Maybe that'll help people to see why TB can be very useful:
http://www.viddler.com/explore/engadget/videos/2557/
http://www.viddler.com/explore/engadget/videos/2557/
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Thunderbolt to usb 3.0
- Thread starter Ryan Of Seattle
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"Thunderbolt technology will revolutionize mobile media creation. It's a game-changer and will accelerate our ability to build the highest quality video creation products that are affordable to everyone."
Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic
Also this is logical that we don't see a lot of Thunderbolt devices yet. Only a few selected manufacturers have access to the required specs and infos to build a Thunderbolt device.
The publicly available development kit for Thunderbolt is planned for Q2 of this year (which is this Spring, so shouldn't be long now, maybe an announcement at the NAB Show?
):
"We expect developer kits to be ready for distribution during the first half of Q2. Please check with your Intel sales representative for updates. " (Mark H @ Intel)
So we can expect a lot more Thunderbolt enabled devices for numerous hardware makers for the end of 2011 or at the very last for 2012. The industry, and particularly the professionnal audio and video industry seems to be quite enthousiastic for this technology.
First Thunderbolt devices will come this spring or summer from the selected hardware makers that got access to the TB specs early, like the Pegasus from Promise or the Little Big Disk from LaCie.
Note that, unlike Firewire, there is no royalty or licensing fees required to use Thunderbolt technology. This would certainly help a lot for the adoption of this technology.
The publicly available development kit for Thunderbolt is planned for Q2 of this year (which is this Spring, so shouldn't be long now, maybe an announcement at the NAB Show?
):"We expect developer kits to be ready for distribution during the first half of Q2. Please check with your Intel sales representative for updates. " (Mark H @ Intel)
So we can expect a lot more Thunderbolt enabled devices for numerous hardware makers for the end of 2011 or at the very last for 2012. The industry, and particularly the professionnal audio and video industry seems to be quite enthousiastic for this technology.
First Thunderbolt devices will come this spring or summer from the selected hardware makers that got access to the TB specs early, like the Pegasus from Promise or the Little Big Disk from LaCie.
Note that, unlike Firewire, there is no royalty or licensing fees required to use Thunderbolt technology. This would certainly help a lot for the adoption of this technology.
I've said this soo many times already. Thunderbolt is not made by apple, it has support from Intel, Apple, Sony and Some other big tech companies including HP i believe. Thunderbolt was designed as a port to replace everything; HDMI, DVI, USB, Firewire, etc etc etc. Intel has delibretely delayed USB 3, so it had time to introduce Thunderbolt, and how you people can call Thunderbolt dead when its not even a 2 Months old amazes me.
Thunderbolt - technology by Intel
Motherboards (PCs and Macs) - mostly technology by Intel using their chipsets
Thunderbird is at its nascent stage now. It's not going anywhere so long as Intel has the price/performance edge on the desktop and laptop.
Motherboards (PCs and Macs) - mostly technology by Intel using their chipsets
Thunderbird is at its nascent stage now. It's not going anywhere so long as Intel has the price/performance edge on the desktop and laptop.
What do I, the customer who pays Apple for their product, get in return for Apple's using only intel reference specs? Being a slave to Intel and traditionalism doesn't strike me, the customer, as a very compelling reason for not wanting a USB 3.0 port to replace any USB 2.0 ports I may already have. Thunderbolt's great 'n all but there's no reason I can't have it and usb 3.0 for multiple high speed connections, allowing me to hook up more high speed devices before hitting my maximum throughput. I wouldn't have upgraded quuiiite yet, 'cept I broke my iMac which at the current market value, isn't really worth repairing at this point in time for me.
Soo with this in mind, part of the reason I went with the 17" model instead of the 15" one is if in the event Thunderbolt's dead in the water, I can use the expresscard slot to utilize Caldigit's USB 3.0 offering without buying a whole new computer. The larger, higher resolution screen is nice but I already have an HDTV I can use to compensate for that loss.
