Apple's Thunderbolt for the video editor.

[David C. Williams]

Originally Posted by Kirk Candlish

While also increasing throughput. It's faster than eStata, so it's not just incorporating it into a single cable.

Thunderbolt has greater bandwidth than eSata, yes, but it can't magically speed up a single eSata based drive. It carries the eSata signal, that's all. The current Thunderbolt controller sits on a 4xPCI-e bus, that's the limit.

Thunderbolt isn't an I/O protocol, so you cannot make a Thunderbolt drive. It carries existing signals.

[Kirk Candlish]

I wasn't saying it could affect the drive, not sure how that would be implied in my comment. The limitation is, as you said, the 4xPCI-e bus.

[David C. Williams]

Well that's what you said. "While increasing through put"

[Kirk Candlish]

Yes, to the bus.

[David C. Williams]

What your suggesting makes no sense? It not speeding up any device, so there's no increase in throughput for anything. It won't increase the speed of an eSata to the PCI-e bus in any way. It just encapsulates the bus data and sends it down an optical fibre to be de-encapsulated at the other end and put on to another PCI-e bus.

How does that "increase throughput"?

[Nigel Barker]

At the bottom of this page there's a video showing a demo of Thunderbolt in use on a new MBP connecting a Promise RAID array & monitor. It's pretty impressive performance. Intel Thunderbolt: a closer look (updated with video) -- Engadget

[Michael Wisniewski]

Thanks Nigel, that video put a big smile on my face. Now I'm thinking of all kinds of ways to max out the Thunderbolt technology.

[Bob Willis]

Thunderbolt Device:
LaCie is the premier manufacturer of high quality digital storage.

This is more than just a cable. 2 Bi-directional 10Gb/s channels. Now that is increased throughput.

800 MB/s of performance

http://www.promise.com/storage/raid_...sn1=40&rsn3=47

[Andrew Clark]

So this should work the same when using with Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit (via BootCamp of course)....right?

[Nigel Barker]

Microsoft would have to support Thunderbolt in Windows first & the 3rd-party manufacturers would have to write drivers for their devices. I am sure if Intel have their way this will happen but I don't think that there is any support at present.

[Dom Stevenson]

I'm interested in the 13" MBP. Any ideas how much of a difference the integrated graphics card would be compared to the 15" AMD standalone card?

I'd rather save the cash and get a nice monitor and thunderbolt friendly external HD than pay the extra 500 quid for the 15.

[Zach Love]

I'd be interested in this too.

I opted for a 13" at work since I have a Mac Pro which I'm at for 90% of the editing I do & knew that 90% of the work I'll do on the laptop won't be long hours of editing, so I wanted something that was a little smaller & easier to carry around.

My personal computer is an older 15" MBP, which is excellent, but I do like the smaller size of the 13".

When I upgrade my personal laptop, I'll have to decide if I want the portability (& extra cash) or if I want the higher quality video card, so it'd be great to see how great the advantages are for the money.

[Kirk Candlish]

You guys can easily find reviews of the new MBPs all over the net. A good place to start would be macworld.

[Kirk Candlish]

appleinsider has a good article on the new MBPs.

One quote from there:

"Thunderbolt is like a very fast FireWire, with an improved connector, high resolution external display support, and more electrical power, with support for Target Mode booting and the ability to bridge other interfaces, including Ethernet and USB. "

Worth the time to read and a good site for lots of information.

[Jonathan Shaw]

I was literally about to purchase a Thecus RAID tower which would connect via ethernet. Do you guys reckon that Thunderbolt will have a big take up and will it be that much better performance??? Lots of if's and maybe's I know.