First Look: Inside Apple's fast new Thunderbolt port on MacBook Pros

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  • Reply 81 of 161
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Apple ][ View Post


    I'm glad that Mac users haven't been enjoying USB 3.0 for the past year, because Apple was smart and decided to move straight to Thunderbolt instead, which is superior to USB 3.0. Anyway, what's out for USB 3.0 anyway? It doesn't look like it's caught on exactly. I've always been skeptical of USB and even firewire 1 is better than USB 2.0 when it comes to real world usage. Good riddance to USB is what I say.



    It didn't catch on because Intel purposefully delayed implementing it into their chipset designs, artificially delaying it by more than 18 months after the spec has finalized, for the mere fact that Light Peak wasn't ready. This slowed the adoption of USB 3.0, since only AMD chipsets and add-in cards included USB 3.0, which eliminated most laptops from implementing it even if the device manufacturer wanted to, including Apple.



    Besides, I'm sure there are plenty of in-house studios standardized on Mac who would respectfully disagree about being "glad" they haven't been enjoying USB 3.0 for the last year on their Macbook Pros. Just sayin'







    Quote:

    But I like the view from up here.



    I guess you could say Apple's new Thunderbolt is... *sunglasses*... electrifying.... YEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHhhhhhhhh....
  • Reply 82 of 161
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Zandros View Post


    In any case I assume that this is basically external PCI-e.



    Apple finally gave us the 6 slot mac we asked for.. in fact they gave us 7 . Who, knew it would be a notebook?
  • Reply 83 of 161
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by NasserAE View Post


    Won't happen in 2012. You still need USB to sync your current iPhone



    But it will happen eventually.



    Actually, no. All you will need is a thunderbolt to 30pin connector. That is pretty much the point of thunderbolt, after all.
  • Reply 84 of 161
    The graphic in the article refers to "...Inte's PCI Express...." Someone may want to correct the spelling of "Intel."
  • Reply 85 of 161
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AIaddict View Post


    FW800 was not bad but it hardly caught on outside Apple and Apple dumped it like a hot potato(e).



    Dumped? I thought I saw it right there beside the ThunderBolt port
  • Reply 86 of 161
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by reliason View Post


    Actually, no. All you will need is a thunderbolt to 30pin connector. That is pretty much the point of thunderbolt, after all.



    True, but considering most of Apple's iPad, iPhone and iPod consumers are Windows users, and the older ports are still available on the new machines, I don't think we'll see that USB 30-pin connector disappear any time soon.



    Someday, though.
  • Reply 87 of 161
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by frugality View Post


    The lightning bolt icon is a bit decieving. Someone looking at it for the first time will assume that it must be the port for the power cord.



    Big issue since the power cord will fit and burn your laptop.



    Try the switch behind your ear, Brain ON;-)



    Didn't find it...sorry, can't help you there...
  • Reply 88 of 161
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by eswinson View Post


    Apple finally gave us the 6 slot mac we asked for.. in fact they gave us 7 . Who, knew it would be a notebook?



    Very true!
  • Reply 89 of 161
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by martimus3060 View Post


    I get the bandwidth thing, and with the intention to log all those peripherals on one bus, I reckon that's a good thing, but as to addressable speed, are there any disk/storage type devices that can "get up to speed" so to speak? SSDs have the capability but their controllers are for now limited in speed. Striped disk arrays (RAID 0) can also increase their throughput and boost speed, but both FW800 (with SATA drives) and eSATA are much slower than 10Gbps, so I'm still wondering where our improved performance (where the computer rubber hits the road) might come from? In other words, where are the new drive controllers that can boost the SSD or RAID 0 storage to this new capability? And what are they going to cost? Native Firewire drives never took off because of the expense of the controller.



    The latest Sandforce controller supports speeds of over 500MB/s per drive under certain loads. Two would saturate the SATA 6GB/s bus already. But having that and another device in the chain would make this worthwhile. If you use two SATA drives in their own cases, you coils still get to raid them, and will have faster speeds than one raid physically in the same case, using the one SATA port otherwise.



    Quote:



    No, I understand one port to rule them all, as I stated earlier. I also currently have multiple machines using multiple external Firewire hard drives, that are SATA based with SATA/FW bridge boards. If Intel and whoever don't have cheap controllers that scale the devices up to those speeds (The announcement mentions copying an HD movie in 30 seconds) then just like using a SATA/FW bridgeboard is the current implementation for external FW drives versus a native FW controller, we will have this neat speed thing, but limited access to it. So, while I am not predicting FAIL, I am wondering about where the speed is going to come from.



    Well, I don't use FW drives any more. Much too slow. If you're going to do this right with TB, you would need a TB case to put that SATA 6GB/s drive into. Every time a better interface comes out, we've got to dump our older stuff, like it or not.
  • Reply 90 of 161
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by frugality View Post


    The lightning bolt icon is a bit decieving. Someone looking at it for the first time will assume that it must be the port for the power cord.



