Thunderbolt vs USB 3.0

unclened

unclened

Suspended / Banned
Messages
4,009
Edit My Images
No
Having seen the new Mac Pro, I understand that the Thunderbolt technology is inherently faster than USB but what I don't understand is how they are any different when the drive read/write speed well below the speeds capable from each type of connection.

Am I missing something here?
 
you are technically correct, however you can get TB drive arrays so faster than a single drive. plus its daisychainable so the bandwidth needs to be higher for multiple devices.
 
neil_g said:
you are technically correct, however you can get TB drive arrays so faster than a single drive. plus its daisychainable so the bandwidth needs to be higher for multiple devices.
Click to expand...

Like a Thunderbolt type of RAID setup, essentially pulling different bits from different drives and reconstructing them at the destination? But on a single drive its not faster by much?
 
RAID0 array of SSD will be pretty pokey, but still probably wouldnt saturate TB.

but like i say TB is pretty wasted on storage alone. the bandwidth is for other devices such as PCI breakout, fibre converters etc.
 
So in day-to-day use, plugged into a standard hdd, theres not much difference.

I wonder why all my Apple friends keep wetting themselves over TB? Lol
 
hsuffyan said:
So in day-to-day use, plugged into a standard hdd, theres not much difference.

I wonder why all my Apple friends keep wetting themselves over TB? Lol
Click to expand...

correct. for a standard single drive you may as well save your money.

if youre running fast storage arrays or high bandwidth peripherals then its worth it.
 
hsuffyan said:
I wonder why all my Apple friends keep wetting themselves over TB? Lol
Click to expand...

Because possibilities are endless :nuts: TB is basically PCI Express in a wire!

Imagine a future where you can take your small laptop anywhere with 12+ hours of battery life, then when at home, simply plug it in with TB and have exactly same computer/settings, except have a much much more powerful desktop grade processor, bigger monitor and multiple TB of storage (storage idea lines up with Lightroom 5 smart previews). Also you no longer need to connect multiple cables to your laptop everytime you move it, just TB and power.

It's like docking station idea, except it's an universal standard and have pretty much endless bandwidth (for now).



I'm no Apple fanboy though, PC through and through. But I am lusting over TB and stuff like this:
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2013/06/06/silverstone-external-graphics-card-case-deb/1
So with that, you can play latest PC games on a portable TB laptop. No, gaming laptop doesn't count, it's not a laptop anymore, it's a laptop looking thing that isn't portable, might as well buy a desktop.
 
Last edited:
i must admit i love the idea behind TB, the apple TB displays for example with integrated USB/Firewire/TB passthrough/Gigabit LAN over 1 cable.

same its just so damn expensive at the moment.

and would someone please invent a TB PCI addon card.
 
wuyanxu said:
Because possibilities are endless :nuts: TB is basically PCI Express in a wire!

Imagine a future where you can take your small laptop anywhere with 12+ hours of battery life, then when at home, simply plug it in with TB and have exactly same computer/settings, except have a much much more powerful desktop grade processor, bigger monitor and multiple TB of storage (storage idea lines up with Lightroom 5 smart previews). Also you no longer need to connect multiple cables to your laptop everytime you move it, just TB and power.

It's like docking station idea, except it's an universal standard and have pretty much endless bandwidth (for now).

I'm no Apple fanboy though, PC through and through. But I am lusting over TB and stuff like this:
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2013/06/06/silverstone-external-graphics-card-case-deb/1
So with that, you can play latest PC games on a portable TB laptop. No, gaming laptop doesn't count, it's not a laptop anymore, it's a laptop looking thing that isn't portable, might as well buy a desktop.
Click to expand...

Portable as in still have a cable plugged into a TB box? Sorry, dont quite follow!
 
Portable as in it is light weight and you can take it with you on the road, don't need a to bring the power brick for a full day's usage. Then return home to have the same computer, but with a LOT more processing power.

Gaming laptops are basically expensive desktops while portable laptops (like Macbook Air, Ultrabooks) are great at being portable, they lack processing power. Bandwidth offered by TB allows the extra processing power to make portable laptops also useful at home.


Thunderbolt offers modular design. Heavy and power hungry components (like graphics processor, mechanical disks) left on a desk where they belong. Only leaving portable and power efficient components (like a Haswell processor) in the shell of a laptop.


TL;DR: gaming laptops sucks, Thunderbolt are the future. :)
 
wuyanxu said:
Portable as in it is light weight and you can take it with you on the road, don't need a to bring the power brick for a full day's usage. Then return home to have the same computer, but with a LOT more processing power.

Gaming laptops are basically expensive desktops while portable laptops (like Macbook Air, Ultrabooks) are great at being portable, they lack processing power. Bandwidth offered by TB allows the extra processing power to make portable laptops also useful at home.

Thunderbolt offers modular design. Heavy and power hungry components (like graphics processor, mechanical disks) left on a desk where they belong. Only leaving portable and power efficient components (like a Haswell processor) in the shell of a laptop.

TL;DR: gaming laptops sucks, Thunderbolt are the future. :)
Click to expand...

Why not have two machines? It sounds like its already there. One laptop and one box + display to hook up with the laptop when its at home.
 
hsuffyan said:
Why not have two machines? It sounds like its already there. One laptop and one box + display to hook up with the laptop when its at home.
Click to expand...
Is there a way to hook up the laptop I'm not aware of? Please elaborate.

Regarding TB vs USB 3. USB 3 is sub-par because there is a massive bottleneck bandwidth with the way USB is integrated in the overall system architecture. Underlying protocol for Thunderbolt's data is PCI express, which interacts directly with the CPU. USB is serial interface that has a lot of hoops to jump through: CPU -> DMI -> Southbridge -> USB controller

See how the PCI-e 4x Thunderbolt hangs off CPU while USB goes through PCH
Z77-blockdiagram.jpg

(source Anantech)
 
wuyanxu said:
Is there a way to hook up the laptop I'm not aware of? Please elaborate.

Regarding TB vs USB 3. USB 3 is sub-par because there is a massive bottleneck bandwidth with the way USB is integrated in the overall system architecture. Underlying protocol for Thunderbolt's data is PCI express, which interacts directly with the CPU. USB is serial interface that has a lot of hoops to jump through: CPU -> DMI -> Southbridge -> USB controller

See how the PCI-e 4x Thunderbolt hangs off CPU while USB goes through PCH

(source Anantech)
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, very helpful. With regards to my comment, I mean if your plugging a laptop into a TB with more ram/processing power, why not just have a desktop and share data with laptop in a different way. What's the purpose of plugging a laptop into a device that contains similar components to a desktop purely because you have a superfast connection.
 
The purpose is to have single setting across all devices. As good as cross-device syncing, it's still not as easy as having a single device with all your settings and data.

I have iPhone/iPad and a desktop, then work computer. It's very handy able to just start typing in Firefox address bar and get that webpage I saw a few days ago. But unfortunately more often than not, I have to search multiple browsers and only to find I saw it on work computer.

Also another use-case is use of GPGPU attached through TB to speed up video rendering. Edit an video in Vegas Pro while on the train, plug it in at home and have the video rendered in 1/5th the time.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top