Thunderbolt Controller 10 Times More Expensive than USB 3.0

[Brink]

The way in which we shuttle files back and forth between our mobile devices and home PCs is changing, but changing to what? Just as the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 spec gets ready to be baked in natively to chipsets from Intel and AMD, both companies are also looking at Thunderbolt (Intel) or equivalent alternatives (AMD), but where USB 3.0 has an advantage is in cost.

Read more at:
Maximum PC | Thunderbolt Controller 10 Times More Expensive than USB 3.0

 

[Arc]

Nice new technologies !

 

[seekermeister]

USB 3.0 = $1, Thunderbolt = $10, a $9 difference. While I can understand how this would make a difference to a manufacturer, I really don't understand the last sentence of the article:

In any event, do you think a Thunderbolt port is worth paying a $10 premium for?

That makes it appear to be a significant factor for an individual's purchasing decision, but I don't see how it would tip the scales. From what I read, Thunderbolt is twice as fast as USB 3.0, and if that only cost $9 more, I have no doubt as to which I would choose...unless there is something else to consider.

 

[Layback Bear]

What would you plug into this new USB that would use the extra speed. Surly not a mouse, keyboard, printer or drive.

 

[seekermeister]

The article talks about file transfer speed. If one had an external USB hard drive, where they kept a lot of large files like videos, Then I would think that the extra performance would be quite noticeable. My video archive is connected via eSATA2, which is okay for one or two file transfer at a time, but when I have had to transfer a large number of files simultaneously, it can be quite tedious waiting.

 

[Layback Bear]

Is your hard drive able to handle those high speeds.

 

[seekermeister]

Never tried it, but I would like to. The worse that could happen is that it would bottleneck the speed. USB 3.0 max speed is 60MB/s second, so I would guess that Thunderbolt is ~120MB/s. That might push a SATA II's ability, but it shouldn't with SATA III. On my system, I wouldn't be surprised if some other component wouldn't bottleneck it.

 

[Phone Man]

Never tried it, but I would like to. The worse that could happen is that it would bottleneck the speed. USB 3.0 max speed is 60MB/s second, so I would guess that Thunderbolt is ~120MB/s. That might push a SATA II's ability, but it shouldn't with SATA III. On my system, I wouldn't be surprised if some other component wouldn't bottleneck it.

Thunderbolt is 20Gbps or 2.5GBps which is a lot faster then USB 3 and is a transport medium and can handle multiple protocols like PCIe and Display Port. It just depends of the controller chip as to what protocol can be used. Future versions will use fiber to greatly increase the speed. You can daisy chain up to 7 devices (if i recall correctly) on one cable so you could have multiple devices running different protocols on one port on you PC.

Jim

 

[seekermeister]

It should be noted that the speeds that I post were in MBs not Mbps. I'm not sure where your numbers come from, because according to this article the max Thunderbolt speed is 10Gbps:

Code-named Light Peak, the current copper-based generation of Thunderbolt boasts 10Gbps data transfer speeds between computers and devices--that is, twice the speed of current USB 3.0 throughput. Future iterations of the specification are expected to move from copper wire to a fiber-optic connection, which Intel has said could one day allow for throughput rates up to 100Gbps.

Up to speed with Thunderbolt (week in review) | Business Tech - CNET News

 

[GeneO]

You all ought to get your numbers straight, they are not correct.

The maximum USB 3.0 link speed is 5 Gb/s. The maximum throughput on USB 3.0 is 4 Gbits/s = 500 MB/s not 60 MB/s. You will probably get 400 MB/s at best in practice.

To Layback Bear - yes an USB 3.0 connected SSD or raid box can use all of that bandwidth. A single disk will run at full rate of ~120 MB/s instead of being limited to about 30 MB/s by USB 2.0, and it will be better for a portable hard drive in the end than eSATA as USB3.0 becomes ubiquitous. In addition, there are already USB3.0 jump drives available that can transfer at disk drives speeds - USB 3.0 has enabled this advancement.

