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Thunderbolt Hub? (Page 2)
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amazing
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Sep 30, 2011, 12:58 PM
 
It seems that even MacWorld is questioning the slow introduction of Thunderbolt devices:

Speedy Thunderbolt devices slowly coming to market | Storage | Macworld
     
Wiskedjak
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Sep 30, 2011, 08:26 PM
 
Originally Posted by amazing View Post
It seems that even MacWorld is questioning the slow introduction of Thunderbolt devices:

Speedy Thunderbolt devices slowly coming to market | Storage | Macworld
Sounds like Apple stuck Thunderbolt into it's machines about a year too soon.
     
SierraDragon
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Oct 1, 2011, 02:01 PM
 
Originally Posted by Wiskedjak View Post
Sounds like Apple stuck Thunderbolt into it's machines about a year too soon.
I don't think so at all. For years I/O has been a huge limiter for those of us dealing with images. Addressing that need preemptively in partnership with Intel was a very smart move.

A new box lasts 2-4 years so smart buyers plan ahead. When I ordered a new MBP in February Thunderbolt RAID, easy eSATA, etc. were not yet available for purchase, but the fact that I knew it would be was a big plus for the Sandy Bridge laptop.

Waiting a year might have been just enough lost momentum vis-a-vis USB3 to kill it. Or enough to make folks like me postpone upgrading. Thunderbolt helped sell a lot of boxes.

-Allen
( Last edited by SierraDragon; Oct 1, 2011 at 02:13 PM. )
     
SierraDragon
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Oct 1, 2011, 02:12 PM
 
Note also that (IMO) the top Sandy Bridge MBPs are the first ones to qualify as true desktop replacement (DTR) boxes. Without Thunderbolt the i/o limitation would prevent them from qualifying as true DTR. In one fell swoop Apple/Intel changed the DTR bottleneck from i/o to GPU and RAM.

-Allen
     
P
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Oct 1, 2011, 02:53 PM
 
I agree that the launched it as late as they possibly could, but I'm not so sure about the DTR thing. ExpressCard filled the same slot, to some extent.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Oct 1, 2011, 03:01 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
I agree that the launched it as late as they possibly could, but I'm not so sure about the DTR thing. ExpressCard filled the same slot, to some extent.
Yes - to some extent - but the mobile CPUs weren't nearly up to the task of DTR at the time.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Oct 1, 2011, 03:31 PM
 
Laptops have been replacing consumer desktops for years in terms of sales. Thunderbolt means they will replace even more. It also means Apple can shift ports, storage and the optical drive to a dock and make laptops even thinner and lighter without sacrificing power.

To the short sighted PC makers, thunderbolt is just another port. Once Apple shifts the MBP to an MBA type form factor they'll start to realise why it matters. The current MBA used with the TB Cinema Display is a good example and a fantastic DTR setup.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
imdipped
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Oct 1, 2011, 05:41 PM
 
How many times can you plug and unplug before wear becomes a factor on the MBA when connecting to a monitor?
     
P
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Oct 1, 2011, 06:14 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
Yes - to some extent - but the mobile CPUs weren't nearly up to the task of DTR at the time.
If you mean Arrandale, (the first Core i5/i7), then OK, they weren't up to Lynnfield - but the first Core Duo and Core 2 Duo were comparable to a desktop of the same era.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Oct 1, 2011, 06:55 PM
 
Actually, i was thinking of G4 vs. G5 machines, but the basic criterion for a DTR is "fast enough", and that hadn't *really* been achieved until the current quads.
     
SierraDragon
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Oct 1, 2011, 09:21 PM
 
First my definition of DTR: The ability of a mobile box to run a pro workflow with fairly heavy apps like Photoshop and Aperture.

IMO the main issues that prevented MBPs from being competent DTR in the last 5 years were:

• RAM. E.g. it cost me $400+ just to get to a max of 3 GB RAM in my 2006 C2D MBP. 3 GB RAM was inadequate for DTR even in 2006. Today I cheaply have 8 GB in my MBP which barely meets my DTR definition, but it can be upgraded to 16 GB RAM when needed so IMO it fully meets my DTR definition. I do expect to be pushing the 16 GB RAM limit by the time the MBP reaches EOL.

