Hi guys and I’m back blogging after a roller coaster week of exams with a Thunderbolt of a news!! Intel have developed a USB-3.0 beating Input/Output Technology. It is named Thunderbolt and offers 10Gbps transfer rate in BOTH directions. Its already in market on a Macbook Pro.

What is Thunderbolt ?

It is an I/O port technology just like USB or Firewire. It was developed by Intel under the code name Light Peak. It lets you move data to and from peripherals up to 20 times faster than with USB 2.0, more than 12 times faster than with FireWire 800 and TWICE as fast as USB 3.0. Apart from this, with two independent channels, a full 10 Gbps transfer rate will be made available for both input and output !! Also You can run multiple devices from the same port !!

The Thunderbolt port on MacBook Pro

Specs

• Dual-channel 10 Gbps per port.
• Support for multiple connections from same port. (with no loss in performance !!)
• Support for PCI-e and DisplayPort protocols.
• Support for chained devices.
• Uses native protocol software drivers. (So its ready to use on any OS!!)
• Power line for devices to be powered.
• Small Port (goes with thinnest of laptops)
• Electrical or optical cables supported.

And there is more !!

Thunderbolt I/O technology provides native support for Mini DisplayPort displays. It also supports DisplayPort, DVI, HDMI and VGA displays through the use of existing adapters. You can connect your High Defenition display devices using Thunderbolt to your laptop. It would offer low latency and highly accurate time synchronization features.

With Thunderbolt enabled products, video editing and sharing using Intel Quick Sync Video technology is even faster and easier.

Backup and sharing will be really fast. The Thunderbolt site claims that you can transfer a full-length HD movie in less than 30 seconds and backup 1 year of continuous MP3 playback in just over 10 minutes !!

I’ll wind it up quoting the Apple site,

“One small port. One giant leap in possibilities.”