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It’s official, I really like Thunderbolt.
I had the pleasure of converting our entire PCIe structure to thunderbolt this past week, and it was a breeze.
I have not lost one Megabyte of performance over 8Gb fibre, extending keyboard, monitor, USB (mouse/Wacom/drives/whatever) was so simple and allowed me to ditch many long and bulky cables, and having a full thunderbolt passthrough at each desk, in case I need to patch nearly whatever device you can think of, is highly flexible and down right easy and convenient.
I can use the extended Thunderbolt cable and plug it in to any other computer/laptop in the room and operate from there (if proper drivers are installed/etc).
Right now, I can only see upsides, and Thunderbolt is just getting started.
There hasn’t been a lot of passion or positive around here lately, so I was greatly encouraged by this install. The size of the new MacPro is really impressive, and even with Thunderbolt equipment, they are much easier to work
on than trying to haul a 50 pound computer out of a rack that’s tied in with a huge wad of various signal cables and extensions. Thunderbolt allows you to pull and swap the exact piece of equipment you need to work on instead of taking down the whole computer.Sure, I won’t get 4million Petabytes a second, and I can’t hang 6GPUs off of it, but for now, this is very cool.
Have fun,
Jeremy
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7 Replies
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That sounds great, Jeremy.
I’m interested in the way Thunderbolt allows you to split the machine room, centralizing some things and bringing others to the desk. This really used to be either or.
What are you centralizing, and what are you leaving local at each desk?
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
Yeah, I’m pretty thrilled with TBolt.
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I like Thunderbolt 2… 800-900 on the inexpensive disk array is nice…
Mitch Ives
Insight Productions Corp.“Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.” – Winston Churchill
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[Walter Soyka] “What are you centralizing, and what are you leaving local at each desk?”
It’s pretty much the same as before with all the heavier data (video in/out, fibre connections/etc) in the central patch bay area, but all hard drives that come in from shoots, no matter what format they are, can be held at each desk as well as card readers and other transfer devices which is supremely convenient. On one machine, I have a Blackmagic Thunderbolt box that I can patch in locally at the desk when I need to use Resolve, and then take it out when I don’t need it.
The thing about Thunderbolt is that I can move anything to anywhere provided I have a long enough thunderbolt cable. The long Corning cables work very well.
I was able to get rid of 3 USB over ethernet extension runs, 2 USB extension runs, a computer audio in and out extension run, a USB hub, and 2 DVI repeaters with the resultant long DVI cable, and that’s per every MacPro.
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[Jeremy Garchow] “It’s pretty much the same as before with all the heavier data (video in/out, fibre connections/etc) in the central patch bay area, but all hard drives that come in from shoots, no matter what format they are, can be held at each desk as well as card readers and other transfer devices which is supremely convenient. On one machine, I have a Blackmagic Thunderbolt box that I can patch in locally at the desk when I need to use Resolve, and then take it out when I don’t need it.”
Sounds like a nice mix. What’s your networking infrastructure (if you don’t mind me asking)?
[Jeremy Garchow] “I was able to get rid of 3 USB over ethernet extension runs, 2 USB extension runs, a computer audio in and out extension run, a USB hub, and 2 DVI repeaters with the resultant long DVI cable, and that’s per every MacPro.”
I am looking at centralizing machines now, and the long runs of lots of cables is getting me down. Corning has a USB 3.0 optical cable now, too, but display extension for those of not using Thunderbolt is still a big bummer.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Walter Soyka] “Sounds like a nice mix. What’s your networking infrastructure (if you don’t mind me asking)?”
8Gb fibre for data, one Gb network for internet/general network, one Gb network for SAN metadata/LAN clients.
That’s the other nice thing about Thunderbolt is that you can hang a network port where’ve you need it, too.
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[Walter Soyka] “I am looking at centralizing machines now, and the long runs of lots of cables is getting me down. Corning has a USB 3.0 optical cable now, too, but display extension for those of not using Thunderbolt is still a big bummer.”
Display was the hardest thing to extend for us as well. We had a mixture of DVI cable and dual/single link repeaters (that’s all gone now).
What works on one port might not work on the other. It depends on the length of the run, the GPU, and sometimes the cable or repeater. Sometimes ADDING a 6 foot extension cable in the midst of a 20+ foot run would help the signal. When a GPU dies or needs replacing, it seemed to need it’s own little recipe for a clean signal.
I had the best luck with Geffen products.
Jeremy
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