• GPU. Today at least, strong enough to meet my DTR definition. But for my most demanding app, Aperture, the GPU will probably be what primarily obsoletes this MBP in a few years. That is unless Thunderbolt easily allows retrofitting additional graphics processing in the future, which would then make RAM the bottleneck.

• Workspace. Meaning the connected mass storage to do the work: move batches of largish digital files quickly, provide fast Photoshop Scratch space, allow routine fast backup. Without multiple fast large drives on board, i/o becomes key, but with an SSD and by replacing the optical drive with a fast HD. today's mobile box can carry a fair amount of fast workspace on board.

• I/o. FW 800 connectivity works adequately for DTR but definitely is overall limiting. EC/34 allowed eSATA on 17" MBPs like mine, but folks like me use the EC/34 for fast CF card reading, and we need the hard drives i/o concurrent with the card reading. Today Thunderbolt RAID like the Pegasus makes mobile i/o fully DTR-competent.

-Allen
     
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Jan 2, 2012, 06:05 PM
 
Still nothing for older Cinema Display/FireWire users who want to get an Air?

WTF
     
amazing
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Jan 3, 2012, 06:16 PM
 
Well, the whole Thunderbolt availability thing is really, really, dismal...
     
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Jan 3, 2012, 06:54 PM
 
It will get better once Intel makes it a chipset standard. PCs are so far behind in some hardware respects. They still only have Firewire 400 on their boards.

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jan 3, 2012, 07:42 PM
 
Originally Posted by Big Mac View Post
It will get better once Intel makes it a chipset standard. PCs are so far behind in some hardware respects. They still only have Firewire 400 on their boards.
They have Firewire on their boards?
     
Big Mac
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Jan 4, 2012, 02:22 PM
 
Yeah, at least on the mid-range to higher-end PC boards have Firewire 400. Both of my Gigabyte boards (X58 and Z68 chipsets) have, at least.

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
     
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Jan 5, 2012, 05:30 AM
 
Firewire is reasonably common on OEM PCs as well, to connect video cameras, although it usually is the 4-pin Firewire 400 variant.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
Wiskedjak
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Jan 5, 2012, 09:21 AM
 
I'd say the only reason that Firewire survived for as long as it did was because PCs had them on their boards, though, it took several years after Apple started using Firewire for it to become common on PCs.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jan 5, 2012, 10:13 AM
 
Originally Posted by Wiskedjak View Post
I'd say the only reason that Firewire survived for as long as it did was because PCs had them on their boards, though, it took several years after Apple started using Firewire for it to become common on PCs.
No. It survived as long as it did because there was no usable successor able to replace it in studios and editing houses.
     
SierraDragon
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Jan 5, 2012, 11:26 AM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
No. It survived as long as it did because there was no usable successor able to replace it in studios and editing houses.
Yup.
     
Wiskedjak
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Jan 5, 2012, 01:26 PM
 
Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
No. It survived as long as it did because there was no usable successor able to replace it in studios and editing houses.
Sure. That, and a lot of people used it (more than if it were Mac only)
     
Waragainstsleep
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Jan 5, 2012, 03:13 PM
 
I've never seen anyone use Firewire on Windows. Including myself.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
amazing
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Jan 5, 2012, 05:09 PM
 
I used Firewire on Windows quite a bit, with 2 PCI firewire cards. It was the only way to bring video in from Canon camcorders.
     
