Thunderbolt 3, Part 2: How Much Speed Do You Need?
G-Tech blog
In our last blog article, we looked at the forthcoming Thunderbolt 3 storage interface. We examined its top benefits, including daisy chaining, USB Power Delivery, and a doubling of bandwidth from Thunderbolt 2’s 20 Gbit/s to the new generation’s 40 Gbit/s. However, we should probably answer the most basic question of all: Yes, Thunderbolt 3 is better than Thunderbolt 2, with much less USB 3.0/3.1. So what?
When You Don’t Need More Bandwidth
When you plug a Thunderbolt 3-based storage drive into your computer, you have a 40 Gbit/s (also 8 GB/s, or 8000 MB/s) freeway between your system and the storage device. However, the hard drive inside of that device won’t approach anything close to 40 Gbit/s. Even HGST’s 8TB Ultrastar Helium He8 tops out at a sustained throughput of 205 MB/s. This spotlights the difference between how fast data can move across a drive’s data port versus the slower rate at which bits can be written to or read from its platters...[continue reading]Read Part 1 of this series from G-Technology.