Suddenly – Thunderbolt 5 is Real! Here’s What This Means For Media Creators

Thunderbolt 5 was introduced by Intel in September, 2023. Since then, developers and chip designers quietly worked to turn those specs into real products.

Today, OWC became one of the first to ship Thunderbolt 5 storage. (OWC press release) To learn more about the importance of Thunderbolt 5 to media creators, I interviewed Larry O’Connor, Founder/CEO of OWC, via email.

Larry J: Larry, what is Thunderbolt 5?

Larry O: Thunderbolt 5 is the next update to what is effectively ‘PCIe over cable’ technology and will enable over double the performance for data transfer devices (docks, external storage, processing cards including GPUs) and about 4 times the bandwidth for driving external displays from a single Thunderbolt 5 port. The latter is a big deal as it means connecting a display or displays on the same bus with data storage today, in the case of higher performance storage we offer, results in a reduction of bandwidth for your data device when supporting a 4K or higher res display on the same.

NOTE: Larry J. adds: What this means today is that data speeds over Thunderbolt 3 or 4 slow down if you connect two or more monitors to the same bus. With the increased bandwidth of Thunderbolt 5 you won’t see the same data slowdown.

Larry J: For media creators that already own Thunderbolt 3/4 SSD gear and are editing 4K media or smaller, what’s are compelling reasons to migrate to Thunderbolt 5?

Larry O: Thunderbolt 5 is the next step, a level up – but it’s not necessarily a requirement. In truth, I prefer to regard the current 40Gb/s of Thunderbolt 3/4 as Thunderbolt 40Gb/s. (Explaining why Thunderbolt 4 is effectively Thunderbolt 3 is a whole other conversation.) Thunderbolt 3/4 is already as fast or faster than many of the needs in workflows today. Big storage arrays, like our Thunderbay 4 and 8 solutions, which support up to 192TB today, are delivering amazing sustained speeds in the 1400-1800MB/s realm with current Thunderbolt 40Gb/s hosts. With these kinds of spinning disk arrays, we’re not currently limited by what hosts have now. Further, for typical 4K and even 6K work flows – these speeds exceed not just application requirements but also what applications are able to utilize given the needs of various data formats as well as what compute is available.

Where Thunderbolt 5 will initially give the desired benefit, in my opinion, will be on the ingest and duplication/DIT side with both the bus-powered SSD and SSD RAIDs. Our new Envoy Ultra for Thunderbolt 5 is going to deliver speeds of over 6000MB/s sustained read and sustained write speeds similar to our Express 1M2 portables (which are today, hands down, the very fastest bus-powered drives on the planet). Time is money, and there is a lot of time saved with faster storage. It also won’t be long before we’re sharing on our higher-end SSD arrays that will pretty well fully max out both read and write speeds to over 6000MB/s sustained.

Practically speaking, when it comes to getting the dailies out, backups made, and also taking advantage of computing capability on the horizon for direct attached full-res editing at 6K and even 8K – Thunderbolt 5 is going to really offer some amazing benefits. It’s not going to be something needed everywhere any time soon – but there will be key aspects of a workflow that a Thunderbolt 5 host with Thunderbolt 5 arrays is going to make a difference.

Another workflow consideration – especially with respect to multiple, simultaneous backup/data duplication – with our Thunderbolt 5 Hub, you can connect up to 3 of our fastest Thunderbolt/USB4 portables or Envoy Ultra TB5 portable or Thunderbay HDD arrays or Thunderblade SSDs arrays – and there is enough bandwidth to support pretty much the maximum speed any of these 3 devices can sustain when ingesting/writing data, all simultaneously using just a single Thunderbolt 5 host port. For a DIT or anyone that needs to capture/ingest/duplicate data to multiple devices, you’re going to be able to do this a lot faster with a Thunderbolt 5 host computer, even when going to Thunderbolt 40Gb/s or USB4 devices.

NOTE: Larry J. adds: This is an important point. You need a Thunderbolt 5 computer to connect to Thunderbolt 5 storage in order to get Thunderbolt 5 speeds.

It is important to note that Thunderbolt 5 devices are plug-and-play backward compatible on most Thunderbolt 40Gb/s systems from 2019 and later. (Thought there are some OS requirements in play on this.) Also, all Thunderbolt 40Gb/s peripherals and devices are fully compatible with Thunderbolt 5 systems.

The most compelling aspect I see is the ability to size up, and step up as it makes sense in your workflow. It offers a bit more than double the true maximum data rate of Thunderbolt 3/4 with up to 3X the total overall bandwidth. The other big benefit of Thunderbolt 5 is support for more displays, and even multiple 8K displays off a single port. Thunderbolt 5, which is 80/120Gb/s over the bus, in the real world this maxes bandwidth a little over 6,000MB/s for data transfer – with the rest of the bandwidth allocated to video-display support.

