Jump to content

Is It Goodbye For Thunderbolt?


Recommended Posts

the one place that thunderbolt is very usefull and apple hasn't inplemented it is in the mac pro towers. makes no sense to me whatsoever. the pros that need high data rate movment are not getting it. post sound and picture houses. they don't run 200+ tracks of sound on feature film mix with a macbook, imac or mac mini so why the hell do they only get them?

P.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If I may contribute to this discussion a little bit, it seems as though one often skipped over item is reliability. Run a search for issues related to USB 3 (super speed) device compatibilty and I think you'll find a large number of threads across a variety of products and systems,

 

I bought the very same superspeed hub pictured in a post here for use with a Retina MacBook Pro and it didn't work. I picked up at dual-disk USB 3 dock for another computer and it can't maintain a connection over USB3 (the whole device drops out consistently as soon as you try to read or write to it.)

 

Conversely, I've had no trouble with any of my Thunderbolt peripherals, all of which are storage.

 

With USB 3 in more cases one really needs to read the compatibility list, which is a bit old-hat when it comes to consumer electronics and counter the the point of a standardized interface and connection. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, but it seems that running a 5Gb signal over cheap cables and cheap electronics is harder than the manufacturers imagined and continues to pose problems.

 

I've been as surprised with Thunderbolt as I have been disappointed with SuperSpeed USB. 

 

But it's just like, my experience, man.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

IRun a search for issues related to USB 3 (super speed) device compatibilty and I think you'll find a large number of threads across a variety of products and systems,

Considering there is likely a thousand USB3 peripherals out there for every Thundebolt device statistics would favor that.

 

Had no problems personally with USB3. YMMV.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Considering there is likely a thousand USB3 peripherals out there for every Thundebolt device statistics would favor that.

 

Had no problems personally with USB3. YMMV.

 

A fair point, but having 4 USB3 purchases and finding that two didn't work as advertised certainly indicated (to me at least) there was an issue. 

 

I do think the more stringent requirements for Thunderbolt and Intel's seeming strict oversight probably both help (comparability-wise) and hurt (adoption-wise.) 

 

The whole "cable" cost fiasco at launch didn't help Thunderbolt either, but some recent purchases have seen the manufacturer including the cable now, which is the way it should be really.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

I'm sitting here at the moment watching a Mac Mini Server record 170 tracks of 24bit/48K from 3 MADI Streams. An RME triple MADI card is the interface - in a Sonnet Thunderbolt PCIe chassis. Recording drive is a SINGLE LaCie Rugged 256GB SSD Thunderbolt drive. Recording software is Reaper (still trying to get BoomRecorder to play nice with the RME card), and all 170 tracks are getting sent back to the MADI outputs.

I'm soak-testing a new rig before a concert recording in a week - it's been recording continuously for an hour as I write.

I for one am pretty happy Apple adopted Thunderbolt!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nobody talks about esata. :..

I have been using it for a while and am very happy with it's performance. Almost every motherboard has it or if it doesn't you can add on a simple cheap adapter to a onboard sata port.

I don't see a need for faster data rates unless you are using a SSD raid.

Standard 3.5 drives in a raid will give you approximately 180MB/s.

Esata will pull 200MB/s any day.

 

The only reason for a thunderbolt I see is on laptops. For the last 2 years PC manufacturers stopped selling esata  laptops.  

Certainly very disappointing.....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I buy a lot of external drives for client delivery. Last year most of them were multi-interface with FW800, USB2 and eSATA. This year's crop from the same manufacturers all seem to be FW (or rarely, Thunderbolt) and USB3 and have dropped the eSATA socket. Must have been a lack of demand. Being mainly a Mac user, I had little use for it - oddly enough Thunderbolt to eSATA hubs are starting to appear so now I could!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 7 months later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...