[MacGod]

My big question is about the number of devices one can connect. The article says you can daisy-chain six, but also mentions hubs. So does that mean that each of those six could be a hub and thus the total number of TB devices would be greater?

As a corollary, I assume that a USB or Firewire hub would count as a single device. So could I connect (for example) 1 monitor, 1 RAID, 1 HD camera, 2 USB hubs (with say 4 devices each) and a firewire hub (with 4 devices)? Or is 6 the total max number of devices, no matter how they are connected?

This post has been edited by MacGod: 28 February 2011 - 05:17 AM

[bastion]

BenedictMurray, on 25 February 2011 - 06:20 AM, said:

>This will be another Firewire...good on paper, good in tests, but too niche and too limited to ever take off.

Does intel charge per Thunderbolt port? Wasn't the main fail of Firewire that Apple/Firewire people charged per port?

Not quite. No such charge ever existed. A $1 per port fee was unofficially suggested at one point, and the suggestion was formally renounced a little while later after a huge backlash from board manufacturers and system vendors. The fact that so many people remember that event as "Apple charges an exorbitant fee for FireWire adopters" is part of the reason FW's adoption was quite slow.

[wheat]

I must say this is one of the best-written and most informative and useful articles I've ever read at Macworld. Excellent job.

[sg99]

richcon, on 24 February 2011 - 03:33 PM, said:

AshwinDollar, on 24 February 2011 - 03:07 PM, said:

Blame Intel and AMD. No graphics card supports more than two displays.

Native Display Port 1.2 support multiple monitors using a single Display Port Connector. AMD Radeon Eyfinity supports up to 6 monitors. See http://www.amd.com/eyefinity

Older display technologies (DVI and VGA) use a distinct clock for each display (since the clock frequency changes with monitor resolution). This makes adapters with lots of DVI/VGA connectors expensive to implement and requires multiple connectors directly on the graphics card. In Display Port, the clock frequency is independent of display resolution and daisy chained displays are supported, thus avoiding both of these issues.

[sg99]

MacGod, on 28 February 2011 - 05:17 AM, said:

My big question is about the number of devices one can connect. The article says you can daisy-chain six, but also mentions hubs. So does that mean that each of those six could be a hub and thus the total number of TB devices would be greater?

As a corollary, I assume that a USB or Firewire hub would count as a single device. So could I connect (for example) 1 monitor, 1 RAID, 1 HD camera, 2 USB hubs (with say 4 devices each) and a firewire hub (with 4 devices)? Or is 6 the total max number of devices, no matter how they are connected?

I suspect this is a misreading of early information and that the limitation is higher.

Display Port supports daisy chaining up to 6 monitors off a single connector. As such, Thunderbolt, when directly driving non-Thunderbolt displays, will have the same limitation.

Once you're out of the Thunderbolt realm (i.e. other side of a Thunderbolt to USB/firewire/SATA/... adapter), any limitations are outside the scope of Thunderbolt anyway.

Note that Display Port supports tunneling USB, so theoretically chip designers could create both USB via Display Port over Thunderbolt hardware and USB via PCIe over Thunderbolt hardware. Since USB over Display Port is a published VESA standard that's been out there for a while, I suspect the market will go that way.

[macnicol]

Anyone in the market for SCSI, Firewire 400, Firewire 800, eSata, USB 1 or USB2 interface peripherals? One of the advantages of the old Macs was that your investment in older peripherals was not destroyed with the introduction of newer Macs. Seems like Apple must be getting a kick-back from the new interface peripheral vendors.

[bastion]

macnicol, on 28 February 2011 - 11:02 AM, said:

Anyone in the market for SCSI, Firewire 400, Firewire 800, eSata, USB 1 or USB2 interface peripherals? One of the advantages of the old Macs was that your investment in older peripherals was not destroyed with the introduction of newer Macs.

I don't understand this claim. Some connectors have lasted longer than others, but Apple has dropped several peripheral interfaces over the years. Nothing's going to be supported forever.

[alcourt]

The discussion I read of Thunderbolt highlighted an issue that hasn't been touched on by either the comments or the article -- security. According to the computer security resources I've seen, unlike USB, Thunderbolt ports are peer to peer, meaning that any connected device has a much higher level of access to the other devices on the chain than would be the case in a USB connected device. Because of this, malicious firmware, or other hostile devices can pose a significant security risk to the system with the port.

