There was a time when everyone complained that Apple wasn’t putting USB 3 ports in Macs. Then Apple not only put USB 3.0 in all of their Macs, they introduced Thunderbolt — an incredible new hardware interface that can sustain lightning-fast speeds of up to 10 Gbit per second across four devices simultaneously.
Once Thunderbolt came out, a lot of us forgot about USB 3, and let the USB 3 ports we’d once clamored for get crusty. Thunderbolt was the new hotness. It looks like the group behind the USB 3.0 spec isn’t going to let that stand, though: They’re supercharging USB 3.0 by 400%.
Right now, USB 3.0 tops out at 5 Gbps, which is positively puny compared to Thunderbolt. But come USB 3.1, the spec will be capable of running at 10 Gbps, matching Thunderbolt’s speeds… but with a huge caveat.
You see, Thunderbolt allows 10 Gbps per lane, and it has four lanes. Connect four Thunderbolt devices and technically, you’re capable of transferring data back and forth at a rate of 40 Gbps. USB 3.0, on the other hand, only has a single lane. So Thunderbolt is still 400% faster.
And it’s only going to get worse. Thunderbolt 2 is due to arrive before the end of the year, and it’ll boast 20 Gbps speeds. The way Thunderbolt 2 does this is by combining two 10 Gbps Thunderbolt lanes into a single one, so Thunderbolt’s not getting more throughput, but it is getting faster per-device speeds.
So by the end of the year, when USB 3.1 vs. Thunderbolt 2 showdowns start coming out, the overall speed winner will be Thunderbolt. Of course, USB is cheaper to implement than Thunderbolt, which will likely make it more widely adopted. There’s room in our Macs for both.
Source: USB.org
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
4 responses to “USB 3 Is Getting Supercharged But Thunderbolt Will Still Outclass It”
I guess. In my environment, the Thunderbolt port is really dusty. How many Thunderbolt flash drives are there out there that are cheap and easy to use?? Nada. How many monitors that are cost effective in major corporations are out there right now. Very few. How many USB3 flash drives are there that copy at a steady 75-125MB/s? A lot. How many docks are out there that can connect via USB3 and project your laptop to a large screen, hub or whatever else. How many monitors that are cheap can be daisy chained using USB3. A lot.
Thunderbolt, meh. It will likely get more popular but it is absurd to think it will overtake USB anytime soon. The lack of benefits and cross platform compatibility as well as just the exhorbitant cost of manufacturing and building new Thunderbolt products is a big barrier right now. It will be a while before it gets better. Thunderbolt is not as compatible across all devices and platforms as USB. There’s no micro or mini Thunderbolt to accommodate ports you may want on a smaller, tablet or phone device.
USB will only get faster and will continue to be compatible across all devices. Apple will likely sit on its haunches and ignore USB 3.1, 4.0 and so on just as they did with USB 3. USB is here to stay for a while. Apple ignoring it for so long is just another in a long series of design decisions that left many scratching their head.
which macbook is that in the photo? i’ve never seen matte black surface on retina before
I don’t particularly agree with the ardent bias towards Thunderbolt; Thunderbolt’s adoption has been a drop in the ocean. How many TB peripherals are out there? Even things as simple as hard drive enclosures (average cost of a USB2 hard drive enclosure: $10) are barely available for TB and if they are, they are >$100.
Apple and Intel have totally botched TB’s rollout, and despite the new TB2 announcement and the upcoming Mac Pro, I’m not seeing any signs that this is going to change.
USB3 is:
•cheaper
•cross-platform
•backwards-compatible
•already hugely popular — nearly every major peripheral category works via USB
TB is:
•Mac only
•Really only pushed by Apple
•Expensive to implement
•Not even available on all Macs yet
Totally, totally botched.
Thunderbolt is available on some PCs, albeit very few. Some MB manufacturers like ASUS have been including it for awhile now. And it is available on all Macs with current hardware (which obviously excludes the current Mac Pro).
I do agree that Intel has botched its release though. If they halved the price of the controller, they’d see adoption go up for sure!