http://terrywhite.com/techblog/firewire ... is-faster/

I'm amazed USB 3.0 is faster than FW800...FW800 is near eSATA speeds from tests I've seen

The more USB 3.0 ports the merrier...wish there were more than two

No you don't. There is no eSata mentioned in that article. Try small files, randomly placed on the HDD: eSata will outperform USB 3.0 with four times lower CPU usage.

Furthermore; eSata can be combined with USB 3.0 like eSata was combined with USB 2.0 on the W520.

eSata was and still is the fastest and most reliable connection for an external HDD. And there is nothing USB can do about that.

It's also one of the reasons I got a W520 and not a W530

Man, that (port removal) stinks. I hadn't realized it. Not that I'm expecting to replace my W520 soon.

I suppose if I didn't have eSATA built-in, it would give me a reason to buy something for the ExpressCard slot, though I'm not sure it would reach full speed.

I trust eSATA is still available on the dock, at least. Here I was hoping maybe they finally implemented eSATA port multipliers (largely a function of Intel's chipset but has to be enabled on the board). Well, multiply by zero, I guess.

Here are the throughputs of various common computer interfaces, from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_device_bit_rates
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ExpressCard
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=104193
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)


S/PDIF --- 3.072 Mbit/s
FireWire (IEEE 1394) 100 --- 98.304 Mbit/s
100BASE-T Ethernet --- 100 Mbit/s
FireWire (IEEE 1394) 200 --- 196.608 Mbit/s
FireWire (IEEE 1394) 400 --- 393.216 Mbit/s
USB Hi-Speed (USB 2.0) --- 480 Mbit/s
FireWire (IEEE 1394b) 800 --- 786.432 Mbit/s
Gigabit Ethernet --- 1 Gbit/s
Serial ATA (SATA-150) --- 1,500 Mbit/s
FireWire (IEEE 1394b) 1600 --- 1,573 Mbit/s
Serial ATA 2 (SATA-300)[40] --- 3,000 Mbit/s
eSATA 3 Gbit/s
FireWire (IEEE 1394b) 3200 --- 3,145.7 Mbit/s
External PCI Express 2.0 ×1 --- 4 Gbit/s
PCIe 2.0 --- 4 Gbit/s
ExpressCard 2.0 --- 4 Gbit/s
Single link DVI --- 4.95 Gbit/s
HDMI v. 1.0 --- 4.95 Gbit/s
USB super speed (USB 3.0) --- 5 Gbit/s
Serial ATA 3 (SATA-600) --- 6,000 Mbit/s
eSATA 6 Gbit/s
DisplayPort v. 1.0 (4-lane reduced rate) --- 6.48 Gbit/s
External PCI Express 2.0 ×2 --- 8 Gbit/s
Dual link DVI --- 8.03 Gbit/s
HDMI v. 1.3 --- 10.2 Gbit/s
DisplayPort v. 1.0 (4-lane full rate) --- 10.8 Gbit/s
External PCI Express 2.0 ×4 --- 16 Gbit/s
Thunderbolt 10 Gbit/s × 2 = --- 20 Gbit/s total
DisplayPort v. 1.2 (4-lane) --- 21.6 Gbit/s
External PCI Express 2.0 ×8 --- 32 Gbit/s
External PCI Express 2.0 ×16 --- 64 Gbit/s
PC3-10600 DDR3 SDRAM DDR3-1333 667 MHz 1.333 GT/s --- 85.336 Gbit/s (dual channel)
PC3-12800 DDR3 SDRAM DDR3-1600 800 MHz 1.6 GT/s --- 102.4 Gbit/s (dual channel)

This tells you some interesting things. For example, if you're using one of the new "USB 3.0 docks" you can see that the entire dock will be limited to a max throughput of 5 Gbit/s. So, obviously, that dock won't be able to support TWO USB 3.0 ports simultaneously at their normal max throughput. Nor will that dock be able to support dual-link DVI at its full throughput. Nor will that dock be able to support eSATA at full SATA 3 transfer rates. On the other hand, using Thunderbolt as a "dock" (which you can do by simply daisychaining devices from a single Thunderbolt port on a computer) would support all of those individual things at their full throughputs.

Right now, the only "ThinkPad" supporting Thunderbolt is the ThinkPad Edge S430. Some other Windows laptop manufacturers do support Thunderbolt. Here are some of the Thunderbolt-based devices/adapters listed on Amazon, for example.

Note that 8 "bits" equals one "Byte." And a small "b" represents the unit of bits, while a big "B" represents the unit of Bytes. So 8 Gbit/s = 8 Gb/s = 1 GByte/sec = 1 GB/s. Likewise 8 Mbps = 8 Mbit/s = 1 MBps = 1 MByte/s. So don't mix up your small "b"s and big "B"s, because that makes a BIG difference in what you're talking about!

Admin edit: Gratutious argumentitveness deleted

I ran across the English version of the Hong Kong Lenovo website where I saw a T430 with a Thunderbolt port. I imagine that Lenovo will bring that to the W530 as well.

With Thunderbolts advertised 10 GB/s throughput and device expandability (supposedly through daisy chaining) it should be a viable replacement for eSATA and/or IEEE 1396 (Firewire).

I deploy and manage professional high end video conferencing systems for work and have to do a fair bit of testing and calibrating, so I needed a good HD video interface for my laptop. BlackMagic Design makes very good portable system with either Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 I/O. I thought I was going to have to get the USB model, which I was disappointed about but if Lenovo deploys the next W model with Thunderbolt I'll be able to get that one... and be able to use it with my Mac as well.

Thoughts?

EngineersCake, you won't get the equivalent of dual-link DVI bandwidth from USB 3.0 so, if that bandwidth will be useful to your work, then I'd think Thunderbolt is eventually the way to go. PC manufacturers like Lenovo are testing the waters with it right now. It's very similar to Displayport, but more versatile, and can significantly reduce engineering and end-user costs of docks (not to mention their bulk, and their blockage of air vents).

It's also a great interface to use for external high-speed storage (particularly as internal/external SSD RAIDs become more cost-effective and faster -- e.g., my new laptop is coming factory-configured with two Intel 520-series 480GB SSDs in RAID0, something that would have been prohibitively expensive even 6 months ago, and internal/external SSD RAIDs will only continue to become cheaper/faster).

Since you said you saw Thunderbolt listed on a Hong Kong T430 (BTW, good catch!), I checked and found "The T430s, in particular, gets a mini-Display Port, a new max resolution of 1600 x 900, Thunderbolt (on i7 machines only)," and found mention of Thunderbolt in the T430s/T430si User Manual. So presumably it's available in i7 configurations of the T430s in the U.S. (note that the T430s and T430 are two different machines). But I don't see it mentioned in the T530/W530 spec sheets, user manuals, or hardware maintenance manuals, so I wouldn't expect it to arrive in any follow-ons to those machines until Spring/Summer 2013 at the earliest.