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It's not going to kill apple to add USB 3.0. When Ivy Bridge comes out their computers will have it as it is supported in the chipset.
I don't think you can use a hub with thunderbolt; it must be daisy-chained which is a major disadvantage as all devices (if you want more than one) must have two ports (one upstream and one downstream). These ports must be thunderbolt to maintain this speed as the data is transmitted at the lowest supported rate (at that particular place in the line). This is going to require completely new devices and so thunderbolt won't be that popular or useful for a while. Another problem with a daisy-chain design instead of a hub design is that you are going to have to go hunting around you workstation for the right place to break the line when you add a device which may not be easy if you have 4 or 5 devices and they are under your desk. (faster devices need to be closer to the port for maximum speed: if a slow device is close to the computer on the chain it will slow everything down.)
Looking at how big the chip is and how much heat it produces I don't think we will see multiple thunderbolt ports on a laptop for a while.
It's a great feature but not without its usual drawbacks. I really can't think of a reason for apple to not give us all the've got (thunderbolt and USB 3.0).
I don't think you can use a hub with thunderbolt; it must be daisy-chained which is a major disadvantage as all devices (if you want more than one) must have two ports (one upstream and one downstream). These ports must be thunderbolt to maintain this speed as the data is transmitted at the lowest supported rate (at that particular place in the line). This is going to require completely new devices and so thunderbolt won't be that popular or useful for a while. Another problem with a daisy-chain design instead of a hub design is that you are going to have to go hunting around you workstation for the right place to break the line when you add a device which may not be easy if you have 4 or 5 devices and they are under your desk. (faster devices need to be closer to the port for maximum speed: if a slow device is close to the computer on the chain it will slow everything down.)
Looking at how big the chip is and how much heat it produces I don't think we will see multiple thunderbolt ports on a laptop for a while.
It's a great feature but not without its usual drawbacks. I really can't think of a reason for apple to not give us all the've got (thunderbolt and USB 3.0).
What i don't think you guys get is, Apple doesn't just use Intel Chipsets they have a contract with Intel, they can't put a third party chipset in that supports USB 3 anyway. Also if they went away from Intel and used different chipsets then they wouldn't have thunderbolt. Thunderbolt will catch on it is only a bit over a month old.
Newsflash: Thunderbolt by default needs completely new devices, which by default will have a 2nd port for daisy chaining.
Finding the end of a daisy chain is hard, you say? Really? All I can say is that I disagree.
Finally, I don't think that there will be a significant speed loss with a longer daisy chain. Admittedly, I have no sources to cite for this, but I think it's the case.
My point is that I wholly disagree with you.
However, I feel that Thunderbolt will sort of be a niche standard like what FireWire became. Only time will tell, though.
Not worth arguing but, with so many big name tech companies behind thunderbolt unless something really big happens which dwarves both thunderbolt and USB then I can't see thunderbolt becoming a niche standard.
I'm simply saying that a hub is easier to use than a daisy-chain.
Quite a few people will put little used but still important devices under their desk or somewhere where it won't be that easy to get to.
The requirement of completely new devices is going to slow thunderbolt's popularity in the market.
Quite a few people will put little used but still important devices under their desk or somewhere where it won't be that easy to get to.
The requirement of completely new devices is going to slow thunderbolt's popularity in the market.
I have an adapter on order so we will see how it goes
You have a link on where to order that adapter?
lets just put it this way, 2011 USB3 is the standard, 2012 thunderbolt and usb 3 are standard, 2013 thunderbolt will be sped up to 20GB/s. and usb3 will be dead. 2016, intel releases optic fiber cables with transcoders that allow 100GB/s over the same thunderbolt port we get now in 2011, short said. thunderbolt is future proof, USB3 is dead within just a few years. Eitherway ''most'' USB products will go wireless in the upcomming 3 years.
