Thread: Thunderbolt: One year later

Greetings all,

An article on the Macworld website looking at the first year of Thunderbolt's existence:

http://www.macworld.com/article/165326/2012/02/thunderbolt_one_year_later.html

Regards,

Mister Wednesday

I know it is disk drives that are of most interest, but:

I'm in the UK. Was in a large chain store that sells lots of nice stuff. The cheapest Thunderbolt display they had was 800 UK pounds.

I can buy a perfectly adequate, though not brilliant, VGA display for about 70 UK pounds.

So they know where they can stick their Thunderbolt display.

i thinking of buying this http://store.westerndigital.com/stor...oryID.58872900
TB Western Digital device. Any feedback from someone who's got one / anything else I should be looking at?

I was hoping to have a device with TB and FW, but I guess I can work-around not having the latter.

thanks!

Originally Posted by Jay192

i thinking of buying this http://store.westerndigital.com/stor...oryID.58872900
TB Western Digital device. Any feedback from someone who's got one / anything else I should be looking at?

There's the Promise Pegasus R4 -- better kit, but more than twice as much. At some point you should be able to get a Thunderbolt -> FireWire adapter, but right now I don't think there's anything reasonably priced available.

--David

Originally Posted by orgel

There's the Promise Pegasus R4 -- better kit, but more than twice as much. At some point you should be able to get a Thunderbolt -> FireWire adapter, but right now I don't think there's anything reasonably priced available.

--David

There is an adapter, of course whether you consider it "reasonably priced" is between you and your pocketbook. Cost is $169 + cable + the cost of a Firewire ExpressCard (unless of course you already have one).

Originally Posted by struts

There is an adapter, of course whether you consider it "reasonably priced" is between you and your pocketbook. Cost is $169 + cable + the cost of a Firewire ExpressCard (unless of course you already have one).

Yes, I'm aware of the Sonnet ExpressCard adapter, and while I think it probably works fine, we're talking $169 for the adapter + $49 for an Apple Thunderbolt cable + $100 for the FW ExpressCard = $318 (and note that I charitably left out the cost of an FW cable). So my pocketbook and I don't think that's especially reasonable, though admittedly, it's less than the cost of an Apple Thunderbolt display. Of course with the latter, you get a display.

--David

Originally Posted by orgel

Yes, I'm aware of the Sonnet ExpressCard adapter, and while I think it probably works fine, we're talking $169 for the adapter + $49 for an Apple Thunderbolt cable + $100 for the FW ExpressCard = $318 (and note that I charitably left out the cost of an FW cable). So my pocketbook and I don't think that's especially reasonable, though admittedly, it's less than the cost of an Apple Thunderbolt display. Of course with the latter, you get a display.

--David

David,

I agree, so I am afraid this solution, while considerably more elegant than the Sonnet, is a step in the wrong direction price-wise.

Unfortunately it's just more ammunition for all those who are predicting that Thunderbolt will be another Firewire-style "debacle" from a mass-market adoption perspective.

But it does make that $1k Apple Thunderbolt Display look like even more of a bargain!

Originally Posted by orgel

Yes, it looks to me like the Matrox unit is a better value.

I don't know about "better value" (I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that the terms "Thunderbolt" and "value" are mutually exclusive anyway!), the Matrox looks like a bit of a stange bird to me. It offers no FireWire (wasn't that where we started? ), no eSATA, and, completely inexplicably (IMO) no Thunderbolt pass-thru port. If you think of the connectivity options offered by the hosts themselves (today mostly Macs) I see very little value add here for your $249.

Originally Posted by orgel

Agreed. I think Thunderbolt has a lot of potential, though, so over the long haul it'll probably take more than naysayers to make it die. It's kind of weird how much pressure there is for everything to be USB; there ought to be more room in the market for more specialized, higher performance digital interfaces. To me, this is particularly striking in the DAC market; i.e., is USB 2.0 really as good as its widespread use, even at exalted price points, suggests? I guess it's all about the dreaded "market forces."

Yes, I think the simple answer is that USB 2.0 is quite good enough from a bandwidth perspective (at least for 2-channel hi-rez as extant today - 24/192), and is capable of great sound quality if implemented properly, i.e. with the source slaved to the DAC clock and not vice versa (this same consideration applies of course to any interface). The issue with USB is the bus architecture and the inability to reserve/guarantee bandwidth. So to be assured of getting good results in practice one needs to be very careful to use a USB port/controller on the host which is not going to be suddenly subjected to other demands. In practice the majority of users probably don't understand this and most of the time it works fine so they don't worry about it. Naturally that isn't good enough for professional applications which is why FireWire has gained such a foothold there.

