Thunderbolt vs. SuperSpeed USB

Lucas123 writes "When it comes to performance, power and size, external I/O interconnect Thunderbolt handily beats SuperSpeed USB, but in the one critical category — ubiquity — it has an almost impossible uphill battle. Thunderbolt has a maximum 10Gbps signaling rate to SuperSpeed USB's 6Gbps and it offers more than twice the power to devices. To date, however, Apple is the only systems manufacturer to adopt Thunderbolt, and it has done so as an additional device connectivity port, keeping SuperSpeed USB on its computers. No other systems manufacturer has committed to Thunderbolt. In contrast, SuperSpeed USB has been installed on 10 billion pieces of hardware, with numbers continuing to grow."

Comments

TFA (-1, wrong)

[plover]

SuperSpeed USB has been installed on 10 billion pieces of hardware

No it hasn't. USB may have been installed on 10 billion pieces of hardware, but SuperSpeed USB is nowhere near as ubiquitous yet. SuperSpeed USB may be able to compatibly downgrade to full-speed USB communication, but that doesn't mean that anything you plug a SuperSpeed device into is magically SuperSpeed.

Anyway, I like the idea of Thunderbolt, especially the thought that it could become the holy grail of single cable interconnects. But just because I like a thing and it's technically better doesn't mean the world will adopt it. Unfortunately, I've learned that politics and money will drive the decision, not technology.

Re:TFA (-1, wrong)

[Anonymous Coward]

Additionally, Sony also has started releasing laptops with athunderbolt, even though with their own connector based off of the USB plug.

The article is simply wrong.

Re:TFA (-1, wrong)

[gbjbaanb]

SuperSpeed USB may be able to compatibly downgrade to full-speed USB communication, but that doesn't mean that anything you plug a SuperSpeed device into is magically SuperSpeed.

true, but there is 1 crucial factor. When you plug a SuperSpeed device into an existing port, it still works. I'd rather have a fancy device that works on everything than a fancy device that doesn't.

Re:TFA (-1, wrong)

[EvanED]

That sounds like an awfully high number, even for normal USB

If you're counting anything that has a normal USB port, no way, especially if you count every such device that has ever been manufactured instead of requiring it to be currently in use.

This CNET article claims that there the number of cell phone subscribers hit 5 billion last year. Many of those have USB. Add in all the computers, mice, keyboards, cameras, flash drives, game consoles, controllers, etc. and 10 billion looks almost conservative.

Re:TFA (-1, wrong)

[localman57]

I hope you were joking. Didn't they learn from Firewire?!

No. And they didn't learn from iLink either.

Re:TFA (-1, wrong)

[MMC Monster]

Expensive wires are the problem.

How much are thunderbolt wires going to cost? Are they realistically going to become as inexpensive as USB wires in 5 -10 years?

Re:TFA (-1, wrong)

[jythie]

Rumors of Firewire's death are a bit overstated. Sure, USB devices are far more numerous, but there is a lot of firewire stuff out there esp once you get away from consumer grade 'cheap as possible' devices. Just like dirty cheap IDE never managed to kill off SCSI, I doubt USB is going to completely crush Firewire any time soon. I think people tend to forget that 'most common use/case' != 'all use cases', and just because some standard captures the low end market does not mean it doesn't have a place outside that large but not universal domain.

Re:TFA (-1, wrong)

[LWATCDR]

You are correct. Also incase people have not noticed Intel is also pushing Thunderbolt. You are going to see Thunderbolt parts as standard on Intel chipsets soon.
Of course the scary thing is when we see them on mobile devices. How long before I can plug my phone into a monitor that has USB ports for my keyboard and mouse and a network connection?

Re:TFA (-1, wrong)

[ISoldat53]

Yes, but how long after TB comes out will there be a box that plugs into TB that accepts USB?

Re:TFA (-1, wrong)

[MBCook]

No, because they are active. That's what will allow people to transparently switch to optical cables in a few years. You won't have to replace any of your equipment, the cables handle that.

This is somewhat stupid though. USB has moved into hard drives and such, but it aims at the low end of the market. Mice, keyboard, etc. up through hard drives and scanners. On the other hand, Thunderbolt aims at the top of the market. It aims at displays, large RAID arrays down through hard drives and scanners. Thunderbolt is basically PCIe in a cable. This isn't an either-or. No one in their right mind would ever make a Thunderbolt mouse or USB SAN, there is no reason to think both ports won't be on computers in a few years.

So is the question "What will people use for connecting external storage in 2 years"? Because that's basically the only question people ever argued over with USB vs. FireWire. I'd say the answer is "USB for most, ThunderBolt for those who really care about performance".

Remember that since ThunderBolt is faster and PCIe, you can make bridge to let you plug USB SuperSpeed stuff into Thunderbolt ports, just like Apple's Thunderbolt monitors have USB2 and FireWire bridge chips.

Re:TFA (-1, wrong)

[Mister Whirly]

Big deal. I want to see Firewire explain why Steve Jobs is dead.