You are confusing GB/s and gb/s. One GB/s is 8 gb/s. Thunderbolt will have a maximum capacity of 100 gb/s not 100 GB/s when it is developed to use fibre optics. USB will almost certaintly be around years from now simply because it provides an easy, no nonsense way to attach low-bandwidth devices. USB 3.0 support will be coming out with the Ivy Bridge chipset (AMD will also add support).
Its also important to note that no matter how fast the data interfact is it won't mean anything if your computer can't handle the data. No difference will be noted in speed between 500 MB/s and 5 GB/s because your computer will not be able to handle it. Where is that data going? To your hard drive? It'll be a while before hard drives get that fast. To the internet? Can't transmit data that fast over wireless (which is becoming more common) even gigabit ethernet can only handle 125 MB/s.
Likewise, trying to send data through thunderbolt (say copying a file) even the newest SSD are limited to less than 500 MB/s.
By 2016 there may be a USB 4.0 or USB 5.0. Or new e-sata or new firewire, etc.
There was a 40x speed difference between USB 1.0 and USB 2.0 and a 10x speed difference between USB 2.0 and USB 3.0. There will likely be large increases in the future.
Are you sure you will even be using you 2011 computer in 2016? Most 5 year old computers today are not exactly cutting edge...
There are a small number of issues I have with that explanation:
To begin with, I'm not certain but I'd be a bit skeptical that the terms and conditions of Intel's agreements hold them back from using any third party hardware. Apple isn't using relabled Intel's X-25m Solid State Drives in their B.T.O orders for instance, cool as that would be.
Secondly, even if it is somehow in the terms and conditions, I don't want Apple signing business contracts that hold back their hardware specifications, unless there's comparably a tangible benefit passed down to me as a customer of roughly equivalent value. I don't know what that is precisely. My knowledge of their relationship outside of Thunderbolt is limited to statments to the effect that Apple has first pickings because being the biggest bulk buyer of Intel chips gives them some leverage to ask for that.
Thirdly, while that may (or may not as thunderbolt peripherals haven't yet materialized) eventually come in the form of early Thunderbolt access, the primary role Apple has in its development or at least so I've heard, was giving Intel the idea for Light Peak the first place. We very well could've had Thunderbolt without Intel, it's just that from a marketing perspective, Apple thought Intel might fare better in pitching it themselves than they themselves had with Firewire.
Finally this is moreso an issue with Intel than apple, USB 3.0 was officially supposed to be available by now but Intel postponed it. Intel should be somewhat understanding and lenient if Apple decides to make a change of plans for the computers of today. How much could Intel be gaining from Apple temporarily going with another controller when they're not offering an equivalent?
My main point is that from the customer's perspective, however it just so came to be, there appears to be little reason not to be disappointed with this turn of events. It's the end product we're buying, not the manufacturer's baggage.
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Because......there's actually USB 3 peripherals available to the consumer right now?
I have yet to find ANYTHING thunderbolt other than that stupid Lacie SSD raid 0 external.
What a disrespect to put that picture up. What's wrong with you?
Lacie makes fantastic raid drives and externals. I've had a Lacie 500 GB raid 0 FireWire 800 drive for 4 years now that can transfer 6.5 GB file in 45 seconds. This drive goes on the road with me, city to city, doing production work. Raid 0 on Thunderbolt will be fantastic! I would much rather wait for the Thunderbolt drive to come out that I want compared to coverting down to USB 3.0 Thunderbolt will cut that time down to 10 seconds or less. Twice as fast as an equal raid 0 USB 3.0 drive.
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I am fairly sure that I read about TB hubs coming out in the future future. There are also noises about TB --> USB 3 adaptors.
I have an adapter on order so we will see how it goes
no, seriously. where did you find this
Anything new on the Thunderbolt front? I'm thinking about ordering a new usb flash drive, maybe one with USB 3.0. I'd sure like a Thunderbolt to USB 3.0 hub so that I can take advantage of the faster speeds. Some of those new flash drives run up to 265MB/s!
