HP Chooses USB 3.0 Over Thunderbolt

essenbe · 23 May 2011

This is a quite new technology and has potential. However, USB 3.0 is a common standard that can be used by anyone. Yet, manufacturers of storage devices have yet make a concerted effort to build devices to exploit its real potential. I'm sure everyone knows that USB 3.0 is not a new technology, yet it's not fully utilized. In fact, this is the first year that motherboard manuf. have made an effort to simply put a USB 3.0 header on the board. I mean seriously, USB 3.0 is backward compatible. So why do we even have usb 2.0 ports on our computers. Why not all USB ports are 3.0. The point is, we have technology we have not even tried to fully implement. If light peak is to ever become a standard it will be sometime in the distant future.

Dave76 · 24 May 2011

Why do most mobos still have a floppy drive connector???
Because there are still people that will scream at the top of their lungs if they don't have one, I never could figure out why they don't leave them off the mobo and sell addin cards to the 0.002% that still want them. That way we don't have to pay for the legacy connectors for the 3 or 4 guys that must have it.

I was thinking the same thing, why have USB 2.0 when USB 3.0 is backward compatible.

Hope my next board will have only thunderbolt/Light Peak

With legacy USB 3 (no USB 2) and SATA 6Gbps x-overs to the thunderbolt interface.

Was happy to see floppy drives go, even though they went kicking and screaming - the users that is, next is the CD/DVD. Who needs that monster sized drive in a desktop and especially in a laptop, it can be replaced by something the size of your thumb nail.

The nice thing about thunderbolt is that it can incorporate legacy connectors until they fade away, won't have the speed unless the device is designed for it but, will be able to use them.
The internal interface can be all thunderbolt and you can still plug in that old USB device that someone likes so much, or floppy drive

Stratos · 24 May 2011

Apple has gone the way of providing Thunderbolt ports on their new Mac's, however I personally feel that like their instance with Firewire, the general consumer public isn't interested in having 3, 4, 5 different cables to connect their peripheral devices and USB, although not exactly the fastest or the one with the most available data bandwidth solves that issue simply by keeping it simple. Finding a device that'll plug into a USB port is like looking for an iPhone case, they're found everywhere. Looking for a variety of devices that'll connect via Firewire 800 or Thunderbolt, it'll be like looking for a case for a TMobile G2 phone... you won't have much of a selection to choose from.

10GB/s may seem amazing but no single device is ever going to get close to that sort of throughput, not even SSD's in any affordable and realistically priced manner will come close to using up all that bandwidth in the present day. So again it boils down to keeping things simple. Thunderbolt's a nice idea, I feel that it has merit with certain limited applications like those needing to interconnect high speed external RAID arrays and such (less than 1% of the total consumer market for home use ever purchase such items).

CreepinJesus · 24 May 2011

Stratos said:

...10GB/s may seem amazing but no single device is ever going to get close to that sort of throughput...

I think we're all missing the point here: PC cases could have 5 or 6, or maybe more, ThunderBolt ports, but the motherboard may only need one controller, as the total bandwidth of all the devices in those ports is still less than the 10GB/s that the controller can handle.

Maybe?

Dave76 · 24 May 2011

The idea behind thunderbolt is to be able to daisy chain all your peripherals together, this is why it has the 10Gbps capacity.
Light Peak, the original interface and likely the next step, will have up to 100Gbps interface, so in, say, 5 years we'll be able to use more bandwidth when required.
Unlike other interfaces, thunderbolt can move data in both directions. It can also be configured to connect via USB, firewire, SATA 2&3, eSATA, just about anything, which will make it acceptable, usable, for just about everyone.

No one will loose the ability to use their favorite connector, all legacy connectors will still be available.

Thunderbolts own connection is compatible with existing DisplayPort devices, the same connector as DisplayPort.

Extend to reach other I/O technologies by using adapters that use widely available PCI Express controllers. It's simple to create a Gigabit Ethernet, or FireWire, or eSATA adapters using existing device PCI Express drivers.

THUNDERBOLT™ TECHNOLOGY(link to information)

Developed by Intel (under the code name Light Peak). Thunderbolt technology is a new, high-speed, dual-protocol I/O technology designed for performance, simplicity, and flexibility. This high-speed data transfer technology features the following:

Dual-channel 10 Gbps per port
Bi-directional
Dual-protocol (PCI Express* and DisplayPort*)
Compatible with existing DisplayPort devices
Daisy-chained devices
Electrical or optical cables
Low latency with highly accurate time synchronization
Uses native protocol software drivers
Power over cable for bus-powered devices

Thunderbolt technology works on data streams in both directions, at the same time, so users get the benefit of full bandwidth in both directions, over a single cable. With the two independent channels, a full 10 Gbps of bandwidth can be provided for the first device, as well as additional downstream devices.

If they follow through with this technology it can be easily integrated into existing systems.

When the USB interface came out, many said "we have serial ports and parallel ports so who needs this interface, no one will ever be able to utilize that speed"

The USB is a standard for peripheral devices. A group of seven companies began development on it in 1994: Compaq, DEC, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC and Nortel. The goal was to make it fundamentally easier to connect external devices to PCs by replacing the multitude of connectors at the back of PCs, addressing the usability issues of existing interfaces, and simplifying software configuration of all devices connected to USB, as well as permitting greater data rates for external devices. The first silicon for USB was made by Intel in 1995.

That was 16 years ago, I think we can use something newer, better, faster.

It may or may not be thunderbolt, but we need something, soon.

The new SSDs are knocking on the SATA 6Gbps exit door already.