Re:TFA (-1, wrong)

[beelsebob]

Frankly, I don't understand about the deal with "Thunderbolt". We have USB as a standard. What do I get with Thunderbolt?

High speed, low latency interconnect. The biggest gap that USB doesn't cover is docking stations, Thunderbolt makes it easy to connect a NIC, a USB controller, a graphics card, and a firewire controller all over one cable... USB does not.

DVI/HDMI is not going away. Period.

Want a bet? We'll discuss this again when resolutions greater than 2560x1600 become common due to apple introducing retina display laptops, and when 10 bit colour becomes common on high end monitors.

eSATA - cheap controllers exist. No need to re-invent the wheel for most common drive interface.

Because eSATA supports a very limited class of devices –storage devices, PCI running over a cable does not.

Re:TFA (-1, wrong)

[jo_ham]

That's what I thought.

I think this one went past with some polite coughing thought.

Re:TFA (-1, wrong)

[DrXym]

The funny part is if Apple, Sony could agree on a single connector and a single name for the tech they might have enjoyed a lot wider recognition and support for the tech than they did.

Re:TFA (-1, wrong)

[mlauzon]

Would you look at that, you know the specification number for Firewire, guess this makes you a genius...not!

Re:TFA (-1, wrong)

[scot4875]

Umm, I think you mean 10 bits per color channel, because 10 bits per pixel is precisely 1024 colors (or 1024 color map entries, if you're going with a palette-based display mode).

You can be forgiven because it is all too obvious that you don't know your head from your ass.

Quoted for irony. Of course, I think the GP was being somewhat intentionally dense, but your correction is hilarious.

--Jeremy

Re:TFA (-1, wrong)

[dgatwood]

I think it's pretty obvious who picked the right connector: Apple. On laptops, it really doesn't matter, but on desktops, it does. Apple made one connector that carries both your display data and peripheral data. This means that your computer under the table is connected to a monitor on top of the table, and your peripherals fan out from there, on top of the desk, where they are easily accessible.

I can't imagine why Sony felt they had to do things differently. It's bad enough combining eSATA with USB, but combining Thunderbolt with USB means that there are now three different and incompatible types of peripherals that you can hook up to USB ports on certain models of Sony's products. Great way to create customer confusion. Yikes.

Somebody should be beaten over the head with a clue-by-four for that one.

Likewise with FireWire. Sony used a smaller connector because they thought the standard connector was too big. Well, not only is the 4-pin FireWire connector flimsy as heck because of its size, but also it is visually almost indistinguishable at a quick glance from both mini-USB and the power connector used by a lot of manufacturers' camcorders....

Ubiquity vs. Moving Forward

[Tufriast]

When the Compact Disc first came out not many had any chance to play one. It was expensive, part of extravagant home theatre systems, and only the rich could afford it. Years later it was adopted by the masses once it was able to be cheaply reproduced. The same goes for this piece of technology. While truly innovative and new technology almost never starts out as being ubiquitous; it does move us forward. This is my point: it is better, faster, and eventually it will be cheaper too. That and I heard Apple had exclusivity on the hardware totally until 2012 with regards to it. http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/02/24/intel_details_thunderbolt_as_exclusive_to_apple_until_2012.html

Re:Ubiquity vs. Moving Forward

[Anonymous Coward]

It was expensive, part of extravagant home theatre systems, and only the rich could afford it.

All true. It had one thing going for it, that thunderbolt doesn't. It was orders of magnitude better in features. When the CD first came out, it was MUCH higher quality than a record or tape. It was also random access, which no other music technology had. (Unless you want to count lifting a record player arm and trying to figure out where the track started). Those features made people WANT this technology, and there was no real competitor for the features CD offered. Nobody really liked skipping records, the huge format, tapes that break, or fast forwarding through a song you didn't like.

What's the hugely differentiating feature that thunderbolt has? Faster specs? Not gonna cut it against ubiquity.

Re:Ubiquity vs. Moving Forward

[Ja'Achan]

You can't make something take over the market until all the people who don't want one can afford it.

TFA (-2, wrong)

[Quick Reply]

Also, Apple has not have SuperSpeed USB on any of it's computers.

Re:TFA (-2, wrong)

[Sponge Bath]

They are holding out for LudicrousSpeed USB.

Re:TFA (-2, wrong)

[Lucas123]

Yeah, that was my fault in the Slashdot submission, which I always write up far too quickly. The article doesn't say Apple has Superspeed USB on its systems -- the Slashdot summary does. Doesn't anyone on Slashdot take time to actually read the article?

Re:TFA (-2, wrong)

[JabrTheHut]

Yeah, that was my fault in the Slashdot submission, which I always write up far too quickly. The article doesn't say Apple has Superspeed USB on its systems -- the Slashdot summary does. Doesn't anyone on Slashdot take time to actually read the article?

If you took the time to actually read Slashdot, you'd know the answer was no...

