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You have got to be kidding.

The majority of new retail PC motherboards now have USB 3, even some atom boards are getting USB 3. USB 3 peripherals are everywhere at the local department store, especially for portable drives. Have a look on ebay.

USB 3 is also cheap. I bought a USB 3 pcie card for $25 a little while back and an enclosure for $20.

I can't even find any thunderbolt upgrade cards (pcie) or peripherals.



I disagree. Just because it hasn't previously been integrated into chipsets doesn't mean its not successful.



In the consumer world, pretty much. FW800 enabled hard drive cases remained extremely expensive. FW800 flash drives never really appeared, likewise with most of USB's other peripherals.

I didn't say it wasn't successful, I just said it hasn't "taken off".

In the future, Thunderbolt is going to be used for high-end professional equipment as well as docks, and USB 3.0 will be for your usual consumer devices. They will complement each other.
 
Don't look at it that way. Look at it as increasingly becoming the new USB. Transitions take time, as every product has to shift to a new way of data transfer through new ports. In fact, TB was suggested as a way to eliminate many 'not needed' ports, not only does it integrate them in one but also surpasses USB 3.0 speed. Just give it time, you'll be glad you have it
 
wasnt thunderbolt ment to be daisychained? so why cant i hook up 3 normal HD's with thunderbolt?
Yes. But that's what FW already does. :D

Thunderbolt is a stupid interim technology and Apple had no business adopting it. You can tell how much faith Apple has in it by counting the number of TB adapters they've personally come out with to support it.

Oh wait... they haven't any. :eek:
 
The "thunderbolt vs USB" debate is becoming very tiresome.
Most people are missing the point here. TB was not invented to replace usb. Nothing is going to do that within the next 5 years at least. Instead, both will exist simultaneously for their own purposes.
And just to clear this up, yes TB is faster. It will be the fastest I/O that we have seen. But it will most definitely not be used on the "consumer" level.
Which is why, I should point out, the TB port premiered in the macbook PRO.
(pro stands for professional)
What many people are also forgetting is TB's ability to send multiple signals through one cable. Such as multiple HD video feeds, Sound, and transfer data all at the same time.
With a RAID configuration it is not unrealistic to predict that users will achieve close to the advertised maximum speeds that intel and apple have been talking about for TB products. And we can still stick to our regular HDD's for now.
Although these configurations will be expensive, they will no doubt offer unmatched performance to the professionals who require it.
-As does firewire 800 today.
 
Besides storage, what have we seen with USB 3.0? Just that unreleased bus-powered monitor.

What advantage does USB 3.0 have over FireWire 800 other than price? In fact, FireWire 800 still has lower latency/cpu overhead than USB 3.0. FireWire 800 is still preferred for real-time applications such as multitrack audio recording.

There are loads of cheap USB 3.0 enclosures and thumb-drives. We will eventually see USB scanners and printers, too. All backwards compatible.
 
That's because in order to take advantage of the increased i/o speeds of TB, SSD drives have to be used.


While SSD would be faster than a 'regular' HD, your statement is incorrect. If I used, say, a 7200 RPM SATA/6 Drive I would easily saturate the bus on FW800 or USB2 but TB would handle it very easily.

I am much more interested in non-SSD drives in an external TB enclosure for the simple fact that I need size more than speed. I would like to have a 600GB to 1TB 10k RPM SATA/6 Drive in a TB case to move data around. Even a 2 TB 7200 SATA/6 Drive in a TB Case would be great.

USB2 is just unusable for anything large and FW800 is pokey.

Worst case - I hope- is that a USB3 to TB converter becomes available.

-P
 
Let's just be realistic about this. The majority of consumers are still using USB 2 peripherals and just don't care that much about speed. If speed was what everyone cared about we would have seen FireWire take off like a bat out of hell. Now, USB 3 is growing slowly, as is Thunderbolt. Most people know nothing other than USB 2. It's pathetic, really.
 
USB3 has not taken off. There are only a few USB3 devices on the market.

