Anyone using Thunderbolt PCIe expansion?

[James Steele]

Sometimes a driver modification won't do the job. I had this problem with M-Audio a long time ago. They had hard wired some settings and functions in the board, rather than covering them with drivers. When Apple went from the G3 to the G4 to the G5, some other manufacturers were able to adapt their interfaces with driver updates, but M-Audio couldn't because it would have required hardware changes.

I hope it's not the case with MOTU, but I can see why they might be having problems getting this to work at all, let alone with the stability and latency we all expect.

Well, yes... let's hope they can. In the meantime, I'm glad we didn't get away with being optimistic for very long.

[FutureLegends]

Aren't thunderbolt PCI chassis around $1000?
Then it would be much better if MOTU releaseda new $1000 dollar TB box that did what the PCI424 card does and added effects etc that their FW interfaces have had for years.
But I doubt they'll invest anything in that, MOTU PCI-based interface lineup hasn't been updated in about 5-6 years?

[cbm]

Aren't thunderbolt PCI chassis around $1000?

There's a fairly wide range of chassis prices. You can get a single slot chassis for a little north of $300, IIRC.

[cbm]

There's a fairly wide range of chassis prices. You can get a single slot chassis for a little north of $300, IIRC.

Actually, I was a little off, the OWC Helios is $350
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderb ... ry_Helios/

[malditoyanki]

I'm interested in knowing the current SoTA on Thunderbolt and PCI. Some say that Thunderbolt is slower than PCI-2, not to mention PCI-3, but I thought I'd read where it's faster. I guess it's time for the serious research where you have to write down numbers and convert them and compare them.

Shoosh

Actually, PCIe 2 is WAAAAAY faster than even TB2 at the moment. I myself was wondering and looked into it. Try 20 Gigabits/s versus 252(!!!) Gigabits/s.

This has sadly led me to consider...a PC in my future. That and the potential noise having many external chassis will create...not to mention the COST of those peripherals...yikes. Just depends how much this new mac pro costs I guess.

I've looked at moving my 6 core 3.33 westmere to a 12 core, but it's $4500 to do so. I think I'll end up just getting some PCIe RAM and extend my current mac pro for another couple years or so.

I just don't know...

[malditoyanki]

I can confirm my PCI-424 does NOT work with a Thunderbolt expansion chassis.. I bought one for an RME MADI FX from OWC and works like a charm.. nice to be able to carry the PCIe card out with me to track live.. I've had zero problems with that card in the Thunderbolt chassis with my Macbook Pro.. works just as well as inside the Mac Pro.

mg

How noisy is that chassis anyhow?

[cbm]

Actually, PCIe 2 is WAAAAAY faster than even TB2 at the moment. I myself was wondering and looked into it. Try 20 Gigabits/s versus 252(!!!) Gigabits/s.

If you go up to a 32 lane PCIe 3, you can hit that sort of speed, but most PCIe slots and cards are not that wide. In fact, I don't think there even are motherboards that have 32 lane PCI 3 slots on them, at this point in time. The 424 is a single lane PCIe 1 card, and doesn't need anything close to that bandwidth.

Here's a good comparison of various bus speeds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_device_bit_rates
 
 
 

[frankf]

Ditto, my Mac Pro 3,1 hás 2x16 And 2 x1 PCIe channels and my eSATA card is x1. I don't know if there is a x16 option. Same with USB 3 cards.


Frank Ferrucci

[malditoyanki]

Actually, PCIe 2 is WAAAAAY faster than even TB2 at the moment. I myself was wondering and looked into it. Try 20 Gigabits/s versus 252(!!!) Gigabits/s.

If you go up to a 32 lane PCIe 3, you can hit that sort of speed, but most PCIe slots and cards are not that wide. In fact, I don't think there even are motherboards that have 32 lane PCI 3 slots on them, at this point in time. The 424 is a single lane PCIe 1 card, and doesn't need anything close to that bandwidth.

Here's a good comparison of various bus speeds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_device_bit_rates
 
 
 

In regards to PCIe 3.0 motherboards existing: http://event.asus.com/2011/mb/pcie3_ready/

I don't use a 424 card but I suspect my apogee symphony 64 is also PCIe 1. Sound cards aren't really my concern regarding PCIe bus speed v Thunderbolt...it's about the future of storage.

The new mac pro will have one (and only 1 apparently) internal drive which is PCIe 3 soldered directly to the motherboard. I think it's clear this is where memory is heading as the older/slower SATA protocol has seemingly hit a speed wall compared to new SSD's.

