Intel unveils 10-gigabit Ethernet Thunderbolt Networking coming to Macs, PCs

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 67
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    "MacBook Pro with Retina display are equipped with Thunderbolt 2-compatible chipsets"

    Really?

    Really! Thunderbolt, just as FireWire and USB, requires a chip, or chipset, for their use. Texas Instruments made most of the FireWire chipsets, and Intel makes the ones for USB and Thunderbolt. Otherwise, USB is sometimes implemented on the chipsets for the bus and memory.
  • Reply 22 of 67
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by GadgetCanadaV2 View Post

     

    I got a new Mac Mini at work and transferred all my O/S, files and settings from my old Macbook Air over to it via thunderbolt 1. It took 15 minutes for a 256GB drive. The Mac interface to do it was so freakin easy and fast. Loaded up my Mac Mini and everything was right there. This is how computers should work.




    I've been "converting" a lot of users from Wintel to Mac.  They are not quite ready to go full OSX as we are all software developers that still have dependencies to Windows.  So we run all our macs with Windows as a virtual machine.  Another colleague bought his first iMac and we moved his 80GB Windows system as a virtual machine.  After firing-up his new iMac and installing Fusion, it took (I think) 9 minutes to transfer his system over, and he was up and running.  

     

    This is exactly how computers should work.  Apple makes it easy, and the competitors simply keep falling face-first on concrete from their own clumsiness.  

  • Reply 23 of 67
    rezwitsrezwits Posts: 878member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by blokey View Post

     

    No not so much.

     

    Cat5 / Cat6 / Cat6a etc are the quality (and type) of cable.  Higher speed networking usually requires a decent cable, but you can run 1000BASE-T with Cat5 perfectly fine.


    Yeah but you'll get 100Mb speed... I guarantee.  If you run CAT6 you'll get the 1Gb speed for sure!  I just re-wired all my machines to make such a difference, and I doubt I had CAT4, I am almost positive what I ran prior was CAT5, (custom job from my bro)... so, that's my experience.

     

    SAN! SAN! SAN! SAN!

  • Reply 24 of 67
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    negafox wrote: »
    Are you saying Apple popularized USB? I still remember the FireWire vs. USB war.

    There were a number of reasons why USB didn't work properly on Windows PCs. But when Apple came out with the first candy iMacs, they dropped their own keyboard connector and ports for USB. For whatever reason it was, it worked fine. That embarrassed Microsoft, which had promised that USB would work properly (finally) with Windows 98, but didn't. After Apple found success with it, Microsoft came out with a revision to 98 that fixed most, but not all, of the problems with USB.

    One reason it was an embarrassment was that Microsoft and Intel initially promised that it would work with Windows 3.1!
  • Reply 25 of 67
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    melgross wrote: »
    "MacBook Pro with Retina display are equipped with Thunderbolt 2-compatible chipsets"

    Really?
    Really! Thunderbolt, just as FireWire and USB, requires a chip, or chipset, for their use. Texas Instruments made most of the FireWire chipsets, and Intel makes the ones for USB and Thunderbolt. Otherwise, USB is sometimes implemented on the chipsets for the bus and memory.

    Yes and no -or- really and not really. Only the Late-2013 MBPs include TB2. The Mid-2012, Late-2012, and Early-2013 MBPs only have TB1.
  • Reply 26 of 67
    rraburrabu Posts: 264member

    Seems like Microsoft was researching this back in 2010 already... http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/144715/4208a109.pdf

  • Reply 27 of 67
    negafox wrote: »
    Are you saying Apple popularized USB? I still remember the FireWire vs. USB war.

    Apple bet the farm on USB, replacing the proprietary ADB, RS-232, and even floppy and SCSI ports found on older Macs, way back in 1998 when the first Bondi blue iMac shipped. And Mac OS X had full driver support for all standard USB devices classes (HID, sound devices, printers, etc).

    Meanwhile, PCs were still shipping with legacy PS2 mouse and parallel printer ports.

    So yeah, rewrite history as you see fit. Make the PC the star of the show.

    EDIT: year of first iMac was 1998, not 2001. And yes, Apple was criticized for adopting USB back then.
  • Reply 28 of 67
    bobjohnsonbobjohnson Posts: 154member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by rrabu View Post

     

    If you read the Intel press release linked in the article, this article has a few mistakes. First, this is not exclusive to thunderbolt 2; works fine with thunderbolt 1. Second, this is already available on Macs running Mavericks. What Intel is releasing is a PC driver bringing a compatible feature to Windows opening up PC to PC connections and Mac to PC connections; we can already do Mac to Mac.