Apple doesn't offer USB 3.0

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? When did Apple start offering USB 3.0? AFAIK they're still shipping USB 2.0 only.

Firewire

[suso]

Hmm, this sounds just like the Firewire vs. USB competition with Apple pushing Firewire. We saw how that turned out. We all know that being better doesn't mean anything in this industry.

Re:Firewire

[chaim79]

Wow, how many points wrong can you get...

Actually I give up, you have so much wrong about firewire that it's pointless to correct you point for point...

The reason Firewire is more expensive is that it's a system that requires some processing on both sides, any device that plugs into firewire has to have sufficient smarts to know what it needs in order to operate, USB on the other hand is a dumb protocol, all the processing is handled on the Host (PC) side, and all the devices plugged into it need very little smarts, this directly effects chip/design costs of peripherals. Firewire was actually designed with the concept that a scanner with a firewire port and a printer with a firewire port could be connected together and pictures printed without using computer resources.

USB also has the limitation of regimented and inflexible bandwidth (at least as of USBv2, v3 might change that). Which means while USB 2 may have 480mb of 'bandwidth' only a small chunk of that is usable by any one device, Firewire however is flexible, not only can it portion the bandwidth to the devices need but it can also use "Isochronous" (regular dedicated) bandwidth, allowing high-priority/bandwidth systems to transfer information, such as video/audio streams and critical systems (some internal aircraft systems use 1394 bus).

You want lots of high-speed external storage access, check some benchmarks, firewire will beat out USB for real-world performance, even though they are fairly matched just reading spec numbers.

Firewire is both faster and better than USB, however it's more expensive in both hardware and design/implementation, which is why USB has won that fight, the majority of people are all about cheep, not better.

Re:Firewire

[networkzombie]

If people believe that cheap, dumb, and easy is better, then you are completely wrong, and they do.

Cheap fast and good enough beats state of the art

[voss]

10 gps vs 4.8 gps isnt enough to make me want to add an extra port.

Acer and Asus signed up for Thunderbolt

[jmcbain]

Acer and Asus have signed up for Thunderbolt and are expected to deliver PCs with Thunderbolt next year. Except more motherboards to have Thunderbolt as well, and once that occurs, Dell and other has-beens will do the same.

It's not better though

[Sycraft-fu]

It is different, hence why Intel makes both (Thunderbolt is Intel's not Apple's). Thunderbolt is basically just an external PCIe bus. While that has a benefit of great speed and low latency, it has drawbacks. The client device has to be more complex (and thus expensive) since it needs a PCIe controller on it. Also a device can hose your system, being PCIe it has DMA and can write or read any memory.

USB is much simpler. Slave devices need little logic to handle it. Also it is handled through the CPU which, while slower, is safer meaning an errant device can't as easily trash your system.

Maximum cable length

[thue]

Thunderbolt is interesting because of the potential maximum cable length. The current cupper cables are limited to 3 meters, but once optical cables are available, "10s of meters" will be possible.

Since you can run both display, keyboard and mouse over one cable natively, this means that you can put your computer with its noisy fans into the basement, use a single thunderbolt cable, and just have an extremely thin client at your workstation.

usb 3.0 cables are under $5 Thunderbolt $40+

[Joe_Dragon]

And apple seems to be the only place to get a Thunderbolt cable right now.

Re:usb 3.0 cables are under $5 Thunderbolt $40+

[am 2k]

Apple hasn't used a proprietary connector for peripherals since they retired ADB in favor of USB.

Except for the iPod dock connector, which replaced the FireWire plug from the first generation.

How about giving Thunderbolt a few months first

[SensitiveMale]

Thunderbolt was just released a few months ago. USB3 has been out for almost 2 years and it is finally starting to get a little traction in the marketplace. Something else to keep in mind is that Thunderbolt is Intel tech, not Apple. Intel is pushing Thunderbolt so Thunderbolt will be on 95% of mobos in a couple years. Since Thunderbolt is Intel tech, Microsoft will support it as well. Don't discount how much damage was done to FW by shitty MS firewire drivers that barely worked. Intel, Microsoft, and Apple will all be pushing Thunderbolt to succeed.

One last thing, look for video card manufacturers to be pushing TB as well to get rid of DL DVI,DVI, and VGA cables.

Thunderbolt will succeed.

Re:No complaints from me, either way: Why?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Oh god I agree with APK.

I'm looking at my laptop, I see no less than 4 different ports for bidirectional data. USB, Firewire, Thunderbolt, ExpressCard/32... Ethernet if that counts would make it 5.

There's space on motherboards everywhere for thunderbolt. Especially considering that the mini DP is free to license and use as a port, and it plays nice with DisplayPort devices... I don't see how this is a bad situation.

Re:Cheap fast and good enough beats state of the a

[Rakishi]

Except the camcorder isn't likely to store the data on anything that can actually saturate either usb3 or thunderbolt so the use case is meaningless. So basically thunderbolt would be a useless interface for connecting to his SAN.