P
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Jan 5, 2012, 06:05 PM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
I've never seen anyone use Firewire on Windows. Including myself.
So? How many people have you seen using the parallel port over the last five years? No, that's not ideal, there might be someone on a historic printer... Let's pick the serial port instead - how may on that? Yet they're still present on just about any desktop PC. Firewire is even on my work laptop.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Jan 5, 2012, 06:13 PM
 
I have had occasion to use the serial port on an Xserve on a couple of occasions.
Firewire isn't all that common on PC boards even now.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
SierraDragon
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Jan 10, 2012, 01:08 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
So? How many people have you seen using the parallel port over the last five years? No, that's not ideal, there might be someone on a historic printer... Let's pick the serial port instead - how may on that? Yet they're still present on just about any desktop PC.
LOTS of usage of parallel and serial ports continues in the PC world because the PC world is all about LEGACY hardware (flat scanners, drum scanners, bar code scanners, printers, receipt printers, line printers, medical devices, industrial devices, etc.) and software. When one has an expensive proprietary working hardware/software solution one wants replacement boxes to continue to seamlessly support that hardware/software workflow.

-Allen
     
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Jan 10, 2012, 02:05 PM
 
Originally Posted by SierraDragon View Post
I don't think so at all. For years I/O has been a huge limiter for those of us dealing with images. Addressing that need preemptively in partnership with Intel was a very smart move.

A new box lasts 2-4 years so smart buyers plan ahead. When I ordered a new MBP in February Thunderbolt RAID, easy eSATA, etc. were not yet available for purchase, but the fact that I knew it would be was a big plus for the Sandy Bridge laptop.

Waiting a year might have been just enough lost momentum vis-a-vis USB3 to kill it. Or enough to make folks like me postpone upgrading. Thunderbolt helped sell a lot of boxes.
Interesting you should say this, cuz I had just mentioned in my Belkin Thunderbolt docking station thread that I generally wouldn't recommend buying any high-dollar Mac until gets USB 3.

It's too much like the USB 1.1 + Firewire 400 days. Yeah Firewire 400 was good, but having both FW and USB 2.0 would have been way better, since Firewire 400 adoption was low. And that was at a time when Firewire 400 was way more popular than Thunderbolt is now.

BTW, having Intel behind Thunderbolt may help it, but it should be noted that even Intel has decided NOT to integrate Thunderbolt into its chipsets, so it's not as if it's going to get early widespread adoption on non-Apple boards.

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
I've never seen anyone use Firewire on Windows. Including myself.
It was quite common in the DV tape era. Sony really pushed it, for example. It helped sell their laptops since you could hook up their DV cameras to them.
( Last edited by Eug; Jan 10, 2012 at 02:14 PM. )
     
Waragainstsleep
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Jan 10, 2012, 04:39 PM
 
Oh I've seen it on plenty of PCs. Just never seen a PC owner use it. Most don't even know what it is, especially since Sony called it iLink.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
Eug
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Jan 10, 2012, 05:05 PM
 
Well, I'm talking almost a decade ago, not now. Firewire use by PC owners wasn't uncommon back then.

These days it's extremely niche though.
     
amazing
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Jan 10, 2012, 05:25 PM
 
Used firewire on 2 separate Dells, mostly for Canon camcorders but eventually also for external hard drives.
     
SierraDragon
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Jan 10, 2012, 07:40 PM
 
Originally Posted by Eug View Post
...I generally wouldn't recommend buying any high-dollar Mac until gets USB 3.
IMO not having USB 3 is no reason to delay a Mac purchase. Real-world, Thunderbolt is at least 2x as fast as any USB 3 implementation will ever be so any Mac user who cares at all about i/o throughput should use Thunderbolt/eSATA anyway. And USB 3 is backwards compatible, so USB 2 boxes can still connect to USB 3 devices when necessary, just not as fast.

Certainly some of us (Nikon D4 buyers, for instance) might find convenience from USB 3 on board the Mac, but buying a Thunderbolt/USB 3 conversion will probably not be all that big a deal. Personally I will read XQD cards via EC/34 just like I do with UDMA6 CF cards now.

Of course USB 3 will become ubiquitous on PC crap, but who cares? Thunderbolt Macs will always be much faster, and USB 2 works for emergencies and for folks who just want cheap (like for redundant backup drives).

-Allen
     
Eug
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Jan 10, 2012, 08:25 PM
 
Realworld, Thunderbolt barely even exists in terms of peripherals. You can go to a local mom and pop shop and get USB 3.0 stuff right now. Furthermore, Thunderbolt has the big disadvantage of being extremely complex and thus also much more expensive.