     

    I think you read the press release wrong:

     

    Quote:


    At this year’s NAB show, Intel takes Thunderbolt 2 capability further, with the addition of Thunderbolt™ Networking, a new and exciting way to directly connect computers together with a standard Thunderbolt cable.


     

    That clearly points to a Thunderbolt 2 requirement. The Thunderbolt cable is common between rev. 1 and rev. 2, but the chipset is not. Your second point is right, though.

  • Reply 29 of 67
    rraburrabu Posts: 264member

    Video demo: http://on.aol.com/video/intel-thunderbolt-networking-demo-518187257 and I swear he said on both thunderbolt 1 and 2...

  • Reply 30 of 67
    And remember, FireWire was much faster than USB 1.1 standard of the 2000-2001 time frame, and Apple favored it for moving multi-gigabytes to and from external HDDs (like the original iPod). USB 1.1 was too slow for that.

    It's easy to criticize Apple in hindsight, but to Apple's credit, they began abandoning FireWire despite popular demand for it from Mac users. Apple had abandoned it on iPods years earlier. It's finally gone from Apple's laptop line, available only via a Thunderbolt dongle.
  • Reply 31 of 67
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    rrabu wrote: »
    Video demo: http://on.aol.com/video/intel-thunderbolt-networking-demo-518187257 and I swear he said on both thunderbolt 1 and 2...

    I see what you mean. His use of standard Thunderbolt and 10Gb connection make it sound like it would work on TB1 which also supports 10GiB/s in one direction.
  • Reply 32 of 67
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    And remember, FireWire was much faster than USB 1.1 standard of the 2000-2001 time frame, and Apple favored it for moving multi-gigabytes to and from external HDDs (like the original iPod). USB 1.1 was too slow for that.

    It's easy to criticize Apple in hindsight, but to Apple's credit, they began abandoning FireWire despite popular demand for it from Mac users. Apple had abandoned it on iPods years earlier. It's finally gone from Apple's laptop line, available only via a Thunderbolt dongle.

    And supported power which was important for the first iPod.

    I seem to recall that once iTunes for Windows arrived iPods were sold with both a FW400 and USB1.1 cable (as well as a PSU that had a FW400 port) which meant nearly all WinPC users had to sync with USB slowly and then change with FW400. Once USB2.0 was standard then Apple deprecated FW400 to only include USB2.0 cable and PSU, and then a couple years after that changed the pinout which made the FW400 chargers/cables on the 30-pin connectors no longer work, which was updetting because it offered more power than USB2.0 was even then cable of supplying.
  • Reply 33 of 67
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post





    Yes and no -or- really and not really. Only the Late-2013 MBPs include TB2. The Mid-2012, Late-2012, and Early-2013 MBPs only have TB1.

    Thanks! That helps. I did not know TB2 was on the latest MBPr.

  • Reply 34 of 67
    spacepowerspacepower Posts: 208member
    Interesting that no one has mentioned FibreChannel 4Gb/ or 8Gb/s. This Intel announce was made at NAB, the crowd that is the biggest user of FibreChannel, beside some data centers. I think Intel sees ThunderBolt2 as a potential replacement for FibreChannel.
  • Reply 35 of 67
    rraburrabu Posts: 264member

    Also, I have used this feature between 2 macs with thunderbolt 1 ports so do know that it works Mac to Mac with both TB1 and TB2. I'd assume that if Apple has a driver that works with both, then so would this driver from Intel. Also, if they are compatible so you can run an adhoc network from PC to Mac as stated, then the spec between Intel's driver and Apple's must match. However, it may be possible that Intel is only releasing this for TB2 on PCs...

  • Reply 36 of 67
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    rrabu wrote: »
    Also, I have used this feature between 2 macs with thunderbolt 1 ports so do know that it works Mac to Mac with both TB1 and TB2. I'd assume that if Apple has a driver that works with both, then so would this driver from Intel. Also, if they are compatible so you can run an adhoc network from PC to Mac as stated, then the spec between Intel's driver and Apple's must match. However, it may be possible that Intel is only releasing this for TB2 on PCs...