Originally Posted by orgel

I don't have details, but I read some time ago that Intel is charging pretty steep license fees to manufacturers who adopt Thunderbolt. I suspect this is a major factor slowing the pace of availability and general acceptance of Thunderbolt-equipped computers and peripherals.

The licensing terms for Thunderbolt are not in the public domain and I couldn't find any specifics on the web, however I did find the following over at astro aficionado, which seems to sum up the situation nicely:

Charles Starrett over at iLounge, on the high cost of living for AirPlay and Thunderbolt devices:

We similarly have learned that the price of the components required to add a Thunderbolt port to an external hard drive is roughly equal to the cost of a low-end hard drive itself, a high cost that one developer has suggested will limit Thunderbolt’s near-term use to products aimed at the professional market.

Now this I don’t understand.

I get Apple wanting to keep AirPlay as a near-exclusive selling point for its iOS home ecosystem, but what good is it for Intel (who I assume is the one responsible for the licensing, seeing as it’s their technology) to make Thunderbolt inaccessible for manufacturers? Weren’t they pushing Thunderbolt as the future of data connectivity?

It would only make sense to let developers have a field day with the standard rather than ensure it won’t become widely adopted (which is, regardless of what Intel decides to do with the licensing, what I feel is going to happen. People are accustomed to USB and all their devices are made for USB. With the new backwards-compatible USB3 rolling out, unless there’s a radical change in perception amongst consumers and manufacturers, I don’t think Thunderbolt will be anymore successful than FireWire was).

That still doesn’t explain why Intel is pumping Thunderbolt’s tires so hard only to not even give it a chance to succeed (and as I said, I don’t believe it will, but it baffles me why Intel won’t even take that chance by charging more reasonable fees).

Starrett goes as far to suggest that Apple isn’t getting any special deal on Thunderbolt licensing either, as they too are subject to the high fee.

...

UPDATE

The astute Michael Camilleri has pointed out to me that Intel makes money on USB3 licensing as well, and due to this it’s likely they’re not as concerned with Thunderbolt not taking off.

Initially I was puzzled by the lack of Thunderbolt products in the market one year on, especially given its manifold technical advantages over both FW and USB, however this would seem to explain everything

My conclusion (fwiw). I'm certainly not going to wait for Thunderbolt to "happen", assuming it ever does. So to replace my deceased music server (an old Dell Dimension tower with Lynx L22 PCI sound card driving a Rudistor RPX-33 headphone amp) I am probably going to go for a Mac Mini/Weiss DAC202 connected via...

...drum roll...

FireWire!

Originally Posted by orgel

I doubt you'll regret that ... and it obviates the need to feel compelled to purchase a bazillion-dollar USB cable.

But if I look hard enough I'm sure I'll be able to find a bazillion dollar Firewire cable to salve my audiophile conscience!

Interesting discussion David, many thanks!

New Macbook Pro announced today based as expected on Intel's "Ivy Bridge" chipset. Two Thunderbolt ports and no Firewire 800. What's the betting that the next gen Mac Minis follow suit?

Firewire is dead! Long live...

...er...

USB 3.0!

Originally Posted by struts

New Macbook Pro announced today based as expected on Intel's "Ivy Bridge" chipset. Two Thunderbolt ports and no Firewire 800. What's the betting that the next gen Mac Minis follow suit?

They did show a Thunderbolt -> FireWire dongle. Anyone know how much Apple's going to charge for that?

Yeah, I don't doubt that this signals the end of built-in FireWire on new Macs. I guess I'm glad I got a mini when I did, since I use the FW port to connect to my DAC.

--David

Originally Posted by orgel

They did show a Thunderbolt -> FireWire dongle. Anyone know how much Apple's going to charge for that?

Good catch, I'd missed that. So shall we open a pool on the price? I'll guess $899 (after all they don't want to risk cannibalizing the market for the display ;-)

Originally Posted by struts

Good catch, I'd missed that.

I'm guessing they felt they had to come up with something like that to keep the "pro" users from squawking too loudly. My guess for the price is $99, but if it's in the $50 range, I'll go get one this weekend (if it's in the Apple Store).

When they axe the Mac Pro, they'll probably come out with a nice Thunderbolt card cage.

--David

Originally Posted by orgel

My guess for the price is $99, but if it's in the $50 range, I'll go get one this weekend (if it's in the Apple Store).

Well, I'm happy to say we were both wrong. Apparently Apple will be selling it for the bargain basement price of $29. I'll take two!