If USB3 had only ONE device available, it would already beat Thunderbolt by default.


This whole USB3/Thunderbolt deal brings back memories of Sony and the Memory Stick Pro DUO for the PSP. People wondered why they didn't just use SD Cards or something standardized and readily available for fair prices (DUOs were prohibitively expensive when PSP first dropped. A 1GB DUO was over $100 if I recall)

Fast forward to 2011. The Memory Stick Pro DUO is synonymous with the PSP only. SD cards are still the dominant media for just about everything else, and their price is rock bottom.

I submit that we will see Apple slowly adopt USB3.0, but leave Thunderbolt in there for its own devices.
 
Fast forward to 2011. The Memory Stick Pro DUO is synonymous with the PSP only. SD cards are still the dominant media for just about everything else, and their price is rock bottom.

SD cards are dominant in the consumer space. Compact Flash still rules the professional space for the same reasons professionals still use FireWire.

Why the SD reader in the MacBook Pro? No idea.
 
SD cards are still the dominant media for just about everything else, and their price is rock bottom.

Interesting comment.

I own 3 Digital SLR cameras, 2 HD Camcorders, and not one of them uses an SD card.

I also have one older DSLR that has a Firewire port.


Sorry, I'm a noob, but I'm guessing that Firewire was supposed to take off, but failed to become popular? I was just wondering the other day what the heck that port was used for.


I use Firewire all the time.

FW800 for all my external drives and FW400 for my pro and even the pro-sumer level camcorders. I will note that I only use tape based camcorders because of their better image quality and the data is easier to edit.
 
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TB will be used to daisy chain and in video and audio editing because of its speed. maybe when the fibre optic version comes out and is as cheap as usb it will catch on more but basic consumers dont need that speed right now. usb will be used for mainly basic consumers. it will be the same as usb 2 but faster to accommodate newer technology which needs faster transfer like HD movies. its cheap and fast.

also for TB to catch its needs to use the same type of connection I/O port. which sounds like should be a mini display style. if every laptop has their own version then i cant plug in my TB hard drive to a friends computer who uses a different design which defeats the purpose. give until winter or spring and that will give a true answer
 
Interesting comment.

I own 3 Digital SLR cameras, 2 HD Camcorders, and not one of them uses an SD card.

I also have one older DSLR that has a Firewire port.

- Nintendo Wii supports SD card.
- MacBook Pro 13" and 15" support SD card.
- MacBook Air 13" supports SD card.
- iMac supports SD card.
- Majority of notebooks support SD cards.
- Most consumer grade camcorders support SD cards even if not the only flash format supported.
- HP printers support SD cards.
- Nintendo DSi XL supports SD cards.
- Can't think of a single smart phone that supports anything other than microSD these days (microSD being a form of SD card, mind you).
- Nook Color supports microSD.
- Every Android tablet supports SD cards.
- The Asus Eee Slate supports SD cards.
- The Asus Eee Pad Transformer supports SD cards.

Need I go on?

As I said, "just about" everything else. Cameras and camcorders, while a major market, are the exception.
 
Interesting comment.

I own 3 Digital SLR cameras, 2 HD Camcorders, and not one of them uses an SD card.

I also have one older DSLR that has a Firewire port.

Interesting comment there, the majority of cameras made these days use sd. It's only the middle tier dslr cameras that use compact flash only, I am referring to canon here. Canons top 1d cameras all have compact flash and sd. Compact flash is the exception here and not sd.
 
USB3 has not taken off. There are only a few USB3 devices on the market.

Lol... Funniest comment I have seen for a while, I guess the first ever TB device that gets released which I believe is a lacie hd with a SSS in raid and will cost a fortune will be a resounding victory for TB..... USB 3 all the way mate, every new motherboard made for the PC has this integrated, every single hd manufactured now has USB version of portable drives... This is not a war between TB v USB 3, one side has smack talked but never turned up...
 
Yeah I love TB to take off but so far USB 3 takes the cake on this one. I'd love to have TB storage and TB peripherals but I have this sinking feeling that its going to cost quite a lot more then the USB 3 devices out there and that will keep most of the market except for the high end professionals from buying into TB.
 
