High Speed ThunderBolt Accessories and Drives

Computer market leaders Intel and Apple have recently unleashed a cutting edge computer data interface in their ThunderBolt accessories technology. Capable of speeds of up to 10Gbps, it delivers twice the bandwidth of its nearest competition - the 5Gbps emerging USB 3.0 standard.


These ThunderBolt ports provide external access of either a Mac or PC computers internal PCI Express bus. As such, it provides a rather direct and multi-lane freeway to a computer's memory and central processor. Think of it as an expansion card slot that's just a small external port on the side of your laptop or desktop system. This technology has debuted on Apple's MacBook laptop and Macintosh desktop platform as a single ThunderBolt port where the DisplayPort used to be. And that's an important thing to note: ThunderBolt can also drive high-resolution external computer monitors along with other ThunderBolt converters that can connect to other eSATA, USB 3.0, FireWire and Ethernet accessories. And T-Bolt is not exclusive to the Mac, Intel and other PC's will soon be shipping motherboards with ThunderBolt ports on board.


The largest performance gains will be in the data storage area. The ThunderBolt disk drive interface promises insanely fast data transfer and backup speeds, particularly when paired with solid-state SSD flash drives. A full DVD of data can be copied in seconds, an entire Terabyte hard drive worth of videos, music and pictures in mere minutes. Expect other high-demand Thunderbolt accessories for Mac and PC such as HDTV tuners, HD webcams and other high demand devices to hit the market to take advantage of the speed ThunderBolt technology offers.