At what point does thunderbolt become worth it?

I've just bought a new macbook pro and it has two thunderbolt 2 ports and 2 USB 3.0 ports. I've heard for a lot of stuff such as straight external HDDs that the speed of thunderbolt is irrelevant. I was wondering at what point it started to become needed though.

I'm looking at docks so I don't have to unplug tonnes of things every time I want to move my laptop off my desk. So far the standard amount plugged in is a 1080p monitor, Mouse, 500GB drive for my movie collection, 500GB drive for backup, set of speakers and if my wifi is playing up I'll also have a 3G dongle plugged in, or possibly an ethernet so I don't have to rely on wifi.

Basically have I reached the point where the speed of USB 3.0 might actually be limiting and I need thunderbolt or should I just save myself a bit of money and stick with USB 3.0?

 

I went with the Belkin Thunderbolt Express Hub last May to reduce cable clutter and simplify the docking/undocking process. For me the important features was the ethernet and USB ports which I use extensively when docked. I also use ControlPlane to automatically enable/disable WIFI and BT when I dock/undock. WIFI is on and BT is off when I undock and this is reversed when I dock.

To answer your question, you probably haven't reached the limits of USB 3 yet and there may be little benefits for that extra $300 thunderbolt hub... Unless simplifying your cable management and docking/undocking process is high on your priority list I would stick to USB 3 for now.

 

Thunderbolt will probably be as popular as FireWire and SCSI.

 

Eh, Thunderbolt is... what? Three years old? And still there's really nothing out there that uses it (except for a very small number of stuff). It's pretty much the next Firewire, but even less popular.

Only really useful use for Thunderbolt is for driving displays, though in that case what's wrong with VGA/DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort? And even then, I haven't really seen a Thunderbolt display outside of Apple yet...

 

I don't see thunderbolt replacing HDMI, or even being supported on HDTVs. DVI is only prevalent because it's capable of the higher resolutions, but even it is becoming outdated. HDMI is the standard, and is only limited by the cable's bandwidth, which right now is on par with Thunderbolt's (or really close to it).

 

Well, in a very simplified statement, HDMI is really nothing more than DVI with an audio input/output attached to it. So it won't really "die", per say.

 

for speed the only thing TB is fully usable for is an external drive array where you have multiple SSD's in a RAID 0. which in a heavy use application is rather bizarre since most users of such configurations are heavy professionals and we prefer mirroring NOT striping. as for displays on Apple hardware they use the DP component of the part but have the ability to pass through or chain up Display port.

and I agree after 3 years we have no practical implementation of accessories for TB, with ehe exception of the non exciting TB Cinema displays. as for cable management I can see it working to a point but after 2 years of using TB-FW and TB to LAN adaptors and having them act rather glitchy I can happily pass on them as well. I am more interested in some of the newer PCIe direct interfaces starting to be discussed in a few of the business laptops.

as for TB possibly going the way of FW and SCSI ... I would not be surprised, we already have Thunderbolt 2 in the new Mac Pro's and not a single professional A/V or racking mass manufacturer seems to give a darn about TB1 or TB2.

 

HDMI also has an ethernet channel, whereas DVI only carries a USB channel. Now if DVI updates its hardware support to allow for a USB 3.0 channel, that would be amazing. As such I can't see TB outshining USB, Ethernet and HDMI. Sure it combines all three, but it's too unreliable.

 

I use Thunderbolt displays with my Barbiebooks. It's effectively a docking station, though AFAIC it's basically a charging station since I almost never use my Barbiebooks on-desk. It's nowhere near as convenient as my Elitebooks or Precisions but it's as good as you'll get Mac-wise.

With my iCruds I have to use Thunderbolt since it doesn't ship with any worthwhile storage, and for the speeds I'm looking at, USB3.0 doesn't cut it - especially given the controller performance of many USB3.0 array systems - I have the noisy / clattery Pegasus R's as primary storage on machines I use more, and the still pretty noisy (as compared to, oh I dunno, putting the bulk of the everyday storage you need into one box cooled and powered as a whole and situated under the desk where it's not in the way. Genius, eh? Someone ought to do it) Western Digital TB Duos on lesser used machines (all run R0).

 

Well, there you have it folks! If Vogel's not willing to invest significantly in TB supported devices, it must not be a good standard.

/Cat logic

...But I do think that was the point in having the crapbooks have so little on board storage. It's so you have to use an obscure PCIe connector to daisy chain external storage drives to.