Here's where I struggle to do the calculus:

a PCIe 2.0 lane is 500MB/s therefor a x16 slot gives us 8000 MB/s...but is this one way or divided 4000 in 4000 out?

Thunderbolt 2 gives us 2500MB/s (20Gbits/s) one direction (5000MB/s total) per channel. But wait THERE'S MORE! The new mac pro has SIX total TB2 ports. I read that there will be TWO TB2 ports per channel for a total of 3 TB2 channels on the motherboard (allegedly.) Do they each get 5000MB/s or is that divided by 2?

Finally, even the latest SSD's soldered to PCIe 2.0 cards can only fire out data rates at 800 MB/s (more like 660 MB/s in real life) which would only require 2 lanes of a PCIe 2 slot if I'm not mistaken.

What was I worked up about again? Oh dear...

[FutureLegends]

The new mac pro will have one (and only 1 apparently) internal drive which is PCIe 3 soldered directly to the motherboard.

If you look at the pictures of the new Mac Pro you'll see that the SSD drive is removeable and upgradeable. Only one slot though, it seems.

[cbm]

In regards to PCIe 3.0 motherboards existing: http://event.asus.com/2011/mb/pcie3_ready/

PCI 3.0, but not x32. The bit depth is as important as the clock speed (PCIe revision) when calculating bandwidth. A PCIe 3.0 x16 channel tops out at 128 Gbit / second. Way faster than Thunderbolt, but probably only needed for fancy graphics cards. All the audio cards I know about are PCIe x1.

I don't use a 424 card but I suspect my apogee symphony 64 is also PCIe 1.

I think it probably is.

Sound cards aren't really my concern regarding PCIe bus speed v Thunderbolt...it's about the future of storage.

Even "lowly" USB 3 is faster than all but the fastest RAIDs, isn't it?

The new mac pro will have one (and only 1 apparently) internal drive which is PCIe 3 soldered directly to the motherboard. I think it's clear this is where memory is heading as the older/slower SATA protocol has seemingly hit a speed wall compared to new SSD's.

The new Mac Pro has a PCIe drive, but I don't think that SATA speed was the only driver here. I think that existing SSDs don't hit the maximum SATA 3.0 speed of 600 Mbyte / second. By rolling their own PCIe flash drive, they were able to hit impressive speeds of 1250MByte / second. It's not soldered in, BTW, but on a little plug in card.
 
 

[cbm]

The new mac pro will have one (and only 1 apparently) internal drive which is PCIe 3 soldered directly to the motherboard.

If you look at the pictures of the new Mac Pro you'll see that the SSD drive is removeable and upgradeable. Only one slot though, it seems.

Sloppy quoting. I didn't say this.

[malditoyanki]

The new Mac Pro has a PCIe drive, but I don't think that SATA speed was the only driver here. I think that existing SSDs don't hit the maximum SATA 3.0 speed of 600 Mbyte / second. By rolling their own PCIe flash drive, they were able to hit impressive speeds of 1250MByte / second. It's not soldered in, BTW, but on a little plug in card.
 
 

The OWC PCIe 2 SSD memory cards claim 820 MB/s but actually get around 660 according to their techs. Anyhow, that still surpasses SATA 3 and it will likely only get faster. The bottle neck appears to be how fast the actual SSD can kick out data.

Bottom line, just sussing out how this new form of PCIe 2 SSD storage would work via external Thunderbolt 2 chassis for streaming LARGE amounts of samples at low latency.

[Marc7777]

I had a nice conversation with a MOTU guy who is deep on the inside.

He's going to ask around and get a more detailed timeline for me in the next day or so.

Stay tuned!

PS - he says they are definitely working on this. It's just a matter of time.

[mikehalloran]

What was I worked up about again?

Allow me: Nothing.

Reality check: Not one bit of this nonsense translates to what may or may not be possible with DP anytime soon.

I can wade in just as deep as anyone here and, in fact, can complicate this mess of a thread by discussing the latest in ethernet and SCSI - the throughput of which would blow anything being discussed here right out of the water. It's also totally impractical for anyone without a finger in the defense department budget pie (that's not a political statement - it's the kind of dollars this technology costs). All optical and microwaves, of course - copper can't handle bandwidth like this.

I had a nice conversation with a MOTU guy who is deep on the inside.

He's going to ask around and get a more detailed timeline for me in the next day or so.

Stay tuned!

PS - he says they are definitely working on this. It's just a matter of time.

Wow! If what your friend says is correct, that's the only morsel of relevant information I have read in this thread in days.

Of course, if there's an insurmountable roadblock, than many aren't going to be very happy. I hope he's right, though. Just because I have half a ton of obsolete gear, it doesn't mean I wish that on anyone else.