Thunderbolt Connected Monitors A Must For Apple

I think we're underestimating the average consumer with regard to their need for higher transfer speeds. I think the average consumer is not that guy in Wal Mart buying a $400 computer to just get online and send emails to Aunt Petunia. It's increasingly someone who is younger, with hundreds of GBs of music and maybe TBs of video.

For MBA-like computers to become Apple's platform for the future for these consumers, they need Thunderbolt to become a common port, at least on monitors. Since most MBA users probably also have smartphones, they already have GBs of music and photos available when they're on the move via cloud services. If they don't have that certain song they want to hear, document or photo they need, they can download it. But Apple still needs a solution for people who have these massive amounts of digital material they keep locally on large HDDs.

Upgrading and copying a drive with 1TB of data to a new 2TB drive sucks if all you have is USB2. These new consumers will jump on the first decent Thunderbolt connected monitor that has USB3 ports. If it has extra Thunderbolt ports, that's just icing on the cake.
 
Meh, FireWire 800 is already as fast as a 7200-rpm drive can take anyway. The only time you'll see speed advantages above FW800 is when you have an SSD in which case Thunderbolt will blow USB 3.0 out of the water.
 
Meh, FireWire 800 is already as fast as a 7200-rpm drive can take anyway. The only time you'll see speed advantages above FW800 is when you have an SSD in which case Thunderbolt will blow USB 3.0 out of the water.

You won't see any speed advantage with SSD. USB 3.0 can do 625 Mb/sec which no SSD can do.
 
Meh, FireWire 800 is already as fast as a 7200-rpm drive can take anyway. The only time you'll see speed advantages above FW800 is when you have an SSD in which case Thunderbolt will blow USB 3.0 out of the water.

would you like the dirt cheap 240GB SSD version or cheap 500GB SSD version both available in Raid 0?? Available this summer.

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10549

Lots of money to blow something out of water ;)

240 GB SSD are still very expansive! This is hardly an entry level setup.....
 
You won't see any speed advantage with SSD. USB 3.0 can do 625 Mb/sec which no SSD can do.

Just to be clear, while 625Mb/sec of data is theoretically possible via USB, not all of it is YOUR data. There's some frame packing going on which leads to a loss of useful throughput.

Just like all forms of data transmission, there is some overhead that has to be talked about.
 
Besides storage, what have we seen with USB 3.0? Just that unreleased bus-powered monitor.

What advantage does USB 3.0 have over FireWire 800 other than price? In fact, FireWire 800 still has lower latency/cpu overhead than USB 3.0. FireWire 800 is still preferred for real-time applications such as multitrack audio recording.

There are loads of cheap USB 3.0 enclosures and thumb-drives. We will eventually see USB scanners and printers, too. All backwards compatible.

Apogee thinks differently and they switched from firewire to regular old USB 2.0 and managed to lower latency in comparison to the Firewire 800 soundcards?
 
Yeah I love TB to take off but so far USB 3 takes the cake on this one. I'd love to have TB storage and TB peripherals but I have this sinking feeling that its going to cost quite a lot more then the USB 3 devices out there and that will keep most of the market except for the high end professionals from buying into TB.

There are some TB devices coming, but most of it is high end hardware which makes use of all the bandwidth. It's not cheap.

But be patience, they will come :D
 
You won't see any speed advantage with SSD. USB 3.0 can do 625 Mb/sec which no SSD can do.

There is overhead that comes with USB, and over the next 8 years (time it took them to release USB 3.0) there will no doubt be SSD's that surpass that speed.


would you like the dirt cheap 240GB SSD version or cheap 500GB SSD version both available in Raid 0?? Available this summer.

http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10549

Lots of money to blow something out of water ;)

240 GB SSD are still very expansive! This is hardly an entry level setup.....
Hardly an entry level setup? No ****! If you're going to need the speed of something in RAID 0 then you're not going to want to be using USB 3.0.
 
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