Demystifying
Thunderbolt™ 3

With G-TEAM Ambassador Vincent Laforet
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What is Thunderbolt 3?

Thunderbolt 3 technology is currently the fastest, most versatile protocol on the market capable of high-speed transfers 8x faster than USB 3.0, connecting multiple displays/monitors and daisychaining storage devices through a single Thunderbolt 3 port.

One Port To Do It All

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Connector
Thunderbolt 3 uses the versatile USB-C™ connector - it doesn't matter which end you connect to your PC - making connecting easy.

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Performance
Thunderbolt 3 delivers transfer speeds of up to 40Gb/s with a portion of the bandwidth reserved for video transmission like dual 5K monitors. That still leaves ample bandwidth for access from storage devices, and other peripherals.

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Daisy Chaining
Daisy chain up to 6 devices through a single Thunderbolt 3 port (ex. storage + network + monitor + power), leaving other ports available for additional peripheral devices.

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Single-Cable Versatility
A single Thunderbolt 3 cable can be used for high-speed data transfers or supply up 100W of power.

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Better Bus Power
Thunderbolt 3 delivers up to 15W of power for connected bus-powered devices. This is required for high-performance NVMe SSDs like our G-DRIVE PRO SSD.

Browse Thunderbolt 3 Products

How Thunderbolt 3 is Different from Others?

Protocol
USB 3.2
Thunderbolt 2
Connector
USB-C
Mini DisplayPort
Performance
Up to 20Gb/s1
Up to 20Gb/s1
Daisy Chaining
-
Up to 6 devices
USB Power Delivery
Yes
-
Bus Power for Connected Devices
Up to 7.5W
Up to 10W

Vincent Laforet

Aerial Specialist

Vincent, a three-time winner at the prestigious 2010 Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, is a director and Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who is known for his forward-thinking approach to image-making, storytelling, and aerial photography.

An Early Adopter of Thunderbolt 3

With ever-evolving media storage requirements, Vincent has relied on Thunderbolt 3 storage solutions since they first released. Staying ahead of the technology curve is critical for Vincent’s work, where fast transfers and effective data management can save thousands of dollars in his aerial shoots.

Vincent talks Thunderbolt 3

Honestly, it wasn’t much of a debate. Given the vast amount of data I shoot, I’ve always used the fastest drives and connections possible throughout the past 20 years. I work 12-18 hour days and I don’t want to wait to make copies and backups late into the night or to skip a backup when I’m just too tired. Speed and reliability are of the essence.

In a typical project, I shoot, ingest media to drives, edit down from my overall shoot to my selects, and then cut down selects to 5 stars. After narrowing the selects down, I color correct, retouch master files and then finally… output the files. I often work with post houses for video and colorists and/or editors and retouchers for still imagery, so I will ship them drives, share via the cloud or do both.

In the field, I copy from various media (Red Mini Mags, CF, SD, micro SD and CFast 2.0 card to portable SSD (G-DRIVE PRO SSD) directly. Then I copy another backup to my G-RAID Shuttle 4 or to the G-RAID Shuttle 8. Both of those storage units are copied to the G-RAID Shuttle 8s back at the office, which are tied to my cloud account. All of the incoming assets are backed up to the cloud from my LA office. The cloud data is then synced to yet another G-RAID Shuttle in NYC for redundancy automatically. At the office, I will work on the G-RAID Shuttles as my scratch disk. A few months after a project is completed, the data is copied off the G-DRIVE PRO SSDs to G-RAID Shuttle 8s called Visuals ONLINE. After a year or so, I copy them off onto older Thunderbolt 2 G-SPEED Shuttle XL devices, which serve as my archive. I have more than 320TB2 online in my office with my only Shuttle SSD syncing with the cloud 24/7. My Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 2 G-RAID Shuttles are turned on as needed since they heat up my room. I have a total of 6 Shuttle 8s in my office. I use the G-DRIVE PRO SSD to deliver the data and to travel with if I need to edit on the go on my laptop.

I use G-RAID Shuttles with Thunderbolt 3 and G-RAID Shuttle SSD (My main library), and G-DRIVE PRO SSD with Thunderbolt 3 (portable backup).

SanDisk Professional's Thunderbolt 3 Solutions

Disclosures:
1. Based on read speed, unless otherwise specified. As used for transfer rate, megabyte per second (MB/s) = one million bytes per second. Performance will vary depending on your hardware and software components and configurations.
2. As used for storage capacity, 1GB = 1 billion bytes and 1TB = one trillion bytes. Actual user capacity may be less, depending on operating environment.