EDIT:

Real-world, Thunderbolt is at least 2x as fast as any USB 3 implementation will ever be so any Mac user who cares at all about i/o throughput should use Thunderbolt/eSATA anyway.
Hmm... I missed your reference to eSATA the first time... I guess I should point out that some current implementations of USB 3 are already faster than eSATA.

Mind you I'd be OK with eSATA on an iMac (and Mac mini) too, but Apple won't give us that either.
( Last edited by Eug; Jan 10, 2012 at 09:59 PM. )
     
SierraDragon
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Jan 10, 2012, 11:31 PM
 
Originally Posted by Eug View Post
Hmm... I missed your reference to eSATA the first time... I guess I should point out that some current implementations of USB 3 are already faster than eSATA.
Perhaps someone with more tech expertise than me can interpret, but these results:
http://barefeats.com/hard145.html
seem to me to suggest that Thunderbolt/eSATA outperforms USB 3.

Originally Posted by Eug View Post
Realworld, Thunderbolt barely even exists in terms of peripherals. You can go to a local mom and pop shop and get USB 3.0 stuff right now. Furthermore, Thunderbolt has the big disadvantage of being extremely complex and thus also much more expensive.
True. But again, so what? Super fast Thunderbolt solutions are available (agreed not cheap or at mom/pop) and that is what power users need, not less-than-half-as-fast USB 3. Lower end users continue to have FW and USB 2.

USB 3 embraced by Apple would obviate Thunderbolt, constraining the world to crap PC USB performance. IMO that would be a very undesirable outcome for Apple's power user market segment.

-Allen
( Last edited by SierraDragon; Jan 10, 2012 at 11:54 PM. )
     
Eug
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Jan 11, 2012, 12:55 AM
 
Originally Posted by SierraDragon View Post
Perhaps someone with more tech expertise than me can interpret, but these results:
Roundup of USB 3.0 drives for Mac
seem to me to suggest that Thunderbolt/eSATA outperforms USB 3.
For that test you are correct. They use a high end 6 Gbps eSATA controller, which is becoming more common now. However, current USB 3 speeds are also much faster than in that test. As you know, as chipsets mature, speeds increase. It should be noted that you can even get USB 3 pen drives that are over 300 MB/s now. That's roughly 10X as fast as high speed USB 2 pen drives.

However, I don't even really care so much about that. If I get 200+ MB/s and reasonable latencies for low cost I'm overjoyed. The problem with USB 2 is that it's a serious bottleneck even with consumer drives. I don't need to have top notch pro RAID-level speeds. I just want much more performance than what FW 800 and USB 2 offer. USB 3 provides that in spades, for prices lower than FW 800 and with greater availability and support than Firewire. That's doubly true when compared to Thunderbolt.

True. But again, so what? Super fast Thunderbolt solutions are available (agreed not cheap or at mom/pop) and that is what power users need, not less-than-half-as-fast USB 3. Lower end users continue to have FW and USB 2.

USB 3 embraced by Apple would obviate Thunderbolt, constraining the world to crap PC USB performance. IMO that would be a very undesirable outcome for Apple's power user market segment.
That was the exact same argument that was used for USB 1.1 + Firewire 400. The argument was that Firewire 400 is faster than USB 2 for the pro users, and 1.1 is fine for basic peripherals.

Look at where we are today. Today, few people (except me) care about Firewire 400 or 800, but we consumers couldn't live without USB 2.

IMO it's much better to let the customers decide. If TB really is that much better overall, it will win out. If, given a choice between TB and USB 3, customers choose the latter, then that's TB's fault.

And my belief is that Thunderbolt will be the replacement for Firewire for the time being. Excellent technology for the high end, whereas everyone else uses USB because it also is very good technology but at a way lower price point because it's a much simpler technology.

Tell me, do you really think Thunderbolt pen-type flash drives will be common any time soon? No, of course not. They will be USB 3.0. In fact, they're already available at local stores. Apple pushing Thunderbolt at the expense of USB 3 only inconveniences us while they try to postpone the inevitable.