    Spot on! In fact I've seen it used in devices as a warning to indicate live power.
  • Reply 91 of 161
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by yuusharo View Post


    It didn't catch on because Intel purposefully delayed implementing it into their chipset designs, artificially delaying it by more than 18 months after the spec has finalized, for the mere fact that Light Peak wasn't ready. This slowed the adoption of USB 3.0, since only AMD chipsets and add-in cards included USB 3.0, which eliminated most laptops from implementing it even if the device manufacturer wanted to, including Apple.



    Besides, I'm sure there are plenty of in-house studios standardized on Mac who would respectfully disagree about being "glad" they haven't been enjoying USB 3.0 for the last year on their Macbook Pros. Just sayin'



    Nah. USB isn't a much used professional interface, and that includes USB 3. it's mostly a consumer technology. Professionals mostly use FW for interfaces for devices such as D/A and A/D converters, midi, and other audio and video uses. They use SDI for higher end video, SATA and iSCSI for drives.



    USB 3 hasn't garnered much support for good reason. But TB will.
  • Reply 92 of 161
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by fishstick_kitty View Post


    I believe using copper in the initial implementation is a bad idea...because now vendors are going to build a bunch of devices assuming copper...not compatible with future "optical" versions...seems dumb.



    Intel said the connectors will remain copper and the new cables will be optical (the will have media converters in the ends like networking equipment does now) the optical cables will not carry power but will offer longer runs. They think they can hit the theoretical 100Gbs with optimized copper technology. It won't change the fact that these computers will forever remain at 10Gbs but the current devices may get a boost when a faster TB bus comes along without having to change their ports.
  • Reply 93 of 161
    nkhmnkhm Posts: 928member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by macinthe408 View Post


    How dare Apple adopt a new, unproven technology!



    Name one time in which they've succeeded in adopting (or eschewing) a new (or old) technology.



    Heed the words of Henry Ford, which I hear is imprinted on a marble slab on the ground in the foyer of Apple HQ: "If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse."



    Did I miss the </sarcasm> tag?



    The first to use a graphical user interface, the first to USB as the main connector, the first to drop the diskette, soon to be the first to drop the optical disk altogether, the first to bring a laptop computer to the mainstream market, the first to bring an integrated computer to market - the list goes on... and on... and on...
  • Reply 94 of 161
    bugsnwbugsnw Posts: 717member
    I like the daisy chaining and power features

    Love the fact that it's smaller than USB

    It has a definite 'one way only' shape for easy plug in



    A lot of good stuff going for this port. FW800 is clumsy as hell and wiggles around in the port. You have to look at it first before you attempt to plug it in. It's huge. We want thin kit.



    I hope Thunderbolt fits snug. Ethernet jacks snap in and you never have to worry about loose cables.



    This port seems to have a lot of advantages right out of the gate. Looking forward to using insanely fast disk drives in the near future. Most businesses back up daily and extra speed means quicker martinis.
  • Reply 95 of 161
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cmf2 View Post


    Picture this:



    Mac -> hub -> Cinema Display



    Now tape the the hub to the back of the Cinema Display and what do you have? Apple could do that internally on the display.



    New Cinema Displays wouldn't be DisplayPort devices, but rather Thunderbolt devices, so there's no worry about that restriction.



    All of you are not technical I'm guessing because otherwise it would be obviously Apple would set it up so that internally the switching signal to the display would be the last one passed.



    Hubs will have to operate this way too, if you have a hub type device that has several TB ports then the one for display will have to be specially marked & will have to be at the end of the line.
  • Reply 96 of 161
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Kidsilentt View Post


    when will bestbuy have the new macbook pros in stockk??



    Kid... please enable spell check on whatever device you are using to post. There are five spelling or grammatical errors (not including the two "t's" in your nickname) in that very short sentence.
  • Reply 97 of 161
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by jayparry View Post


    Good ol Inte.



    TYPO in the graphic much?



    Don't you just hate when that happens?
  • Reply 98 of 161
    adonissmuadonissmu Posts: 1,776member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Apple ][ View Post


    Hey, what happened to Intel's press conference about Thunderbolt which was supposed to start at 10 am pacific time?



    I'd rather see Thunderbolt in action instead of reading about it. Is nobody streaming it or reporting on it?





    Same here
  • Reply 99 of 161
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hezetation View Post


    All of you are not technical I'm guessing because otherwise it would be obviously Apple would set it up so that internally the switching signal to the display would be the last one passed.



    Hubs will have to operate this way too, if you have a hub type device that has several TB ports then the one for display will have to be specially marked & will have to be at the end of the line.



    Intel Has stated that the display will be the last one in the chain. Of course, there will be star topology, tree, and others as well
  • Reply 100 of 161
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SpiceWare View Post


    Really? I still see a FW800 port on all the new MBPs.



    They brought it back after the outcry.
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