 

Either professional use , some kind of docking/hub or dgpu. All are heavy tinkering stuff and niche ~~

Would had been awesome if all the thin and light business machine w.o dock adapt a TB, but nope, you get WiGIG ..............

Personally would throw my precision away immediately if they implement some kind of TB dgpu dock

 

Thanks for the replies. So even with 2 HDD, internet connection, screen, mouse and speakers USB is still fast enough? Fair enough.

I guess I'll see if I can find a USB dock with all the connections I need for any cheaper then.

 

No - for the screen you'd want Thunderbolt. For everything else, USB is fine.

 

I wouldn't. Since TB is just the road, and not the vehicle that runs on it. So no matter how finely paved or wide it is, you still need the vehicles to make it worth anything.

Its funny, but TB suffers from many of the same ills as does USB 3.0: not enough peripherals from manufacturers to make it a accomplish what it set out to accomplish.

Heck, USB 3.0 was adapted in 2008, and it hasn't even become mainstream in computers yet. There's still being shipped with 2.0 ports, and people are insisting we don't need it. Then if that's the case, who on earth need TB?Like I said in my related thread, "where's the USB 3.0?

I bought a half dozen brand new electronic devices last year, and only one (the one I specifically searched out for) came with a USB 3.0 attached.

All the rest, (brand new products) still came with USB 2.0. Now if that's the case with a technology that supports billions, then what chance does the introduction of TB have?

 

I thought DP was considered more desirable over TB?

 

Well if you had both sure but Barbiebooks don't.

 

Well, what I would do with those connections are:

- Two USB 3.0 ports for the HDDs
- Ethernet or WiFi for the Internet
- VGA or DVI for the screen. HDMI or DisplayPort would also work
- USB 2.0 for the mouse
- Audio jack for the speakers

Other than the fact that it came out before USB 3.0 and thus has 2.0 ports, I could do that on my laptop and still have a USB port to spare (among other lesser-used ports). I don't know what the MacBookPro currently comes with, but I'd hope that you've got at least a couple of audio jack, HDMI/DisplayPort, and Ethernet built-in. If not, well, Apple hasn't always been the best at giving plentiful port options.

But even if you've only got two USB ports to work with, one USB 3 port ought to provide plenty of bandwidth for two HDDs, as long as you don't expect to get SSD speeds (500 MBps) on both of them at the same time. Mice take so little bandwidth that USB 1.1 is adequate. So, if you can get a USB 3 hub that provides enough power, that ought to take care of those three. Another USB hub (probably even 2.0) could take care of an Ethernet dongle and digital speakers that connect via USB. Connect the monitor via HDMI or DisplayPort or, if Thunderbolt is the only thing the MacBookPro has, Thunderbolt, and you're down to three things to unplug (two USB hubs + monitor). Not down to one yet, but two USB hubs probably will run you a lot less than a Thunderbolt hub.

I do agree with those who predict Thunderbolt is the next FireWire/iEEE 1394. My issue with it is it's too expensive for too little benefit over USB 3.0, and by the time it gets cheap enough, even $400 laptops will probably have USB 3.0.

As for USB's slow adoption, a lot of that is that it wasn't build into standard chipsets for several years. Intel didn't have it as part of their standard chipset until 2012. I think AMD was a little better, adding it sometime in 2011. There were rumors that Intel was intentionally slow, hoping to boost Thunderbolt by not supporting USB 3.0 natively in their chipsets. And before 2012, few laptops or desktops had USB 3.0. Since most computers are older than that, most of them don't have USB 3.0 yet. But it's pretty common if you buy a new machine now. Most do still have some USB 2.0 ports, too, but eventually USB 2.0 will likely go the way of USB 1.1.

 

already do. my $350 ASUS T100 tablet even has it on the included keyboard dock

 

It is, way more desirable but in a different way. Thunderbolt is more a competitor to USB 3.0 that it is DP which has the sole mission of crossing your AV.

In the latest battle for supremacy in the universal bus, USB had the undisputed advantage here despite the theoretical higher limit of TB.

The last discussion by the TB camp was that it should operate in tandem with USB 3.0, not in competition against it. Naturally they would say that.

 

Thunderbolt is the combination of video, pcie lanes, audio, power, and data. The point of thunderbolt is to turn 5 wires into one wire, making things easier.

Personally, I use my thunderbolt port to plug in an external GPU to my mac mini. It works like a charm and is what I believe the next step in computing power will be.