Luckily Intel can see past this shortsightedness, even though Intel is the primary developer of Thunderbolt. As of this year, Intel chipsets will include USB 3 support for free. Thunderbolt will not be included at all. It will be a bolt-on (nyuk, nyuk ) technology, at considerable extra expense, which means its uptake will remain low. Let's just hope that Apple will make use of the free included USB 3, when these chipsets ship in a few months and find their way into new model Macs.
( Last edited by Eug; Jan 11, 2012 at 01:05 AM. )
     
SierraDragon
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Jan 11, 2012, 03:20 AM
 
Thanks, nice analysis.

-Allen
     
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Jan 11, 2012, 03:24 AM
 
Damn! I was under the impression that TB would be standard across the (logic) board... Why do that?
     
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Jan 11, 2012, 06:00 AM
 
If the 'ultrabook' market actually takes off then TB will become much more useful. Only a matter of time before someone ships an ultra book equivalent of the PowerBook Duo. Such a device would be compelling for business users.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
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Jan 11, 2012, 08:10 AM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
If the 'ultrabook' market actually takes off then TB will become much more useful. Only a matter of time before someone ships an ultra book equivalent of the PowerBook Duo. Such a device would be compelling for business users.
You mean like the current 11" MBA with a current 24" Apple display? Or maybe the MBA with this hub.

Hmm... I missed your reference to eSATA the first time... I guess I should point out that some current implementations of USB 3 are already faster than eSATA.
By that definition of faster, a city bus is faster than a sports car.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
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Jan 11, 2012, 09:20 AM
 
Originally Posted by Eug View Post
Apple pushing Thunderbolt at the expense of USB 3 only inconveniences us while they try to postpone the inevitable.
This. I'd be willing to bet that the first popular TB peripheral is a USB 3 to Thunderbolt adapter.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Jan 11, 2012, 09:35 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
You mean like the current 11" MBA with a current 24" Apple display? Or maybe the MBA with this hub.
No I mean the Windows/Linux Ultrabook market.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
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Jan 11, 2012, 11:06 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
By that definition of faster, a city bus is faster than a sports car.
No. It means that it's a consumer oriented sports car (USB 3) that's faster than some other consumer oriented sports cars (eSATA 3 GBps), but not Formula 1 race cars (Thunderbolt).

However, I'm totally fine with that. I don't need a car for the race track ($1 million), or even a Porsche ($100000). I just want a decently fast one that's common, widely supported, and low cost, and isn't as slow as a scooter (USB 2).

Yeah, car analogies always suck.
     
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Jan 11, 2012, 12:30 PM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
No I mean the Windows/Linux Ultrabook market.
HP makes dockable laptops from 12.1", and they have done so for years. That's closer to the PB Duo than any Thunderbolt.
Originally Posted by Eug
No. It means that it's a consumer oriented sports car (USB 3) that's faster than some other consumer oriented sports cars (eSATA 3 GBps), but not Formula 1 race cars (Thunderbolt).
That's not what I meant. When talking about speed for anything that does not involve computers, "fast" is a measurement of the time to go from point A to point B. When talking about computers, it's sometimes the number of people that can go from point A to point B in a set amount of time. I find this usage frustrating in general - it's a pet peeve.

USB HDDs will never be "faster" (by the real world definition) than SATA, because any USB HDD will have a bridge chip to SATA. The bridge chip adds latency, which cannot be taken out. This is my problem with USB 3.0 - the bandwidth improvement will only really help for HDDs, and USB is not a very good mass storage protocol. Of course it helps to have better latency and access to more power than USB 2.0, but it's still a compromise. eSATA fails in my world because it doesn't have power at all, and eSATAp doesn't seem to be standardized. What makes it worse is that SATA uses two differential pairs for data transfer - same as USB 3. They didn't have to invent a new standard - they could just have ran eSATA over the new data pins and call it a day. That would have been both faster (for the only reasonable use case) and cheaper than USB 3.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
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Jan 11, 2012, 02:41 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
USB HDDs will never be "faster" (by the real world definition) than SATA, because any USB HDD will have a bridge chip to SATA. The bridge chip adds latency, which cannot be taken out.
I wasn't talking about SATA. I was talking about eSATA. Even eSATA (or at least most eSATA out there) is a bottleneck to SSD performance.

