a setup where that becomes a bottleneck I assume there is some budget for a MacPro with (future) TB support.

 

[steveh]

Wouldn't 10gbps be 1250 MB/s??

10gbps = 10,000mbps
10,000mbps/8 = 1250MB/s

Or is my bit-to-byte math off somewhere?

You didn't account for overhead, things like start and stop bytes, etc.

 

[takao]

I don't think you get it. Thunderbolt and Mini DisplayPort are the same thing, now. Essentially, at least. The port is both. You can plug either or both into the same port, even at the same time (obviously not two connectors into the same port on the computer, but via daisy chaining).

jW

i get it thank you very much but i guess you are missing my point:

can i plug in USB 3.0 into mini displayport now with an adapter? because last time i checked that didn't work
on the other side _that works with TB_ and i also can connect a DP screen to TB .. so why again do we need mini DP if we have TB ? it's redundant

it's just that TB can do everything DP can do and then some:
so why not rather 2 universal TB connectors instead of 1 TB and 1 miniDP for which 99% of all people people need a connector anyway ?

 

[steveh]

So I just realized a serious flaw to this implementation....

I'm working away and then realize, hey I need to blog in my killer Thunderbolt drive... wait one momment while I UNPLUG MY DISPLAY? That's seriously bad user expereince... should of had two TB ports until displays are built with dual TB ports instead of DisplayPort....

Y-cable; one end to monitor, other free for random devices.

 

[jmull]

That video was definitely stuttering. Very interesting tech though.

 

[Jamo12]

I have looked everywhere for an answer to this, but can't find it. Is TB compatible with USB3?

 

[QuarterSwede]

Y-cable; one end to monitor, other free for random devices.

No, just plug in the drive to the display. Done.

I have looked everywhere for an answer to this, but can't find it. Is TB compatible with USB3?

Theoretically, yes. TB is basically just external PCIe with power. You should be able to pipe anything under 10Gbps through it.

 

[Gemütlichkeit]

That is extremely impressive. Seriously, leaps and bounds over anything else on the market.

 

[whooleytoo]

Not a single use, but many. The sheer amount of data you can pass over a single cable is insane. It's a limited number of TB devices, but each device can still have a hub inside that could offer FW, USB, eSATA, Fibre Channel and anything else that could work on a PCIe bus. If you think of one or two hard drives, yes, this is overkill, but pack a ton of devices off a single bus and things are good.

Definitely. Although, I don't know how many people have/want lots of devices daisy-chained to their Macs. Pros might, and I do - but I'm a geek through and through. I'm not sure if Apple would be making a fuss over it unless they say it as having a lot of appeal to consumers.

Most importantly, eventually we will have one cable to rule them all. Ok two, a copper powered version, and a high speed optical one. Same port though. No more FW 400 to 800 converter cables, no more DVI to VGA, just one cable that works with everything. Granted this utopia is a few years out.

Sounds great, but I'll believe it when I see it. I've heard the 'one socket'/'one cable' promise before and unfortunately it's never come to anything (USB probably being closest to an all-purpose cable).

The problem is - tech companies want USPs. They want unique selling points, not "we have the same sockets as everyone else", so it isn't surprising they can't agree on standards.

 

[Zobec]

How long before this comes to a Mac Pro? ...or

will I able to drop a thunderbolt PCI card into ANY current MAC pro without losing any bandwidth / read speed.....

Im a composer. For us orchestral guys its all about polyphony ( as in how many audio voices can stream from RAID disks at the same time) so this technology is BIG news for those of us who use huge sample libraries and need the ability to stream 1000s of voices @ the same time....

best,
SvK

This is what I would like to know, this is important if one has just purchased the recent 2010 Mac Pro. If it is not possible then this would also mean that the 2008,09 and 2010 are affectively cut off from this technology.

 

[rgarjr]

tb sure moves a lot of zeroes and ones quick.

 

[blueraja]

No, the heading says exclusive, in the body it just says Apple has a year head start. There is no exclusive period.

And no lightpeak doesn't look like USB, Intel was just using the USB connector for demo. going forward it will most definitely be using the mini displayport connector.

Ah ok i stand corrected...was just piecing things together based on what I was reading from this and an article today talking about dell doing something with it...

 

[vettori]

If you can find one display with 2 TB ports (or potentially a TB hub / dock) then I think the possibility could be there.

My dev station has a 30" and a 23" old cinema display (I don't like the glossy videos) but I'm using a software driver to connect a macMini as a display "server" for the 23".

I think it would be cool to just use the MPB, even with internal display turned off when connected to two ext displays but I'm not sure if the new MBP already supports this configuration...
Maybe a TB external video card would be ok too since Mac OSX already supports multiple video cards.