 

I hope not. My iCraps already have Thunderbolt Sprawl Syndrome (along with the accompanying noise). How silent's that EGPU for you compared to an actually decent rig in a Define R?

 

The power to TB was an addition after its initial launch and failure due to its lack of a self-contained power supply.

It took one giant leap forward in speed but then had to step back after its greatest limitation became apparent.

It still has promise, but its value to use ratio is still too high to afford mainstream use. Especially when its competition is so close on its tail and at a fraction of the cost.

 

Care to expand? Part of the reason I want a thunderbolt dock is to clear up some cable sprawl (or at least tuck it all down the back of my desk instead of having it call come out the sides of my mac).

 

simple, you start using a lot of external devices with separate power supplies and noise, then you come across things that will not work with your dock and use laptop ports as well. I find I am actually having twice the cables with my rMBP's than I eve had before due to storage and port limitations. at this time I can not see USB 3 OR TB Docks being as handy as a true board connect dock in heavy use applications

 

We've already expanded on it. But as I originally mentioned and I use with my Barbiebooks, just get a Thunderbolt Display if you want a docked desk setup. That is the tidiest setup with a Barbiebook Pro, though it's still a two-cable fiddlefest arrangement.

 

Surely though you'll have the same number of power leads whether they're connected to a laptop directly or connected via a dock?

Also why do I keep on hearing storage limitations of macs mentioned? Maybe I've just got used to having a small HDD but I don't see how anyone can have more than a TB of data that they need instant access too all the time.

 

I already have a perfectly decent display though. What's wrong with just getting a dock that has a DVI out? Also how does any screen have less than two cables?

 

I meant going to the Barbiebook. Dock = obviously perfectly viable, just more cables all round.

 

How does plugging a monitor into a macbook require any more cables than any other laptop?

 

I think kitty mean cable to dock then dock to monitor become 2 cables. obviously one is always plugged in/ stationary, so one may not count that as a cable.

 

Well for one its obsolete, and they're not making anymore. You should be looking for and purchasing compatibility for the future, not the past.

 

Take an HP Elitebook or a Lenovo T/W for example, a real Pro notebook, not "Pro" as in



Press into dock. Zero cables.

 

instant 2 DVI-D ports, 2 Display ports, 4 USB 3.0, 2 USB 2.0, full audio ports, extra SATA bay, keyboard, mouse, Lan etc.... just lock the laptop in place.

I do video editing professionally ... so to me even 1.5T is small. and MANY other users who do photography and audio production, even in medical and research fields slam against current storage need very fast before we are clipping on USB3 or TB Drives. even many power users with A/V collections, games and lots of personal data they always want on the go find it very limiting. that is why OWC made a killing off of being the first to offer SSD upgrades for the MBA etc.

 

Hell, I don't even do anything special computer-wise, yet I need ~1TB just for my games alone, let alone media collection (a single BluRay ripped at original quality is alone about 40GB!).

 

How is a full HD IPS panel obsolete?

 

Oh, so you save literally one cable... great. I think I'll go for the slimmer, lighter laptop thanks. Why do you have such an issue with MacBooks anyway? (I'm genuinely curious, this is my first and I'm wondering what I've missed out on).

 

He's owned probably a whole shop of them (and other laptops). Reading his previous posts on Apple's products, it's also a problem of their subpar support.

Same thing with another NBR member with a fleet of these things (and other laptops).

 

Ok, but professional video editing is a bit extreme considering that with what video cameras are outputting these days you need into the hundreds of TB for just a couple of hours. I'm not aware of any laptop that has that, let alone has the power to edit it in any reasonable time.

I do a lot of photography and whilst I'm working on a project a fair few thousand images will easily fit on my hard drive, once the project is done it gets archived onto an external drive. I'd do that no matter what I had. Maybe I've just been forced to get used to small drives due to my old laptop but I think I'd do it now even if I had a desktop, it keeps things a lot tidier.

 

Fair nuf. I guess I don't see it necessary to have my entire media collection on my laptop. I think the only laptop that could manage anyway would be something like a gigabyte, where you can put in two mSATA and two HDD. Maybe there are other laptops that can do this but unfortunately the hideousness of windows 8 put me off.

Oh, he's one of those types. You get them occasionally on camera forums. They've bought virtually every camera and always seem to kick up the most fuss.

 

You can still get some high-quality laptops with 7 pre-installed, or you can install 7 (or Linux, or OSX) yourself on your laptop if you wish.