EDIT: Compact flash cards now go up to 90 MB/s. USB 3.0 card readers (I have one) can read these out at full speed, which is great for Photographers with large images

 

[logicearth]

...unless there is something else to consider.

The price is per port. So two Thunderbolt ports would be $20 on its own. The price does not include the additional cost of the circuitry and microchips/transistors/capacitors on the PCB. If you only need one port then it might not seem like a significant deal of money. But it adds up quickly with more ports you add. Not to mention a 2 meter cable for Thunderbolt is $50 all by its lonesome.

 

[Phone Man]

It should be noted that the speeds that I post were in MBs not Mbps. I'm not sure where your numbers come from, because according to this article the max Thunderbolt speed is 10Gbps:

Code-named Light Peak, the current copper-based generation of Thunderbolt boasts 10Gbps data transfer speeds between computers and devices--that is, twice the speed of current USB 3.0 throughput. Future iterations of the specification are expected to move from copper wire to a fiber-optic connection, which Intel has said could one day allow for throughput rates up to 100Gbps.

Up to speed with Thunderbolt (week in review) | Business Tech - CNET News

Thunderbolt has two 10Gbs full duplex channels so that is why I stated 20Gbs.



Jim

Jim

 

[Layback Bear]

I do not know of any hard drive that can use this speed external or other wise. I have tried my ssd on 2.0 and 3.0 and can't tell any change. It might be my system. I don't really know. That being said. If Thunderbolt works as stated I want one or two, three.

 

[Dave76]

Thunderbolt may be a little ahead of it's time but will soon become useful, it will depend on the amount of useful product that come into the market.

The Current SSDs are saturating the SATA 6GB/s, the PCIe SSDs are starting to appear, Thunderbolt may be a stop gap for a while.
The Thunderbolt technology has room for increasing speed, with fiber optics but, will likely increase the price.

Don't see USB3 being adequate for very long.

 

[jimbo45]

Hi there
The debate about new technology always starts out in this fashion -- is it worth paying for or is it not.
Eventually --yes -- but when people want to have several TB of data on their portable music / video device.

For example when the tiny Micro sdhc (those one's that go into smart phones as extra storage) cards appeared even 8GB was expensive. Now 32 GB is quite common -- on such a tiny device too and I suppose people will want the 64 and 128 GB cards if and when they appear too.

(With these sizes it's now worth playing your music at CD quality as a lot of players will now play FLAC and 32GB gives you a decent amount of music LOSSLESSLY compressed via FLAC -- approx enough storage for 128 CD's at WAV quality !!!!!!!!!!). For those who don't know FLAC is identical to WAV - the only difference it uses a LOSSLESS compression algorithm whereas WAV is uncompressed. MP3's use a LOSSY compression algorithm which is why you will hear a lot of artifacts when using a decent set of headphones on say an mp3 track compressed at 128 kbs. Higher compression rates are usually not useable unless it's say purely speech like in an audio book.

Some technology won't make it because of other considerations --for example with USB 2 / USB 3 available everywhere as standard who uses or has even heard of firewire these days.

I'm sure as the price drops people will buy thesenew devices too. I'd certainly like to copy a full 1TB disk in a few mins if possible.

Just look at commercial servers -- these devices could SIGNIFICANTLY reduce backup or outage time --especially as cheaper RAID devices.

cheers
jimbo

 

[Lee]

Thanks to all who gave to this thread. It made for interesting reading. . .

 

[Qdos]

Thunderbolt, although I preferred Light Peak actually, is likely to develop into the networking side of things at a future point - so not only can you have drives and video links on it, but your entire intranet.

Right now there's no LAN hardware, but it's early days. I can forsee fibre-optic replacing internal LAN wiring within the next decade all the same, and todays data rates are tiny compared to where it could lead.

 

[Phone Man]

WD MyBook to use Thunderbolt

Looks like WD is getting on the Thunderbolt wagon.

WD's MyBook takes a Thunderbolt to the chest ? The Register

Jim