Intel Shows 'World's Fastest' Thumbdrive Using Thunderbolt

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This is interesting, but more PC's need to come with Thunderbolt ports before anything good can come of it. I mean prebuilt ones, since the main consumer audience will not be building their own.
 
I completely agree with you Spooderman, right now the only company even putting Thunderbolt ports in their products is Apple as far as prebuilt goes. I have seen very few if any systems on the Windows side that have Thunderbolt.
 
@vkg1
USB speeds are rated in burst speeds, just like it's always been, while firewire and thunderbolt operate on a constant data rate.
2 different things, two different uses. And coincidentally, thunderbolt doesn't have anything to do with apple, unlike firewire. It's simply a third party interface that they've integrated into their hardware.
 
vkg1, you don't really know what you're talking about. The reason why USB won over Firewire was the cost to implement it. Currently, USB 3.0 has theoretical speed of up to 4.8Gbps. Thunderbolt has theoretical speeds of 10Gbps. The difference being (besides the speeds) is that USB's bandwidth is shared across all the devices connected to that hub. With Thunderbolt, it is 10Gbps for every single device (up to 6) for the one hub.
 
with usb(3) being what is is now, it's gonna be hard to introduce this form factor to the masses. Look at e-sata, it's much faster, and almost nobody uses it...
 

There is no such "rating in burst speed", USB can do sustained transfers at the exact same rate it can do 'bursts' at. USB1/2's problem is half-duplex and host-based polling to emulate interrupts which makes it a lot less efficient - due to lack of full-duplex (or double-simplex for nitpickers) the USB host needs to periodically waste bandwidth polling all devices that may have interrupts to see whether or not there actually is one.

Ironically, USB3 addresses a few of USB1/2's core weaknesses but at the same time, USB3 introduces more complex cables than the FireWire cables it was originally intended to avoid.
 


Did you even read the article? It's based on Sandisk's SSD
 


On top of the fact that Intel is doing it just because they can. They don't necessarily want to bring it to market because they don't believe there will be enough interest in it.
 
@ vkg1
Intel and Apple developed Thunderbolt. USB didn't take off until Apple made it ubiquitous via the iMac and peripheral device manufactures. USB devices always worked/work on a Mac. I quite often had to struggle to get the same device to work under Windows. You really are dumb if you think USB, FireWire and Thunderbolt are remotely similar in application.
 
Even using an external SSD drive wouldn't see much benefit from Thunderbolt as SATA 3 is just a little faster then the USB3. We need to see SATA4 before this will help but by that time USB4 will be out. Only thing I can think of that will utilize that speed is Raid setups with SSD's or the PCI-E SSD's. Also, I don't want to go back to having 20 different connectors on back of my computer to use everything. We already have 3 or 4 competing video interfaces for computer monitors which is annoying enough.
 

A Thunderbolt drive does not need to use SATA3 or USB3; it can also be a native PCIe storage device that can use the full 20Gbps with PCIe's lower latency from eliminating the SATA/USB layer..
 
A proprietary technology from Intel, which is competing with the open technology USB 3. Given the price gouging on Intel CPUs, I don't like this thing becoming mainstream at all.
 
Remember when many of the first and second gen SSD's came with a USB connector?
why not being that back but with thunderbolt so that you can use an SSD as a flash drive that will offer full SSD performance.
It would really streamline the process of saving txt files and spreadsheets.
 
Thunderbolt 2?
Lol... if my memory serves me properly, I think I read that AMD's Lightning Bolt alternative is faster than Intel's Thunderbolt (which fell short on its promises), and cheaper. Thunderbolt 2 seems to be on par with what Thunderbolt 1 should have been, and AMD already beat Intel at that. Interesting. I also don't like how Intel permeates the market in all facets while AMD solutions are implemented in poorly designed products. Granted, Intel is better (for the moment) than AMD in CPU processing power, but AMD also offers a viable alternative for many people who do not want to (or cannot) spend large portions of money on Intel products. Intel is not playing nice.
 
The fastest read/write speeds on any SSD would not require the bandwidth of Thunderbold, until they do this is a waste - also thank god it's a prototype because DAYM!!! That is one UGLY drive
 


If it uses full SATA gen 3 bandwidth then it should push something like 500MB/s Read/write sequential which is quite a bit faster than what most USB 3 thumb drives do. The SuperTalent RC8 is about 250MB/s.

Also it would not be limited to just SATA gen 3 speeds as they can make a controller just for it later.
 

It is a prototype. This means it could very well have a very non-standard internal structure such as a 40-channel flash controller vs the usual 8-10 on most of today's SSDs or possibly some form of internal RAID0.

A prototype designed primarily to demo bandwidth also does not need write-leveling and robust error correction - it only has to be reliable enough to demonstrate the speed. As an experimental device, it can also afford to use parts that would normally make no economic sense.
 
Well if this is a valid drive technology why not an internal header on a mothboard How about a plug in module for a drive instead of a bulky data cable? That is the concept behind MSATA. A smaller connector is better.
 

What would be the point in that? Thunderbolt is intended for EXTERNAL devices. Internal devices can simply use straight PCIe.

Thunderbolt is little more than external hot-swappable PCIe that piggy-backs on mDP cables. Using it for internal components would be a horrible waste of power and completely unnecessary cost+protocol overhead.
 
Interesting, but ultimately pointless. Until thunderbolt connectors are on every motherboard and case, thunderbolt will remain a gimmick.
 
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