External devices have started the changeover to updated connections — Thunderbolt 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports. For most people, this will probably go unnoticed. With Thunderbolt, some may have gone, “Huh, there’s a lightning symbol on this port. Wonder what that means?” As for USB 3.0, most people didn’t even notice the difference because the port on the machine still looks the same as USB 1.1 and 2.0. So what’s the big deal?
Well it’s all about speed! This is America: go fast or go home. USB 3.0 clocks in at 5GB/s while Thunderbolt, a replacement for the long standing FireWire Apple used, clocks in at 10GB/s for Thunderbolt 1 and 20GB/s for Thunderbolt 2.0. Now, I’m sure you’re sitting there going, “And your point is?” Think about your files today, be they music, photos, video even Word and PowerPoint files, they’re getting bigger. Bigger doesn’t necessarily require speed, but hey, time is money.
Whether you’re in big business or a student waiting on a term paper backup, you want it there now — no time to watch that progress bar while it copies over to your external or thumb drive. USB 3.0 opened up a whole new world for thumb drives, because in conjunction with flash memory availability and the costs coming down, you can now get a flash drive with 128GB or more. You can back up your entire MacBook Air to a thumb drive or quickly dump your entire iPhoto library.
As for the Thunderbolt possibilities, that enters a whole other world of nerdiness.
Thunderbolt is a super cable — it carries digital audio, digital video, and has a transfer rate of 10GB/s throughput both up and down. That means it can be used to attach video products like monitors, TVs, and transmit digital audio to a HDMI receiver. And that’s the easy stuff; a great feature of FireWire was its ability to daisy chain, meaning that one could connect many, many devices into each other while only using one port on your computer. That means a MacBookAir with one Thunderbolt port can attach a monitor, video camera, and Thunderbolt hard drive all into the single Thunderbolt port without losing any data transfer speed.
Is your mind blown yet, because prepare to be shocked all over again! Apple announced Thunderbolt 2.0 with the new Mac Pro coming this fall, which will allow the connectivity of even higher-end devices — for instance, up to three 4K displays! (OK, the graphics card helps there, but that’s still crazy!)
In short, your mouse still plugs in like it always does, and you still need a Thunderbolt adapter to connect your monitor, but if you “feel the need for speed,” be sure you’re buying the newest in connectivity.