 

[weespeed]

Well according to Intel its Apple exclusive until late 2012 anyway, Thunderbolt that is, lightpeak is the other one that carries no power and looks like a usb connector. I sincerely hope the exclusivity thing wasnt Apple's idea...if so its a poor choice.

If I had to bet on it, I would guess is that this one will be DOA in the PC world. Its nice and all but if PC peripherals like external drives aren't going to be showing up for over a year it just means overpriced stuff from very few vendors for mac users. According to intel it cant be added to a machine via an card or anything and has to be built into the mainboard since it needs direct access to both the video and pci express architecture.

http://www.appleinsider.com/article...derbolt_as_exclusive_to_apple_until_2012.html

Intel just issued a press release saying Apple does not have exclusivity on TB.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/24/intel-refutes-apple-exclusivity-for-thunderbolt-i-o-lacie-and-p/

 

[slipper]

Let me get this straight. So in the near future we will have external HDDs with Thunderbolt. I would assume the HDDs would have two Thunderbolt connectors for the daisy chain? And if i have three HDDs and one HDTV, i would connect all three HDDs in a row then the last HDD would have a MDP to HDMI adapter? Does this sound correct?

 

[blow45]

so how is this first copper incarnation of the tech going to be compatible with the newer optical one about to come?

 

[MacAddict1978]

Another LaCie case that cooks your drives when the fan fails?.. no thanks.

LOL. I once loved Lacie drives. They tended to be competitively priced and they looked sexy.... but I'm back to ugly WD drive. Lacie is more like an easy bake oven. Shame because they were so durable (compared to this crappy WD that shakes in its case like eggs).

 

[Cougarcat]

Let me get this straight. So in the near future we will have external HDDs with Thunderbolt. I would assume the HDDs would have two Thunderbolt connectors for the daisy chain? And if i have three HDDs and one HDTV, i would connect all three HDDs in a row then the last HDD would have a MDP to HDMI adapter? Does this sound correct?

Yes.

 

[blow45]

Let me get this straight. So in the near future we will have external HDDs with Thunderbolt. I would assume the HDDs would have two Thunderbolt connectors for the daisy chain? And if i have three HDDs and one HDTV, i would connect all three HDDs in a row then the last HDD would have a MDP to HDMI adapter? Does this sound correct?

yeap, it does sound correct.

 

[whooleytoo]

A nice little detail I noticed in the Arstechnica article:

Furthermore, powered devices in the chain can pass 10W of power further down the chain if needed.

Could be very handy, especially if you mix 'n' match copper and optic fibre TB. If you have a few devices in two separate rooms, you can connect the devices in each room via copper TB thus needing just one power source in each room and connect the rooms via optic TB.

 

[ten-oak-druid]

This technology will be great. But it is being rushed.

In a year the standard will probably change. Perhaps a different port? Perhaps optical instead of copper?

I think there is a chance that we may look back at these new machines as the ones with the "old thunderbolt" port. Remember the original G4 towers that had the DVD burners? The ones that used a dvd in a cartridge? A year later the burners we recognize today were available.

It will all depend on how many devices using this connection come on line over the next year. If it takes a year for peripherals with this connector to become widely available then it won't be such a big deal to change it.

On another subject, once hard drives with this connector are available, people may rethink wireless connections for back up drives. Right now a time machine on the n-speed network is fast enough to forgo the direct wired connection. The ease of wireless compensates for slight speed reduction. That won't be the case with this connection. Back up drives will preferably be connected directly in order to take advantage of the speed.

 

[ten-oak-druid]

Let me get this straight. So in the near future we will have external HDDs with Thunderbolt. I would assume the HDDs would have two Thunderbolt connectors for the daisy chain? And if i have three HDDs and one HDTV, i would connect all three HDDs in a row then the last HDD would have a MDP to HDMI adapter? Does this sound correct?

Yes.

But can you have a hub with the drives and the monitor all connected parallel? If so I wonder what the rules are for daisy chains in parallel? Could you have three items in one chain and two in another ending in a monitor? Or does the monitor have to be at the end of the longest chain? I wonder about things being "hot swappable" if a monitor is involved too.

I know there are rules for usb and firewire but these appear a little more restrictive and remind me of the days of scsi somewhat.

 

[klittle32]

Can previous generation Macbook Pros support Thunderbolt?

My MBP from 2008 has a mini display port. Will it be possible to add support for Thunderbolt to it since it already has the right type of port? If so, how would one go about this?

 

[fpnc]

so how is this first copper incarnation of the tech going to be compatible with the newer optical one about to come?

This has already been answered in two of my previous posts, just read from the top of this page (8) or use this link: https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/11985661/