USB 4.0 & Thunderbolt 3

[AMall]

Hey Guys, I have question to ask.

 

I am a Mac user (sorry) with a MBP 16". My ports support Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 Gen 2 (or as its now known 3.2 Gen2x1 ). I love Thunderbolt because of the upload speeds & the support it has for my Monitor. However, thunderbolt storage devices are expensive so that leads me onto my question. Currently, Thunderbolt 3 supports 40Gbps upload and download through the same exact port whereby the USB 3.2 2x1 supports a maximum of 10Gbps. So, why can/can't USB 3.2 simply be updated by software to USB 4.0. Given that the port already has the 40Gbps bandwidth via Thunderbolt, what's stopping them from to take advantage of the psychical capacity the port already has?

 

Thanks in advance!

[jaslion]

Different controllers. There is a usb controller and a thunderbolt controller. Both operate totally differently from eachother. So you cannot just fix it in software or anything.

 

Still a 10Gbps drive should be plenty for most people.

 

Usb 4.0 is also still a thunderbolt + usb controller setup so that won't change.

 

Another thing its read and write not upload and download when copying on a pc :p.

[AMall]

50 minutes ago, jaslion said:

Different controllers. There is a usb controller and a thunderbolt controller. Both operate totally differently from eachother. So you cannot just fix it in software or anything.

 

Still a 10Gbps drive should be plenty for most people.

 

Usb 4.0 is also still a thunderbolt + usb controller setup so that won't change.

 

Another thing its read and write not upload and download when copying on a pc :p.

Okay I get that; however given that USB-4 is closely connected to Thunderbolt 3 and is built on the same underlying protocol, on the would cross compatibility be possible? Reading this article, for example, it suggests that Thunderbolt 4 is very similar to Thunderbolt 3 on Macs (which already have the full 40Gbps bandwidth). Indeed, instead of putting a Thunderbolt 4 port on their new Laptops Apple activated TB4 Hubbing on their TB3 machines through a software upgrade to Big Sur as they're backwards compatible. The article suggest that given:

Quote

the two are tightly connected, with all Thunderbolt 4 devices supporting USB 4. If someone has a USB 4 laptop, they can use a TBT4 device, and the other way around.

So how would that work, and given that Thunderbolt 4 is so similar to Thunderbolt 3 on Macs, what would stop Apple from enabling USB-4 on their 'TB3' ports?

[Kilrah]

It's similar, but still a different controller. There may only be small hardware differences but there still are some... Just like the charge controllers in macbooks tend to be "almost the same" between generations, yet still incompatible.

[jaslion]

35 minutes ago, AMall said:

Okay I get that; however given that USB-4 is closely connected to Thunderbolt 3 and is built on the same underlying protocol, on the would cross compatibility be possible? Reading this article, for example, it suggests that Thunderbolt 4 is very similar to Thunderbolt 3 on Macs (which already have the full 40Gbps bandwidth). Indeed, instead of putting a Thunderbolt 4 port on their new Laptops Apple activated TB4 Hubbing on their TB3 machines through a software upgrade to Big Sur as they're backwards compatible. The article suggest that given:

So how would that work, and given that Thunderbolt 4 is so similar to Thunderbolt 3 on Macs, what would stop Apple from enabling USB-4 on their 'TB3' ports?

Depends how apple set it up. If they had pcie 4.0 lanes available in their macs then yeah a software update can allow the controller to switch from pcie 3.0 to 4.0 resulting in higher speed.

 

USB 4.0 is based of off thunderbolt 3 and usb 3. So it is still the same dual controller setup. Usb 4 + thunderbolt 4 would be an option that can come into existance IF and only IF intel allows it.