I'm not talking about internal drive data transfer, external only. Internal as you say there are better options.
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Thunderbolt card for Mac Pro 4,1
- Thread starter Ben1l
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I'm not talking about internal drive data transfer, external only. Internal as you say there are better options.
Well I'm talking about educating that user, and instead of working with external disks, he should do his projects on the flashSSD (Scratch) and export later.
The workflow you describe would suit this.
The workflow you describe would suit this.
You are jumping way ahead in the workflow here, where thunderbolt is valuable is in the before editing stage. Say you are on location you have a laptop with external hard drives, you are getting lots of photo raw files and or video files. As you fill up memory cards you are transferring those cards to your external drives via your laptop. You may want this done quickly.
Then later when finished in the field you come back and transfer all that data onto your home base office long term storage setup.
I have no idea what the original poster is doing, but thunderbolt is useful on location.
In my case personally I can compromise on transfer speed when at home so I can accept the lack of thunderbolt in my Mac Pro, I wouldn't buy a laptop these days without it though.
I totally agree that we should not compare internal vs external. They are for different tasks.
However, in your example. The initial transfer speed should be limited by the memory card. I don't think there is a memory card that can saturate a USB 3.0 connection.
The 2nd transfer may able to utilise the Thunderbolt speed if the external drive is builded from a high speed PCIe SSD, which is a bit rare if the aim is to relief the memory card's space. And as you said, the extreme seed isn't that important at home. In fact, I did google a bit about protable Thunderbolt storage. And surprise that a 2017 review rated a 3xxMB/s speed as very fast (full score indeed).
I am not saying Thunderbolt speed is completely useless in real world. However, it seems not that useful for protable storage at this moment. And when the main stream storage able to saturate a USB 3.0 connection. We may already able to install a USB 4.0 card in a PCIe slot.
And if TB is going to the USB-C form factor, and all we need is just the ability of connecting a storage (but not eGPU etc). We can always install a USB-C card into a PCIe slot.
PCIe slots may be an old technology, but it's still the best component to keep a computer up to date so far. With the PCIe slot, there is virtually zero need to have Thunderbolt (or course, if something like your company only provide you Thunderbolt equipment, then that's a must for your workflow).
You know, honestly the only thing I had in mind specifically was the ability to plug a newer TB-only Mac in target disc mode into the Mac Pro. Convenience for the studio customer that comes over with files on their TB-only Macbook.
I could justify throwing $100-200 at some pci card just for something to do. Not exactly a big justification if it would be a lot of screwing around or require difficult workarounds and still maybe not even work!
And as mentioned, TB is a moot point for a desktop with actual pci slots. Seemed like an elegant solution to substitute for pci slots as a workaround for portable machines that don't have them. But... not so much if there are these compatibility faux pas going on! Come on Apple!
I'm not sure what you mean by "Come on Apple!" But I've got to play devils advocate here.
Thunderbolt has been around a number of years now but when Apple built the cMP thunderbolt wasn't even thought of and didn't appear until the end of the cMP era.
It is a little unrealistic to expect the cMP to be compatible with certain modern hardware. Thunderbolt is a perfect example as it would require Apple to redesign the logic boards of a machine they haven't sold New in 5 years. Even in the PC world if you want thunderbolt you have to buy a motherboard that is thunderbolt compatible. Not all are.
Plus also thunderbolt is an Intel product. Intel control everything to do with Thunderbolt. While Apple is a huge user of it they didn't design it.
You can though get a USB-C card for the cMP.
Well, it's almost a year later and I still see a few companies trying to sell thunderbolt PCIe expansion cards. Is the advice for any/all of these still "Give up now!"? Or has someone perhaps finally made a TB expansion card that delivers full TB performance and stability?
Thunderbolt to FireWire adapter. $49 I think? You'll get FireWire 800 speeds, maximum, which is fine for file transfers. It's just about half as fast as TB1, I believe, so it will take twice as long, but what can you do?
I have done it many times to connect my 2015 MBP to my 2012 cMP for file transfers.
If speed is important to your business on a regular basis (i.e. not for occasional users who come in with files), I'm afraid the only option is to upgrade to a nMP or switch to an Intel Xeon PC with Thunderbolt support on the motherboard.
Or, just get a Thunderbolt SAN disk array, let them dump their files to it at full speed, then access them from your cMP at slower speed (or, as suggested, copy them to an internal PCIe Flash SSD like the Amfeltec, so you can at least have very speedy working files).
Those cards that I have seen are for certain older HP motherboards that specifically support those cards and I think there is an additional connection to the card from the motherboard to complete the TB circuit. You can't just plonk those into any PC and get instant TB.
Yup. The majority of those PCI TB interface cards are specifically made to work with specific motherboards. There simply is no industry-standard TB interface card that would work with any motherboard that supported TB, and to reiterate, if the motherboard / chipset doesn't support Thunderbolt, there is literally no way to add it to that computer.
Starting to see a new batch of rumors of being able to install thunderbolt 3 pci expansion cards in pre thunderbolt Mac Pros (4,1 & 5,1 2009 - 2012 models). I imagine it isn't true for all the same reasons as before. Anyone able to lay that to rest one way or the other?
False, TB3 on MacPro1,1+ is possible now with a flashed Titan-Ridge or Alpine-Ridge AIC with OpenCore Bootloader. I am using one in my 4,1->5,1 right now. They are not (new) rumors at all.
P.S. Probably shouldn't resurrect old threads BTW.