With respect to connecting displays over Thunderbolt – today, with a 4K or higher resolution display – you really want to connect that over a dedicated port separate from the port you use for high-speed data and/or docking. Connecting multiple 4K displays requires so much bandwidth of the 40Gb/s total that it cuts into the data speed of your connected storage when on the same bus; beyond the fixed 12Gb/s reserve that already limits data bandwidth to a max of 28Gb/s before overhead for data as it is.

On Thunderbolt 5 – not only is the carve-out for video displays doubled to 36Gb/s, there is also an additional 40Gb/s added on top of the normal bus lanes for a total of 76Gb/s not video dedicated – that’s over 4X what is there now.

Stepping away from the techie talk – this simply means that in most cases – even when connecting up to a 6K display or a couple 5Ks – connecting higher-resolution displays will not slow down  data bandwidth even when everything is connected through a single Thunderbolt 5 host connection. So you now could have a single OWC Thunderbolt 5 Hub that’s powering that TB5 Laptop and connected to, say, a couple 5K displays and an Envoy Ultra (or any other storage for that matter) – and everything would be a max speed.

I believe the move to Thunderbolt 5 will be a lot less urgent, more planned and transitioned to where the need for speed and workflow tuning benefits the most. Thunderbolt 40Gbs (3/4) is plenty fast for so much – we can gradually roll into the new Thunderbolt 5 80/120Gb/s world. Another note – as of this writing, there are no Apple systems with Thunderbolt 5 and just two PC models with Thunderbolt 5. New PCs are still being introduced with Thunderbolt 40Gb/s technology and I’d expect to see later Macs come out with 40Gb/s as well – even if along side Thunderbolt 5-equipped models.

One final note – on most Thunderbolt 40Gb/s systems, Thunderbolt 5 devices will be able to operate up to 15-20% faster. So… there is a potential benefit on certain Thunderbolt 40Gb/s systems when connecting the higher performance Thunderbolt 5 devices like our Envoy Ultra.

Larry J: Tell us about your new hardware?

Larry O:We have a great pipeline for Thunderbolt 5 which we have supported since the dawn of Thunderbolt over a decade ago. Our first solutions include a Thunderbolt 5 Hub that will provide an additional three 80/120Gb/s ports + USB-A port from a single Thunderbolt 5 port with the ability to support multiple displays and/or data devices getting the full benefit of this new host performance.

And we’re preparing now to begin deliveries in just a few weeks of our new OWC Envoy Ultra – the fastest Thunderbolt drive ever for any Thunderbolt 40Gb/s Mac (most PCs) and any Thunderbolt 5 Mac or PC. This ultra-portable, waterproof, dustproof, nearly indestructible rugged external drive will deliver speeds of well over 6000MB/s and initially be available in 2TB and 4TB capacities.

Larry J: What’s the difference between Thunderbolt 5 vs. 4 or 3?

Larry O: Ultimately Thunderbolt 5 provides a new level of performance over cable for data devices and the ability to support up to three displays over a single connection as well. One of the most important benefits is a higher bandwidth capability for the display-only portion of the technology that results in less or no encroachment on the bandwidth that’s available for the data stream devices. On all Thunderbolt versions, you have a minimum carveout to connect Video Display(s) and a maximum bandwidth available for data. What this means is that while data is capped, video is not… and when you connect a display on a Thunderbolt bus of resolution that exceeds the dedicated video allocation, it takes the rest that it needs from what is otherwise the maximum for the data side. For typical setups of 1-2 displays – even if using an 8K display down the road – should be no encroachment reducing speed to data I/O devices.

The core upgrade between Thunderbolt 3/4 40Gb/s and Thunderbolt 5 80/120 is the upgrade from PCIe Gen 3 to PCIe gen 4 lane technology. Both are 4-lanes of PCIe and Gen 4 lanes in TB5 mean double the bandwidth vs. Gen 3 lanes.

LOL, yet another reason how frustrating and confusing it is for many users is that Intel started calling the ’standards enforced’ version of 40Gb/s Thunderbolt 3 – Thunderbolt 4. If every PC maker had done what Apple did throughout with their Thunderbolt 3 implementation (which is why Thunderbolt 3 Macs work fine with Thunderbolt 4 peripherals, but have to have a Thunderbolt 4 PC for the same), we’d be talking about the new Thunderbolt 4 technology today vs. 5. 🙂

Larry J: Are Thunderbolt 3 or 4 devices compatible with Thunderbolt 5? If so, will they run faster?

Larry O: 100% compatible – but there isn’t a performance difference when using a Thunderbolt 3 or 4 device (40Gb/s) on a Thunderbolt 5 host. Of note – you’re just fine and great really to, say, connect an existing 40Gb/s work flow with an OWC Dock and storage, etc – through a single port on our Thunderbolt 5 Hub with full performance and use the other Thunderbolt 5 ports on the hub at full speed with any other devices, displays, etc… and of course, if you don’t need Thunderbolt 5 speeds – what you have connected to a Thunderbolt 3 or 4 system now will plug and play seamlessly right into a Thunderbolt 5 host – nothing you need to do or worry about.