It may be possible to block access to unknown devices, that depends on the implementation, but it is certainly something that needs to be considered.

[bastion]

alcourt, on 01 March 2011 - 09:06 AM, said:

The discussion I read of Thunderbolt highlighted an issue that hasn't been touched on by either the comments or the article -- security. According to the computer security resources I've seen, unlike USB, Thunderbolt ports are peer to peer, meaning that any connected device has a much higher level of access to the other devices on the chain than would be the case in a USB connected device. Because of this, malicious firmware, or other hostile devices can pose a significant security risk to the system with the port.

It may be possible to block access to unknown devices, that depends on the implementation, but it is certainly something that needs to be considered.

Frankly, this sounds likes like someone trying to put a positive spin on a characteristic of USB that's actually a disadvantage. We've had full "peer-type" connectivity in peripheral busses for decades and it's actually a good thing from a performance standpoint, both of the devices and the system as a whole. In theory, yes, someone could create a malicious Thunderbolt device. Ditto FireWire, SCSI, ADB and several other historically safe interfaces.

[thebogeyman]

AshwinDollar, on 24 February 2011 - 03:07 PM, said:

Blame Intel and AMD. No graphics card supports more than two displays. Mac Pros can have multiple graphics cards, so you can have up to six displays. Most notebook graphics cards also are limited to two, and since one will be assumed to be in the notebook itself, only one external can be supported.

You probably shouldn't check out Matrox display adapters then. Up to 16 displays from a single workstation.

[whitedog]

bastion, on 01 March 2011 - 04:49 AM, said:

macnicol, on 28 February 2011 - 11:02 AM, said:

Anyone in the market for SCSI, Firewire 400, Firewire 800, eSata, USB 1 or USB2 interface peripherals? One of the advantages of the old Macs was that your investment in older peripherals was not destroyed with the introduction of newer Macs.

I don't understand this claim. Some connectors have lasted longer than others, but Apple has dropped several peripheral interfaces over the years. Nothing's going to be supported forever.

Besides which, Thunderbolt, with the help of adaptors, can support almost all current peripheral connection standards. Besides being the fastest and broadest I/O technology available, it is the most flexible. Your legacy hardware (well, maybe not SCSI) is perfectly safe with Thunderbolt, as are new standards like USB 3. Frankly, I don't see a downside to Thunderbolt - not one.

[slylabs13]

Firewire used to be capable of connecting multiple COMPUTERS to the same Firewire HD. I am trying to find out of Thunderbolt works the same way. If so, then there is no reason Xsan could not be set up on a thunderbolt enabled RAID and a couple Thunderbolt capable Mac Mini's running Lion as controllers (when they come out). If not, then Xsan users will still be bound to Fiber Channel, which remains very expensive.

[slylabs13]

Dan Frakes, on 24 February 2011 - 03:59 PM, said:

leicaman, on 24 February 2011 - 03:48 PM, said:

DisplayPort itself supports multiple monitors. You can daisy chain multiple monitors from one DisplayPort. So why would that not work? Because Thunderbolt works with regular peripherals without any extra drivers, so the DisplayPort monitor thinks it's directly connected to a DisplayPort, er, port, so why would that not then be able to daisy chain a second monitor from it's own secondary DisplayPort port?

As noted in the article, the limitation is your graphics card, rather than Mini DisplayPort. The graphics cards used in current Macs support two displays, which on a laptop means the built-in and one external.

I think it should be noted that a laptop is... well a laptop, not a desktop tower. If you wanted 3 or 4 monitors, shouldn't you have purchased a Mac Pro?

[slylabs13]

writevli, on 24 February 2011 - 06:16 PM, said:

What's the point of having such speeds as Tbolt, eSata or FireWire to connect drives, if the typical external hard disk can be read about 100Mb/s?

Even SSDs don't go at 10Gbps. If my math is right, even if Tbolt can then boost reading up to 10Gbps, it can't really read "faster". Hard disk speeds have always been limited. Seems like just another commercial feature.

Think LOTS of different devices at the same time, including a large monitor. Then you see where the bandwidth comes in handy.