been out for a while, but still adds substantial cost to the hardware/interfaces that use it..
don't see much definitive here, or elsewhere in the interwebs..

is it worth it? I am fine with USB, but again stuff for mac ends up being firewire or TB

so..who wants to spend the extra dough unless there's a good reason..??

thanks in advance

 

If you fancy moving tons of data everyday through machines, it's an essential for you; otherwise, for common use, USB 2.0 is still a good choice most of the times... IMO Thunderbolt is overkill for 99% of Mac buyers (USB 3.0 is fast enough to handle heavy folders and even whole backups) and a Macbook would definitely benefit from an additional USB slot or something else instead of that crappy Thunderbolt.

 

Thunderbolt is the "successor" of Firewire.
Apple pushed it the same way...and it falls the same way.
I remember ppl needing to buy a secondary Firewire Texas Instrument card on their Mac because integrated one was crashing their Firewire soundcard.
"More rugged than USB 2.0" they said...when it works.
Thunderbolt works better for sure. Not the same big mess than Firewire.
But it just replaced already existing connections, all in one :
-eSATA
-Display Port
-USB 3.0 (almost as fast than eSATA)
And even PCI-E extensions in the box.

Apart using last Mac Pro and being forced to use it because there is no internal expansion...it is just another over priced gadget to me.
I remember an old soundcard running all 16 tracks at 24/96 without any glitch...on USB 2.0
And latency between USB/Firewire/TB is exactly the same. Everything else is peripheral related.
There are old USB2.0 cards with less latency than the most recent USB3.0. Drivers and chips matter.

As computer tech for 20 years, i've seen many of those "revolutions". They don't impress me at all

 

It's become essential for me . . . the new Mac have scrapped firewire in lieu of Thunderpants. I can't go backwards to USB, so bring on the rumble. My hope is that other companies start producing boxes so the price goes down and the selection goes up.

 

@tommyzai Yeah that's the issue I'm facing as well, up to now have only used USB interfaces, but want to upgrade for the mac and some in the running don't even have USB, which seems a little coercive (or alot as you like ).
So what interface are you using?? Is it exclusive TB?

I haven't yet narrowed down my options, and not sure if something like apogee would suffice, or to invest more in something that can be grown into... duh...

@Pipotron3000 seems you are not fan.. cool with me.. so what interfaces with USB do you think are in the top tier for mac ?

 

If you wanna tons of hocked peripherics TB is pricey. I believe that my next hackintosh will not have TB too because if I have to hook my 19 drives and my 5 pcies in a todays mac it will be soooooo expensive.
The fact is that Apple drop the pci drives and its really bad for the future of pro Apple, but in 10 years probably no one will use pci anymore...
Fuck macs... But I really love OS X and Logic... Guilty!

 

IMHO, Thunderbolt is a good idea implemented badly. Being developed as a too expensive Island solution, I guess it will have a short lifespan just as Firewire had - or even less.
Recently, I wanted to get me an external SSD drive and I had to decide between TB and USB3, and considering the price/performance ratio, getting a $10 USB3 enclosure (including cables!) and an SSD drive was a no-brainer. And with about 135MByte/s read speed, my DFD Kontakt instruments load practically instantly.
While fascinating from a technical standpoint (just look up Apple's patents on TB and watch how unbelievably complicated just the cables and the cable's electronics are!), from the user's standpoint, all the disadvantages certainly outweigh the one and only advantage: Speed.
Investing in expensive cables and drives that don't even connect to my PCs without investing even more is a no-go for me.
With USB3.1 running up to 5Gbit/s, I can happily wait.

The USB inventors have done three things right:
1. They've tried to keep down hardware cost at a minimum
2. They always remained compatible with the previous USB standard
3. They don't ask for Licensing fees - well, at least not to the extent Apple and Intel do.

I don't agree that stuff for Mac ends up being either FW or TB.
As long as I can get high-quality multichannel audio interfaces and all kinds of other USB peripherals, I'm fine.

 

Despite Thunderbolt speeds, next version of USB 3.1 will probably become better standard. More than speed itself is important, that 3.1 standard will deliver up to 100W and rise of pheriperials that will be powered through it will be enormous. Almost anything that eat more than 15-20 watt, needed external power supply of some kind, with 3.1, many power supplies will gone. There will be increasing number of pretty loud speakers/monitors available powered through usb 3.1 for example, external big touchcreens(for live gigs), conected and powered simply by usb and manny other power hungry pheriperials, even most non gaming laptops(specially in future) will have option to power throuh it.

 

Seems to be an intel project, or you mean apple commissioned it? there are several interfaces out there with thunderbolt and USB but I agree it's creepy that a product like UA apollo has firewire and/or TB, but no USB
and not even (technically ) operable with Windows,.
( I know some of you genii are doing just that too, tell me about it )

I'm fine with USB... then any suggestions about upper tier non-TB interfaces that work well with OSX ???

apogee doesn't look that impressive...

anyone use motu ? vs focusrite ?

 

Last edited by a moderator: Aug 25, 2015

It has been working with Windows and Linux for years without any problems. It's essentially a PCI-Express bus on a wire. With Thunderbolt 3 already announced, I don't see a valid reason why it's not going to have a long life.

It's a fast interconnect for high performance storage and video devices. It's not intended to be used by generic consumers and is geared towards performance-oriented applications.

Back in the day, people used SCSI, FibreChannel and Infiniband for such applications. Compared to those technologies, Thunderbolt is actually DIRT CHEAP. See how much Fibre Channel HBAs, switches and arrays are and you'll see what I mean.

 

do you work for them? it adds $500 to the price of an apollo !!

well... 2nd thought maybe just glomming on to apple greed...

 

eSATAp for the win

 

I have thunderbolt and I think it's good but I agree with the other posts usb 3 is also great. The new usbc appl format thing on the new MacBooks uses thunderbolt 3 and usb3 all in one port which is interesting.

 

It is a good concept.///ruined by Apple way to force ppl use their tech. And overpriced.
May be it was supposed to be "high speed" high end only...so why they removed other ports ?

 

Thunderbolt is AWESOME. I come home and plug a single cable from my rMBP to my thunderbolt dock. That dock connects audio interface, 2 midi keyboards, 2 midi drum machines, 32" screen, thunderbolt 4x drive enclosure, a 10 port powered usb3 hub, keyboard, trackball mouse, ilok, elicensor, reason key, 3 external usb3 drives i may turn on at demand and still have free ports. I await to see how thier new USB-C will top that.

 

I've Got a Mac but my music computer in a PC with an AMD heart ;) , TB is great idea but implementing this idea cost. so i have this oh so amazing TB port doing nothing, but i got 2 USB3 ports as well and they work really nice and fast so until TB adapters go down in price LOL i really don't need it. I loved mac stuff for a long time but been watching it go down hill fast. its my everyday computer and for that its great. but as long as i can build PCs faster then any mac and at a fraction of the cost my audio & video editing will be on PC with USB 3

 

Compare it to a 3000-4000$ FibreChannel 16Gbps HBA card and you'll see what I mean.