    Sure, you can connect two Macs via TB to do file transfer but was that specifically Intel's Thunderbolt Networking at 10Gib/s speeds? He states that it's supported in Mavericks. What protocol was used over TB in ML?
  • Reply 37 of 67

    It would be interesting to do a cost comparison between Thunderbolt 2 and Cat6A network wiring assuming a Thunderbolt 10G network switch will be released sometime in the future. One thing to consider is you would have to buy a Cat6A 10G NIC card for the computer vs having Thunderbolt built-in every mac computer.

  • Reply 38 of 67
    polymniapolymnia Posts: 1,080member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by rezwits View Post

     

    Yeah but you'll get 100Mb speed... I guarantee.  If you run CAT6 you'll get the 1Gb speed for sure!  I just re-wired all my machines to make such a difference, and I doubt I had CAT4, I am almost positive what I ran prior was CAT5, (custom job from my bro)... so, that's my experience.

     

    SAN! SAN! SAN! SAN!


     

    You may have had other issues with your existing cabling. Certain miswirings will allow for slower mbps speeds.

     

    It is true that Cat5 cable is capable of supporting 1000mbps in certain circumstances. I have this in my own home network. When I first began wiring my home 10 years ago, Cat5 was the standard. As I have upgraded Macs and Switches, my connections have automatically taken advantage of Gigabit speed.

     

    I'm expecting that with my short cable runs it may be possible to reach 10gbps once I have a Mac and Switch capable of those speeds.

     

    The thing is, the number of conductors and the fact that they are arranged in twisted pairs hasn't changed since Cat5 at least. So the speed is something the networking hardware negotiates upon establishing link using only the electrical characteristics the networking hardware can quantify. If both ends determine they can send and receive a certain speed over a given connection, they will settle on that speed regardless of the cable's rating.

     

    It is even possible that a wiring fault or poor quality installation could reduce a Cat6 cable to 100mbps or 1000mbps on a 10gbps hardware network.

  • Reply 39 of 67
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    It would be interesting to do a cost comparison between Thunderbolt 2 and Cat6A network wiring assuming a Thunderbolt 10G network switch will be released sometime in the future. One thing to consider is you would have to buy a Cat6A 10G NIC card for the computer vs having Thunderbolt built-in every mac computer.

    With Ethernet the problem isn't the cost of the cable, but the cost of the HW. As noted you can use Cat5e up to 45M but even Cat7 cabling is inexpensive compared to the cost of TB cables. It's the devices with the 10GigE ports that will cost you. Depending on your port to cable ratio you may be better off with TB.

  • Reply 40 of 67
    rezwitsrezwits Posts: 878member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by polymnia View Post

     

     

    You may have had other issues with your existing cabling. Certain miswirings will allow for slower mbps speeds.

     

    It is true that Cat5 cable is capable of supporting 1000mbps in certain circumstances. I have this in my own home network. When I first began wiring my home 10 years ago, Cat5 was the standard. As I have upgraded Macs and Switches, my connections have automatically taken advantage of Gigabit speed.

     

    I'm expecting that with my short cable runs it may be possible to reach 10gbps once I have a Mac and Switch capable of those speeds.

     

    The thing is, the number of conductors and the fact that they are arranged in twisted pairs hasn't changed since Cat5 at least. So the speed is something the networking hardware negotiates upon establishing link using only the electrical characteristics the networking hardware can quantify. If both ends determine they can send and receive a certain speed over a given connection, they will settle on that speed regardless of the cable's rating.

     

    It is even possible that a wiring fault or poor quality installation could reduce a Cat6 cable to 100mbps or 1000mbps on a 10gbps hardware network.


     

    What's weird is I had a NetGear 1Gb Hub with cable sense.  I had the 5 cables connected that my bro did for me and the Hub was negotiating them at the 100 BaseT (I didn't know at the time), the lights were saying they were 100 BaseT.  Then I went and had to buy 1 additional cable and I plugged it in and the light changed, at the time I didn't even know the Hub had different color lighting to sense the cable bandwidth.  I said why is this a different color from the other ports.  Then I said Mother Effer, those cables my bro got weren't Cat6, and the new one I got was Cat6, and the Hub lights were sensing the difference.  So I ordered from Monoprice all new Cat6 cable, and all the lights lit up signifying 1Gb.  The only thing I can think of is my Brother must have gotten me Cat4... No he got me Cat5, I think you are thinking Cat5e which supports 1Gb...

     

    Here is a chart I found:

     

    http://www.howtogeek.com/70494/what-kind-of-ethernet-cat-5e6a-cable-should-i-use/

     

    Laters...

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