# THUNDERBOLT: What apple is cooking up for streaming samples......



## SvK (Feb 23, 2011)

hi all,

We've been discussing Apple's subpar performance of SSD drives and why Apple's MAC pro line only feature SATA2 slots which don't take advantage of the current SSD read capabilities when paired with SATA3......

Well here's why 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Peak

Also next week Apple releases this port on a new 13in Mac book pro......
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/02/23/clo ... peak-port/

Theoretically this means you will be able to stream a library like HS from a laptop and an external drive connected to this port......i think


SvK


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## José Herring (Feb 23, 2011)

All seems very cool, but it does seem like it will take a while for this to catch on. It's such a major shift. But certainly is very promising and will certainly solve a lot of problems.

More interested in PoE (powered ethernet). Seems like it will improve audio over LAN immensely.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 23, 2011)

On paper, Light Peak will mean that no RAIDs are required to get the bandwidth for 1000-ish voices.

But will adapters work? I for one am not interested in buying a $5000 Mac or a laptop.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 23, 2011)

By the way, what I'm really interested in is wireless ethernet that has comparable performance to gigabit. We had a thread about this before; that may happen.


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## José Herring (Feb 23, 2011)

Nick Batzdorf @ Wed Feb 23 said:


> On paper, Light Peak will mean that no RAIDs are required to get the bandwidth for 1000-ish voices.
> 
> But will adapters work? I for one am not interested in buying a $5000 Mac or a laptop.



Do you mean 1000ish streaming voices? If so, I'm getting that now off of 2 standard 7200rpm drives using VEPro on the host machine. No raid needed. I'm hoping lightpeak using SSD's will deliver ultra fast load times with at least quadruple the voice count I'm getting now. That would be killer.

Jose


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## SvK (Feb 23, 2011)

Jose....

1000 streaming voices on 2 7200 rpm drives?
i can't accept that as truth . Its not possible.

SvK


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## SvK (Feb 23, 2011)

HS has a window that allows you to see the amount of streams being triggered....I to am hosting these in VE PRo and I have a killer PC with killer SSDs etc where I get a solid 500 voices...

I mean if you can make me see the error of my ways ill do it your way......

SvK


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## José Herring (Feb 23, 2011)

SvK @ Wed Feb 23 said:


> Jose....
> 
> 1000 streaming voices on 2 7200 rpm drives?
> i can't accept that as truth . Its not possible.
> ...



It is possible. I'm using Kontakt 3.5 and not Play. I could run the test again if you'd like. If there is a way to do it more accurately than the way that I'm doing it then I'd like to know. You're not the first person to not believe me though. Funny, I didn't think what I was doing was that exceptional.

But, really all I did was sequence a line then I copied and pasted to tracks on my template until I heard pops. On XP it was well over 1000, since I switched to a full template on Win7 though I got a little less. Seems that Win7 isn't as efficient or maybe it's because I know have 32 instances of Kontakt running rather than just a few as I did when I tested on XP.

Jose


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## José Herring (Feb 23, 2011)

Yes I just tested again the way that TJ did it in his HS video just using one patch and holding down the sustain pedal. So it was just streaming off of 1 drive this time and I easily hit 1000 voices and the HD meter in Konakt didn't even move.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 23, 2011)

Jose, what are the specs of the drives and SATA controller, or what motherboard and processor?


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## SvK (Feb 23, 2011)

any way this thread is about ThunderBolt.

http://www.soundsonline-forums.com/show ... hp?t=34091

SvK


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## José Herring (Feb 23, 2011)

Nick Batzdorf @ Wed Feb 23 said:


> Jose, what are the specs of the drives and SATA controller, or what motherboard and processor?



Nothing that remarkable these days. I built the machine about 1 year and 1/2 ago. 

i7 cpu with 7200rpm harddrives. 6 Sata 2 ports on my ASUS P6T mobo. One sample drive is even left over from my p4 days and it's a Pata drive (parallel ATA) All drives have a seek time of less than 8ms or so. Probably will replacd the Pata drive soon as it's getting long in the tooth. Also, my other sample drive is old too. Fat32 files system. Got to change that one now as well.

Thuderbolt looks awesome btw. Looks like it could be ready to go already.

