Thunderbolt - Chain Reaction

Thunderbolt is a great interface for video editors, but could it turn out a dead end?

It’s over a year since Apple introduced the world to the new superfast connection, Thunderbolt. It was, and still is, a very promising interface. And that’s the problem - it’s still promising, rather than actually fulfilling that promise. On paper, it’s an amazing inter­face. It supports both data and video, and provides the sort of bandwidth previously only possible with internal expansion cards. Expansion cards have become less important as processors have increased in speed: where you previously needed a dedicated card to do some serious number crunch­ing, a fast processor will now do instead.

Lade’s eSATA hub lets you plug two fast external SATA drives into your Mac via Thunderbolt - and you can daisy-chain it too

However, fast chips are only half the story, especially when it comes to video editing. It doesn’t matter how fast the pro­cessor can chew through video if there’s a bottleneck actually accessing that data. If you want to speed up your video edit­ing, access to lots of fast disk space is a good place to start.

Data storage is one area where manufacturers have embraced Thunderbolt - there are a few fast drives on the market that you can hook up to your Mac from the likes of LaCie, Promise and Western Digital. However, you’ll pay a hefty premium for a Thunderbolt model, and this can sometimes run to a couple of hun­dred pounds. You are, obviously, getting much better performance, but seem the price differ­ence is so pronounced at the moment that it makes you think twice before buying.

If the price hike wasn’t enough, then there’s another shock to come - the inflated cost doesn’t include a cable. And the only cable you can buy at the moment is the official Apple one, which will set you back another $61. For each cable, now, these cables aren’t just simple wires: they include a chip at each end, which is neces­sary to improve the cable’s signal-to-noise ratio so it can achieve its fast connection speed. The price of this extra technology will, hopefully, fall over time, but at the moment it’s just more money you have to shell out on top of an already expensive product.

If you want to split Thunderbolt into a few other ports, Apple’s $1400 Thunderbolt Display (above) is currently your only option.

Thunderbolt supports daisy chaining, which is an elegant solution to the problem of not having enough ports. At least in theory, the specification allows you to connect up to six Thunderbolt devices to one another in a chain, which means you only need a single port on the host machine. This is great for small Macs where there simply isn’t room for more than a couple of ports, let alone six.

However, in order to do this, each device needs two ports if it only has one; it’s essentially a dead end. Whether it’s due to technical constraints or just cost cutting on the part of the manufacturer, many devices - especially those aimed at video editors - only have a single Thunderbolt port.

For example, Blackmagic makes three different Thunderbolt-equipped capture boxes that will let you record an HD signal, but they all only have a single Thunderbolt port. That’s fine if all your other devices have two ports, but as soon as you get another device that only has a single Thunderbolt port as well, you’re stuck. For something that you only use occasionally, it can be inconvenient, but if they’re both devices you were planning on using at the same time, you’re sceptering if your Mac only has one Thunderbolt port.

The Little Big Disk from LaCie (left) & Western Digital’s My Book Thunderbolt Duo (right.

Since you can’t buy a Thunderbolt hub to give you more ports, daisy chaining is the only option. As soon as a device breaks the chain, it severely limits your options. If Thunderbolt really is going to take off, then all manufacturers need to make sure they don’t hobble it from the outset by only including a single port on their devices.

Thunderbolt offers a huge amount of bandwidth, more than many devices need all to themselves, but there’s a dis­tinct lack of adaptors to help split this bandwidth down into more useful chunks. FireWire 800, for example, only offers a twelfth of the theoretical transfer speed of Thunderbolt, but it’s still fast enough if you’re not working with massive data files. The problem is that all Macs only come with a single port. FireWire does support daisy chaining, but some manufactur­ers only include a single port, which leaves you with a dead end. The only way to get a variety of extra ports to your Mac is to splash out $1400 on Apple’s Thunderbolt Display, which gets you an extra FireWire 800 port along with three extra USB sockets and Gigabit Ethernet. You do get a lovely monitor thrown in, too - and it has a second Thunderbolt port for daisy chaining - but it’s an expensive option.

FireWire 800, for example, only offers a twelfth of the theoretical transfer speed of Thunderbolt, but it’s still fast enough if you’re not working with massive data files.

It’s not all bad news, though: LaCie has just launched its eSATA Thunderbolt hub, which lets you connect fast eSATA drives at up to 3Gbits/sec - nearly four times faster than FireWire 800. LaCie’s hub doesn’t just come with two eSATA ports, but has two Thunderbolt ports as well for daisy chaining. It’s still a little on the expensive side, at £169 without cable, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

Sonnet Technology has taken a different approach with the Echo Express Card/34 Thunderbolt Adapter, which adds an Express Card/34 slot to any Thunderbolt-equipped Mac. This lets you use any cards you could use in a 17in MacBook Pro, but you only get a single slot and one Thunderbolt port, so it breaks the chain. At around £130 plus cable, it’s also still a little on the expensive side.

LaCie has just launched its eSATA Thunderbolt hub, which lets you connect fast eSATA drives at up to 3Gbits/sec - nearly four times faster than FireWire 800

Perhaps Thunderbolt’s biggest problem, however, is USB 3. This was hardly available when Thunderbolt emerged, but

it has seen much wider adoption by accessory makers. Its theoretical maximum bandwidth of 5Gbits/sec is only half that of Thunderbolt, but it’s still considerably faster than most other interfaces. The bad news is that you won’t find USB 3 on Macs natively. Both LaCie and Sonnet Technology make Express Card/34 USB 3 adaptors, although they only work with storage devices at present - and even then you might have compatibility problems with some models. Plus you need an Express Card/34-equipped Mac, which means a 17in MacBook Pro or Sonnet’s Thunderbolt adaptor.

There’s no denying Thunderbolt is a more advanced, and in some cases more useful, interface than USB 3. But without full support from device manufacturers, it may never reach its full potential. It shouldn’t really be a case of having to choose one or the other, as they both have strengths and weaknesses. Thunderbolt has had over a year to prove its potential, but at the moment it feels like its falling short. With USB 3 seeing fast adoption, if something doesn’t change soon, there’s a chance it never will - which is a shame, as it’s a dream interface from a video editor’s point of view. It just needs the right prod­ucts, with the right connections, at the right price.