This is my problem with USB 3.0 - the bandwidth improvement will only really help for HDDs, and USB is not a very good mass storage protocol. Of course it helps to have better latency and access to more power than USB 2.0, but it's still a compromise.
Yes it's a compromise, but it's quite a reasonable one. It blows USB 2 out of the water to the point where it becomes a very good solution for those of us who don't see the point of investing in a host of Thunderbolt products that our Windows PCs won't support anyway.

In terms of power, USB 3 solves the problem too for 2.5" drives, which is what SSDs are. USB 3 ups the power to 0.9 A, which at 5 V means 2.5" drives as well as even slim-line optical drives (if anyone has a need for one) and their cases will be supported without the requirement of extra power. There would no longer be a need on the MacBook Airs to have non-standard high power USB 2 ports to support the external Apple Superdrive.

Apple could also design a USB 3 iPad 4 that charges off standard USB 3 ports.

eSATA fails in my world because it doesn't have power at all, and eSATAp doesn't seem to be standardized. What makes it worse is that SATA uses two differential pairs for data transfer - same as USB 3. They didn't have to invent a new standard - they could just have ran eSATA over the new data pins and call it a day. That would have been both faster (for the only reasonable use case) and cheaper than USB 3.
Yes, the lack of eSATA power is a big problem, but it would still be better than nothing on an iMac. As far as eSATAp is concerned, I consider that basically stillborn. However, USB 3 is already here, it's cheap, and available. It's only gonna get a LOT more common in 2012, now that Intel will be including it for free.
( Last edited by Eug; Jan 11, 2012 at 03:11 PM. )
     
amazing
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Jan 11, 2012, 04:09 PM
 
one USB3 in the hand is worth three Thunderbolts in the bush!
     
Wiskedjak
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Jan 11, 2012, 09:51 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
By that definition of faster, a city bus is faster than a sports car.
Interesting. Now I'm wondering which is faster at moving 50 people across a city: a city bus or a sports car ...
     
SierraDragon
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Jan 12, 2012, 12:52 PM
 
Originally Posted by amazing View Post
one USB3 in the hand is worth three Thunderbolts in the bush!
For decades I have found that the high end is far superior for heavy graphics workflow; very cost-effective. With SSDs and Promise Thunderbolt already in hand (not "in the bush") much slower USB 3 holds little interest.

-Allen
     
Eug
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Jan 12, 2012, 03:09 PM
 
Originally Posted by SierraDragon View Post
For decades I have found that the high end is far superior for heavy graphics workflow; very cost-effective. With SSDs and Promise Thunderbolt already in hand (not "in the bush") much slower USB 3 holds little interest.
I'm not in high end video, and never will be. I want something decent for reasonable cost, with wide cross-compatibility. High end Thunderbolt definitely doesn't fit that bill. USB 3 does. That's why it should be on consumer-oriented Macs... and if it's on consumer oriented Macs, it should be on pro Macs too, which means all Macs.

The point here is it doesn't necessarily have to be one vs. the other. Macs should have Thunderbolt and USB 3, just as Macs have been Firewire and USB 2 for ages. For a while Macs were Firewire and USB 1.1 only, which only served to annoy all of us until Apple finally added USB 2.
     
amazing
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Jan 12, 2012, 03:27 PM
 
Exactly: give Macs both interfaces.

Absolutely no reason not to...
     
SierraDragon
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Jan 12, 2012, 03:43 PM
 
     
Waragainstsleep
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Jan 12, 2012, 04:13 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
HP makes dockable laptops from 12.1", and they have done so for years. That's closer to the PB Duo than any Thunderbolt.



Apple has probably held off USB3 in order to stop it from killing Thunderbolt before it has a chance. Once TB has taken off a bit, they'll add USB3.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
 
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