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Asus-Unl ... 7291.shtml

Looks like Avid is all over it:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/3930/inte ... up-in-2011


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## Udo (Feb 24, 2011)

josejherring @ Thu Feb 24 said:


> .......... Thuderbolt looks awesome btw. Looks like it could be ready to go already.
> http://news.softpedia.com/news/Asus-Unl ... 7291.shtml
> .......


That has nothing to do with Light Peak or what Apple calls Thunderbolt.


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## gsilbers (Feb 24, 2011)

so does thunderbolt = to light-peak?

same connectors?


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 24, 2011)

Thanks Jose.


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## kdm (Feb 24, 2011)

gsilbers @ Thu Feb 24 said:


> so does thunderbolt = to light-peak?
> 
> same connectors?



It's the same data transfer tech, but Thunderbolt is the commercial name for it using an electrical connector, where Light peak is the development code name, based on an optical connector (no time frame on release). http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20035961-64.html (Article on it here.).

It could be nice, at least in the long run - imho, it could be short-lived in this connector form unless the optical version will be backwards compatible via converter, with no speed limitations.


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## SvK (Feb 24, 2011)

KDM

you're kidding right?

The Drives are coming out this spring (thats basically 4 weeks from now)
It is backwards compatible with optical....

this is the biggest thing to happen for our beloved sample libraries ever.

SvK


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## Jack Weaver (Feb 24, 2011)

Thunderbolt looks pretty cool. Can't wait until it shows up on the next gen Mac Pro. Maybe a couple years from now I can update the mobo to Thunderbolt on the new PC I'm working on.

So I see both UAD & Apogee announced support for it! (see bottom of this article)

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11 ... _2012.html

.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Feb 24, 2011)

So I just looked up PCIe, and the two 4-lane PCIe v.2 slots in the Mac Pros that came out the past few years - the ones not in the 16x monitor card slot - are capable of doing 4Gbps *each lane.*

I'm not sure how lanes are divided, but I think that means a PCIe add-on card should be able to handle Thunderbolt's 10Gbps.

But I have to admit to getting confused by GBps and Gbps and Megabytes and Megabits per second - and to how all those relate to lanes and bit widths (32 vs. 64).

And I admit to hating alto and tenor clefs for the same reason (they make my brain hurt).


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## kdm (Feb 24, 2011)

SvK @ Thu Feb 24 said:


> KDM
> 
> you're kidding right?
> 
> ...



No, I'm not kidding. Too early to call this a coup for DAWs and sample streaming.

Wait to see how well it shakes out for audio developers first (beyond just UA and Apogee), then DAW builders. For samples, sure, it could easily give us a good alternative for drives since those it isn't that costly to transition to new drive interface formats later. 

For audio I/O and general peripherals, the jury is still out with everyone I've talked to, and in my own reading of the format; and the fact that it will be subject to the PCIe bridging on which it runs leaves some unanswered questions until it's spec'd out in a DAW environment.

Not throwing a wet blanket on the concept in general - personally I love the idea of a faster and more widely adaptable protocol - just a word of caution before getting the wallet out for this first generation, other than testing some sample streaming perhaps. Perhaps cautiously optimistic would be my response.


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## Jack Weaver (Feb 24, 2011)

Nick B. 


> a PCIe add-on card should be able to handle Thunderbolt's 10Gbps



If only that were true. Sadly the article I linked to above sez otherwise. 
Apparently the display side of the Thunderbolt chip needs to be a part of the logic 
board.

.

PS-
for me it's not the tenor & alto clefs - it's the Eb instruments.


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## kdm (Feb 24, 2011)

Intel article on it - resounding quotes from Avid, UA, Apogee, Blackmagic, AJA, Lacie, etc. 

Correct Jack - it has to be part of the board. No PCIe cards it seems.

"Exclusive to Apple" could create much slower adoption from audio devs and the broader computer market though, other than Apogee of course.


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## Jack Weaver (Feb 24, 2011)

I'm betting that since UAD has gone for it that others will be taking an immediate look at it. 

.