Personally, I don't store a whole lot on my laptops since I've just finished building a server and that's where I keep my media collection. Only thing I really have on my X61t, for example, are my music and my class notes (160GB is way overkill for that, but that's what I had lying around).

Anyway, personally I don't find Apple's laptops impressive either, though I've never actually owned one (I play around with friends' models and/or display models at BestBuy and the like when I'm stuck in that horrid store for an extended time). Don't see much anything special about them other than OSX, but I can get the same thing in a Hackintosh and/or a BSD distro (since OSX is just BSD with an Apple UI bolted on top). As for ThunderBolt, I'm also not impressed with it personally and to me, it's "just another cable". USB 3.0 and HDMI/DisplayPort are far more useful in practice due to their widespread ubiquity, whereas ThunderBolt seems more like a "hipster" cable imo.

 

Yea, I had a look at just getting a laptop with windows 7 but tbh I don't like using an operating system that doesn't seem to be properly supported any longer and I've grown kinda curious what OSX is like now I can actually play my favourite games on it. That and I was drawn towards it for video editing (combination of the high res screen and FCPX). Figured I may as well get the whole experience and run it on a mac. Seemed the only way to give the OS a fair trial.

 

Windows 7 is going to be supported at the very least until 2020 ( Microsoft Support Lifecycle), so I'm not sure what you mean by "unsupported".

Video editing being better on OSX is a myth currently (just ask KCETech1, for example) and FCPX is a joke of a video editing program (nothing but a glorified iMovie, whereas FCP7 was actually pretty interesting). The only other major use of OSX to editors (previously) was with Adobe products, but since the Adobe/Apple falling-out (to put it politely), Adobe now runs better on Windows than OSX.

 

Last time I tried to download a add-on for windows 7 from microsoft I was greeted with the message that due to windows 8 being the current system windows 7 add-ons were no longer available.

I never said video editing was better on OSX, and to me FCPX looks fine (as it does to a lot of other people who are happily making big productions on it). I've never cared much for adobe products either way, with lightroom being the only one I actually like with illustrator being useful at least.

 

Widgets, I'm assuming? I've had a similar problem with that with the Widgets, but I never liked them anyway (nevermind that they're a huge security hole, iirc).

 

I have a number of portable workstations that pretty much let me edit realtime ( faster than even current Mac Pro actually ) and no need to re-encode formats in AVID MC/DS and Premier Pro although I tend to try and keep my on laptop files down around 2T it sometimes need an external. what really makes the workstations appealing is I can actually beat an ACD for color accurate work. I do a little photography and agree that you can work with smaller storage needs except now I am running into RAW images where they are in the 500-700MB each from cineotography cameras and some pro rigs where not only do I hit storage issues I hit RAM issues needing my 32GB

I agree fully on backups to externals ( I prefer external RAID 1-0's ) but it all depends on our needs and workflow as well

 

Why? Very simply put, they're the



of computers. Crap in a pretty dress, and talks a great game.

However,
a) I work partly with the Apple-addled
b) I have heavy investment in OS X-only software.

 

I am with Vogel, I spent over 2 Dacades on Macs and actually was forced to flip to the windows side for editing and design work.

I have these issues as as well, ( 4 Mac Pros, 3 MBA's and 7 MBP's )however I will also add in:

C )Poor support for business professionals

D )Poor warranties when thermal design and overheating causes system failures and I am forced to keep buying motherboards due to " excessive usage " and no NBD or accidental like " Pro machines "

E) focusing heavily on the basic idiot consumer for the last 5 years minimum ( also see dumbing down of FCP-X fiasco that is still going on )

F) no good usable features or upgrades. ( no super accurate screens, no Pro GPU for design and 3D work, no GOOD multi screen support, etc ... )

G) has turned from a good working platform into a consumer fashion accessory in many ways and with an OS that is becoming more buggy, almost to the point I see almost as many issues as OS9 back in the 90's

 

I guess that's an opinion that we're always going to disagree on then. I hate beats (have sennheisers as my main headphones) and don't see them as being a good analogy to mac laptops at all.

 

Few questions.

1) If you don't mind me asking how much did the workstation cost you?

2) 2TB is what, a couple of hours of high quality footage, so surely you still need to be working from externals for a lot of/most projects.

3) What on earth is giving you 700MB RAW files? I'm pretty sure even an 80 MP P1 back stays under the 100MB mark for a 16bit raw.

 

Its DVI whose days are over. It just can't compete in today's high data rate environment.