http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC913ZM/A?mco=Nzc1MjMwNg

Dear Apple,

Make the cable free. Don’t make us buy a cable for a product that doesn’t yet exist in the marketplace-- especially for that much. It's a cable for Pete's sake! You want to promote the technology right? Or do you want it to go the way of FireWire? This is a fledgling technology! Nurture it!

It’s 49 bucks. The only people that can make use of this item are the people that just shelled out for the latest iMac or MBP. What'd they spend? 1200 bucks minimum? Come on! Stop nickel-dimming! It’s disgusting.

Yeah that's CRAP !!

I hate paying more than $5-10 for ANY cable... it's just a bundle of fricking WIRES !! . . not rocket science !!
The rocket science is in the DEVICE, not in the damm wires ! . . and $49 !! is MS robbery !!

Here is an explanation for why the cable costs so much:

Fancy cable!

Yeah read that after I posted my comment... but people are mainly paying for the technology, not the chips.

My "wonder" is, if you have a new technology and want to push it , why would you make it so expensive ?? . . esp. with competitors on your heels ! Sounds like a killer to me. How much are people going to use Thunderbolt... video, movies, maybe large backups - yes... ordinary files - overkill. (IMO) Hoe often do you transfer or burn movies or make full length backups? I don't very often.

I'd love it, but dang it's pricey.

Kinda makes me wonder ?

Would this ThunderBolt out pace the 7200 drives ? ? We seen USB1, USB2, Firewire 800 and now this but disc drives basically stayed at 5400 and 7200 tops.

Comparing Thunderbolt's speed to a 7200RPM drive is like comparing a jet to car, it outpaces 7200 RPM drives by many times. Current SATA drives are rated at 300Mbits/s max, and that is generally burst rates for read speed. FW 800 is 800Mbits/s. Thunderbolt currently outpaces FW800 by a factor of 7 to 12 times faster, 10Gbits/s, that's around 800Mbytes/s as compard to FW 800's 800Mbits/s.

http://financialbin.com/2011/06/29/early-thunderbolt-vs-firewire-raid-benchmarks/

Until SSD drives become cheaper and more practical for consumer use, Thunderbolt's real use will be more for professionals and RAID systems, video in particular.

One nice feature of Thunderbolt for the consumer though is its ability to interface with USB, FW, and eSATA and carry the stream's data in both directions simultaneously over just one cable hooked to a docking station.





So as you can see to make use of Thunderbolt technology will require a substantial investment in new peripherals and interface devices. Even though it's a selling point for Apple right now, worrying about whether your new machine has it or not is a moot point for the average consumer for a few years to come.

But… But… But… I have TWO Thunderbolt cables on my new iMac.

I managed to hammer my USB keyboard plug into one of them, and now my typing is 734% faster! (YMMV).

THanks

Just what I thought.
Would it have been better if Apple came out with a 9200 drive, with this Thunderbolt, as in buy this New Mac, with a fast drive and guess what ThunderBolt as well. - Helll my grinder rpms is 1700, yeah I know different animals but still.

Apple could put a 10,000 rpm drive in their machines... but I just do it aftermarket anyways....

It's not as much the RPM but how fast the drive can get the data to and from the bus. Even if a 15,000 RPM HD could sustain 300Mbits/s that doesn't even come close to saturating even a FW800 bus. That's why RAID, SSDs, and video transfer are what will benefit from Thunderbolt.