Analysis of Intel 10GB/s Thunderbolt

Imagine in the near future a PC with a 10Gb/s connector in both directions for peripherals and combining two protocols, PCIe for data transfer and DisplayPort for screens. It will be possible with Intel’s Thunderbolt.

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Thunderbolt Cable

Thunderbolt Slot

Depending on the models, we have today the choice between USB 2.0 (theoretical maximum 480MB/s), FireWire (400Mb/s or 800Mb/s), Express Card (2.5Gb/s), USB 3.0 (5Gb/s) and eSATA (1.5, 3 or 6Gb/s). 10GB/s is even better than FC (4 or 8GB/s), the interface for high-enterprise storage, and with the same speed of the expansive 10GbE. It’s a lot, for example the ability to transfer a full-length HD movie in less than 30 seconds.

Thunderbolt (code named Light Peak) was showed off with Apple OS X in September 2009 at Intel Developer Forum and has just been officially released. It’s the fastest interface for PCs, with the ability to daisy-chain six peripherals, plus both PCIe and DisplayPort support, and power (10W) over the 3-meter cable.

                                     Thunderbolt Process Diagram
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It accepts anything from screen to storage devices, scanners, A/V devices, keyboards, etc. "Practically, you can throw away about everything inside the PC: graphic card, audio output, USB 3.0, FireWire…", said LaCie’s CTO Philippe Pardonnet to StorageNewsletter.com. But the Intel’s interface cannot be used for LAN to connect several computers.

With the new connector, you can think tomorrow on a new market for a tiny low cost box integrating only a motherboard and two connectors, Thunderbolt and Ethernet, and no HDD at all. The user will have the choice to buy from other sources his keyboard, mouse, display, storage device, etc., depending on his needs. It will be something like a much smaller Apple Mac Mini, without magnetic or optical drives.

So you understand why external storage firms LaCie, that invested a lot on Thunderbolt with Intel and Apple, as well as Promise Technology and WD, are interested by a technology like that. LaCie will begin this summer with its Little Big Disk (with two 1TB 2.5-inch HDDs or 256GB Intel SSDs for better use of the high transfer rate) offering Thunderbolt dual-port with a power supply. Pardonnet notes that 10W will be probably insufficient to power directly an external 3.5-inch HDD.

But the success of the new interface will primary depend of a factor actually unknown, the price of Thunderbolt chip that has to be there, on the motherboard and peripherals. "For storage, we have to add a SATA controller on PCIe, a connector plus eventually a second one for daisy chain", explains Pardonnet. Intel has not a business model based on cheap hardware and licensing to rival foundries. If the price is too high, Thunderbolt will be used only for high-end applications like professional video, not being applicable for cheap peripherals (flash keys) or computers (tablets) where USB 2.0 and 3.0 is much more adapted. The first storage solutions from LaCie with Little Big Disk and Promise Technology with Pegasus are aimed at A/V and enterprise users. Thunderbolt could even offers the ability to build high-end SAN in competition with iSCSI and FC. The price of Thunderbolt connector and cable also has not been revealed. Intel refutes Apple exclusivity for Thunderbolt, but not for free. The only computers integrating it today are three Apple’s new MacBook Pros.

This is the first generation of Thunderbolt over copper and it will eventually scale up to 100Gb/s and move to optical cables.

Following this announcement, we doubt that Intel will be in hurry to push much cheaper and standardized USB 3.0 on motherboard. It was supposed to come this summer but some sources evoke 2012.

It will be possible to create GbE adapters using existing PCIe device drivers, said Intel. But can we dream about a PC with one (or dual) unique 10Gb/s connector for peripherals AND 10GbE networking? Today, it’s just a dream.