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## Udo (Feb 24, 2011)

[align=center]**[/align]"..... One reason for the lackluster support from PC makers out of the gate is likely due to the close cooperation between Apple and Intel, which was exclusionary in nature." http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20035961-64.html#ixzz1EvT0JkQh


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## Udo (Feb 24, 2011)

It's important to understand that Light Peak/Thunderbolt is a specification on which many I/O technologies can be implemented (using adapters), e.g. FireWire and eSATA. It can handle different protocols simultaneously, more so when the faster optical implementation becomes available (initial implementation still uses copper).


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## SvK (Feb 24, 2011)

VE Pro over Thunderbolt instead of ethernet will Blaze!! bye bye latency

SvK


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## José Herring (Feb 24, 2011)

SvK @ Thu Feb 24 said:


> VE Pro over Thunderbolt instead of ethernet will Blaze!! bye bye latency
> 
> SvK



Yeah. That's what I'm looking forward to. Increasing the speed of audio over LAN would overcome the limitations of the medium. 

Imo, that would be some of the immediate benefits. Then lower latency higher load Audio cards.

This is the begging of a good thing.

We'll let you Mac guys break it in for us PC users. 2012 would be just about the right time to start switching over. :wink:


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## Mike Connelly (Feb 28, 2011)

kdm @ Thu Feb 24 said:


> "Exclusive to Apple" could create much slower adoption from audio devs and the broader computer market though, other than Apogee of course.



From what the articles have said, it sounds like it's not exclusive to apple, just that they anticipate that the PC makers will probably take a year to get it included in their systems.


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## Udo (Feb 28, 2011)

Mike Connelly @ Tue Mar 01 said:


> kdm @ Thu Feb 24 said:
> 
> 
> > "Exclusive to Apple" could create much slower adoption from audio devs and the broader computer market though, other than Apogee of course.
> ...


The delay in take-up by PC makers is because the initial development was an exclusionary arrangement between Intel and Apple, i.e. no others could participate.


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## Mike Connelly (Feb 28, 2011)

Assuming you read that the same place I did, it sounded like speculation on the part of those who wrote the article.


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## adg21 (Mar 1, 2011)

Is anyone else slightly confused (and frustrated) that they've developed this for macbook pros first? I wonder what the marketing reasons are for that. A truly portable DAW capable of sample-streaming would of course be amazing, but with the current 8Gb max limit? Does anyone else feel that now is probably the worst time to buy a mac for music? That 2012 might be the best year. Or even in 6 months time, if we'll soon have macbook pros cabable of 16Gb ram & thunderbolt on the Mac pros. Buy it now or wait for something better, it's always a worry I guess, but in light of this....


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## chimuelo (Mar 1, 2011)

I like the way this has been around for years already but instead we got USB 1,2 and 3....
I'll wait for LPk 3 before I get suckered by this M$/Apple/Intel scam.


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## Mike Connelly (Mar 1, 2011)

adg21 @ Tue Mar 01 said:


> Is anyone else slightly confused (and frustrated) that they've developed this for macbook pros first? I wonder what the marketing reasons are for that.



I assume it's because the technology is ready to ship now, the MBs are due for an update, and those machines are in need of a faster IO bus since they've only had FW800 up until now.

Apple doesn't update their machines that often. I assume that just about all macs will get TB at their next update.

Also, it seems like the current generation of sandy bridge tech is most suited for laptops. There are desktop versions but the first ones seem to have the same limitations as the laptop versions (especially memory). Later this year there should be more high end sandy bridge chips, I assume the mac pro (and probably iMac) will get the overhaul then. If they did do an update to MP now, it could add TB but wouldn't be able to offer much of an upgrade to the CPU so it makes sense for them to wait for the next generation of CPUs instead of shipping a stopgap machine.


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## Mike Connelly (Mar 9, 2011)

Don't know if this was mentioned here, I didn't read about it until now.

The new MPB also has SATA III. Which means that the next update to the MP should have it as well (if not the iMac and other macs).


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## Gerd Kaeding (Mar 9, 2011)

Mike Connelly @ Wed Mar 09 said:


> Don't know if this was mentioned here, I didn't read about it until now.
> 
> The new MPB also has SATA III. Which means that the next update to the MP should have it as well (if not the iMac and other macs).




Hi Mike , hi all ,


I've found this interesting user report concerning MBPro 2011 , Sata II / III and SSD drives :

http://www.markc.me.uk/MarkC/Blog/Entri ... 6Gbps.html


Best


Gerd


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