Larry J: Can we upgrade Thunderbolt 2, 3, or 4 hardware to Thunderbolt 5? If not, why not?

Larry O: Not really. Thunderbolt by-and-large is a direct integration between hardware. This is a technology that enables what is otherwise only possible via an internal PCIe slot to be available via external port connection. This is a tight integration with the processor bus, highly tuned and balanced, to enable this kind of capability for all versions out there. When you look under the hood – it’s really amazing what any version of Thunderbolt makes possible plug and play via cable.

Larry J: How should we maximize the performance of Thunderbolt 5?

Larry O: It’s all about what you want to connect. Given the robust bandwidth and display capability – solutions like our Thunderbolt 5 Hub will give the ports to enable maximization of each Thunderbolt 5 port a host offers. It’s a potential waste of a port now to just have a display connected to it with TB5… whereas right now – I personally separate my dock and data storage from my high-resolution display so I don’t lose data performance.

NOTE: Larry J. adds: I should point out that OWC has not yet officially announced a Thunderbolt 5 hub or dock.

Larry J: How does Thunderbolt 5 handle video monitors and is it different from Thunderbolt 3/4?

Larry O: The same – but now with 4 times the bandwidth available. Over a single Thunderbolt 4 port you can support up to 2 x 4K or 1 x 5K, 6K, or 8K monitor. By comparison – a single Thunderbolt 5 port can support up to 2 x 5K, 6K, or 8K and up to 4 x 4K displays.

Larry J: Does Thunderbolt 5 support RAIDs?

Larry O: There is no change in the kinds of devices supported. Everything that works on current Thunderbolt works on Thunderbolt 5. Ongoing Thunderbolt 5 solutions just bring higher performance opportunities. There is no reason to upgrade a hard drive array to Thunderbolt 5 – it’s not going to be faster due to the speed of its hard drives… but we are certainly excited with our pipeline of SSD-based solutions which will demonstrate and take full advantage of every megabyte per second of data bandwidth TB5 has to offer.

Larry J: Does Thunderbolt 5 support docks?

Larry O: Yep – works with all the current docks we offer and we look forward to fully equipped docks in addition to the OWC Thunderbolt 5 Hub we’re introduced. One thing to note – Thunderbolt 5 devices have a higher cost due to higher bandwidth components, even if the actual device may not get benefit from it. What I am saying here is that in many, many cases, users are going to find that existing Thunderbolt 3/4 Docks are perfectly fine for what they need/want a dock for. And especially so if you have a Thunderbolt 5 hub in front of any 40Gb/s dock or other devices that meet your requirements.

Thunderbolt 5 makes more bandwidth available, it does not make existing individual devices run faster.

Larry J: Do existing SSDs (like the Aura Ultra IV) support Thunderbolt 5, or do we need an entirely new family of chips?

Larry O: Yes, the existing drives we offer today are fully supportive of Thunderbolt 5.

Larry J: This is just the beginning of Thunderbolt 5 technology; over time capabilities go up and prices come down. When should we buy into this gear?

Larry O: Thunderbolt 5 is going to cost more than equivalent Thunderbolt 40Gb/s devices as it has more complexity in providing a much greater capability. The cost of Thunderbolt chipsets and supporting components, excluding the “COVID impact” to the supply chain, have remained pretty steady across the years. Technically that is a price drop over time with respect to inflation reducing the value of a dollar over a given time.

Now that part is pretty fixed, depending on the device. What we are interfacing in each device – storage and such – has continued to become more cost-effective over time with an overall lower cost in actual dollars, let alone inflation adjusted… so overall should see costs improve for the complete solutions… outside of devices like hubs – or non-populated storage enclosures, chassis, etc. These simply will have a higher fixed cost.

Larry J: To wrap up, why should media creators consider Thunderbolt 5 and OWC?

Larry O: OWC as an overall organization today is second to none in terms of our innovation, capability, and experience in delivering the best solutions to drive the best benefit from Thunderbolt technology. There is no organization with more solutions that have been certified and shipped.

While all Thunderbolt solutions must go through a Thunderbolt certification to legally tout Thunderbolt (and this is important as it also means that no matter what other OS updates, new systems, etc., come out – if it’s certified – it’s going to work. Outside of Apple I do not believe there is any organization that does the kind of qualification testing and firmware development that we do – that really separates us from the OEM box makers. OWC is directly engineering and driving the solutions we bring to market – we’re often copied but not equaled. You can always expect the best of our solution and the long term support that is our reputation and reality.

OWC builds solutions to address real-world needs, not just to brag about a port count or peak speed. Real performance, real capability from all ports on a device, real-world solutions that.

Larry J: Larry, thanks for your time in explaining this.

FINAL NOTE: Just to be clear, Apple has not announced support for Thunderbolt 5. The only company that I know of that is shipping a Thunderbolt 5 computer is Razer.

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