Stop the Noiz

Moving Data at the Speed of Light (Peak)

Frank Fox - 2009.10.02 - Tip Jar

Popularity:

Short link: http://bit.ly/

Light Peak technology was officially launched as "Thunderbolt" by Intel on February 24, 2011. Apple introduced three MacBook Pro models with Thunderbolt the same day.

The news about Intel's new Light Peak sounds good - fast transfer rates using optical cables and useful for many types of devices.

If Light Peak is so great, it must be faster than anything else out there, right? Not true - it is a little slower than some current video protocols, but it has the same speed as 10 gigabit ethernet (that's ten times faster than the gigabit ethernet in modern Macs).

If it's not the fastest, what is the big deal?

While it is not the fastest, few protocols beat the theoretical transfer speed by much. Light Peak is the chameleon of transfer cable technology. If you want to send HD video, use this cable. If you need to transfer large data files, use this cable. Heck, if you want to do both at the same time with only one connection, use this cable.

It can send both send and receive 10 gigabits per second (Gb/s) at the same time. The cable has four optic fibers, each one capable of carrying 10 Gb/s. There are also plans to add a copper wire to the specification in order to power devices, for easy recharging and such.

Slow, Slow Wireless Speed

How does Light Peak compare to the latest technologies? The slowest is wireless. For example, Wireless N (802.11n) can reach 160 Mb/s in the real world. Light Peak is about 60 times faster.

Faster wireless standards will come out, but nothing even close to what a good cable can provide.

Cables Make a Difference with Ethernet

Moving on to other ethernet type connections, Apple first used Gigabit Ethernet on the "Mystic" Power Mac G4 in 2000. It gives a full 1 Gb/s. The fastest ethernet on the market is 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GBase-T), and 100 Gigabit Ethernet is under development. You won't find 10G ethernet on many computers. The standard also makes use of fiber optic cable to achieve these transfer rates.

USB Leaps Ahead with 3.0

The latest USB 3.0 connectors are starting to make an appearance. We see that at best it will be only half the speed of Light Peak. USB 3.0 is rated at 4.8 Gb/s. Of course, theoretical and actual are two different things. In the past USB was unable to deliver more than about two-thirds of theoretical speed.

FireWire Isn't Dead Yet!

FireWire was an important competitor to USB, but it has been losing popularity. Still, the FireWire standard is still progressing. FireWire S3200 is planned to reach 3.2 Gb/s. That keeps it comparable to USB 3.0, but still much slower than Light Peak. I doubt we'll see many devices that use it.

Hard Drives Get a Speedy with SATA 6 Gb/s

Hard drives need to be speedy, and a new SATA protocol was recently released, SATA 6 Gb/s. As the name implies, it can go 6 Gb/s. The nice thing with this protocol is it remains compatible with older systems and hard drives. You do need to have the right motherboard to take advantage of the latest speed increase.

Video Takes the Cake: HDMI and DisplayPort

The newest video protocols, HDMI and DisplayPort, are both ready to transfer HD video content or huge blocks of data if all the wires are used together. HDMI version 1.3 and higher will transfer at 10.2 Gb/s, while DisplayPort can go up to 10.8 Gb/s. These are slightly better than Light Peak, but they are mostly designed for video. No one is pushing the data transfer rates of these protocols.

Transfer speed comparisons

Light Peak Covers All the Bases

The chart shows how Light Peak compares to all of these other protocols. At 10 Gb/s, it can cover a whole range of transfer protocols. The magic of Light Peaks is that it can become the cable of choice for all these protocols with no significant loss in transfer speed.

The folks at Intel are not finished with Light Peak. They plan to push the specification up to 100 Gb/s, with some stops along the way. There is plenty of room for growth - and hopefully backward compatibility - as this latest specification tries to find its way in the world of technology.

Join us on Facebook!, follow us on Twitter, use our Google+ page, or read our RSS news feed

Recent Stop the Noiz Columns

Who Is the Ebook Villain, Apple or Amazon?, 2012.04.19. Amazon.com wants the right to sell ebooks below cost. Apple wants publishers to guarantee it can retail ebooks at the same price.
5 Reasons the iPad Is Not Killing Off PCs, 2012.04.10. Apple designed the iPad to complement your computer, not replace it, which means the iPad has significant limitations.
Open Source Arduino Platform Makes Robotics on the Mac Easy, 2012.02.28. Historically, robotics software has been mostly for Windows, but open source hardware and software lets Mac users enter the world of robotics.
More in the Stop the Noiz index.

Links for the Day

Mac of the Day: PowerBook 500 Series, introduced 1994.05.16. 'Blackbird' includes a 25 to 33 MHz 68040 along with smart batteries and grayscale or color displays.
May 16 in LEM history: 98: iMac reconsidered - 01: The exclusivist Mac - Cubed - Troubleshooting - 02: SE/30 catharsis - Microsoft free - 03: SCSI and OS X on a beige G3 - 05: Failures: Apple III and Lisa - Bigger, faster, more - 06: MacBook - PowerBook 3400 still useful - 07: 3 GB in a MacBook - 08: Mac Pro beats HP and Dell - Limited USB power in Santa Rosa Macs
Support Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM Support Usage Privacy Contact

Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2012 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc. unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Low End Mac, LowEndMac, and lowendmac.com are trademarks of Cobweb Publishing Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iPad iPhone, iMac, iPod, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.
Advice is presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
Email may be published at our discretion unless marked "not for publication"; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.

Custom Search

Follow Low End Mac on Twitter
Join Low End Mac on Facebook

Low End Mac Reader Specials

Macsales.com SuperSpeed SSDs from $58. Transform your Mac with an SSD Solution of up to 960GB! You won't believe it's the same machine! Once you experience an OWC SSD, no going back! - Macsales.com

Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Macpokeronline.com will show you how to download and play Poker on a Mac natively on your Mac in just minutes.

Affiliates

Amazon.com
The iTunes Store
PC Connection Express
Parallels Desktop for Mac
eBay