Intel's Thunderbolt Share is a speedy sneakernet replacement and more

https://www.pcworld.com/article/2330173/meet-thunderbolt-share-intels-ultra-fast-sneakernet-replacement-and-more.html

by transpute • 2 years ago

44 66 2 years ago

musicale• 2 years ago

Been using thunderbolt networking for years on macOS, and it is definitely the way to go for things like migration assistant. Prior to thunderbolt you could use ethernet or firewire, the latter also supporting target disk mode.

I like universal access etc., but I still wish Apple would bring back target disk mode, target display mode (makes iMacs a lot more useful!), and back to my mac.

angulardragon03• 2 years ago

Target Disk Mode has a replacement on Apple Silicon, if you haven’t tried that out yet.

https://support.apple.com/en-sg/guide/mac-help/mchlb37e8ca7/...

bouvin• 2 years ago

Ah, the good old days, where hooking up a parallel cable between two PCs and running LapLink was a power move [1]…

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31013707

jimohalloranau• 2 years ago

"Isn't this just LapLink with a Thunderbolt cable" was my immediate thought when I read this. If you're around long enough everything is shiny and new, even the things that you thought were long ago killed by better solutions (like Ethernet in this case).

stephenr7• 2 years ago

For general networking, sure Ethernet is a better solution, but I also don't imagine you're going to get 18Gbit/s+ from regular desktop/laptops over ethernet, regardless of how much gold plating it has.

w4rh4wk5• 2 years ago

I'd really appreciate Desktop sharing working between Windows and Linux!

slippy• 2 years ago

Funny. It worked just fine when I was in college, back in 1997. You could use VNC to share either direction, or X11 to share one-way. Also SSH/SFTP, and SMB all worked. There were SFTP servers on Windows for free - you could download them off the internet and run them on Windows 95, 98, XP, etc.

Moving files between devices has never been difficult.

addicted• 2 years ago

Funny how we are recreating FireWire.

izacus• 2 years ago

Luckly we're not doing anything of the kind. Just because both are wire techs it doesn't mean they're very related in practice. At least TB doesn't keep burning out my cameras like Firewire did.

bankcust08385• 2 years ago

Yep.

Oddly enough, I started collecting vintage FireWire gear for retro PC stuff.

stephenr7• 2 years ago

IP over Thunderbolt has been a thing on Macs since Mavericks, over a decade ago.

kalleboo2• 2 years ago

On the Apple end of things, Thunderbolt was always sold as essentially the next generation of FireWire

diffeomorphism2• 2 years ago

You’ll also need the intermediary Thunderbolt Share software, designed by Intel, which will ship on licensed PCs. If you own a licensed Thunderbolt Share docking station, that accessory maker will point you to where you’ll be able to download the software. Remember, at least one of the PCs or docking stations must have a Thunderbolt Share license.

Eww. Killing a feature before it is even released.

wtallis• 2 years ago

I wonder if Intel's actually trying to get a bit of extra revenue from selling this software, or did they outsource it and the licensing situation is for the sake of the real developer? This sounds like what you'd see if Intel doesn't actually own the software and is just putting their branding on somebody else's application.

elric4• 2 years ago

They're already allegedly charging a metric fuckton for TB4 certification/licensing. It's weird how it's 2024 and we can't have simple interoperability ...

rock_artist• 2 years ago

TL;DR - non standard proprietary software based solution.

While USB-C is also complicated. If you get basic USB 3.1 or later compliant cable and devices you have basic docking Mac/PC/Android you name it.

The exact opposite of another “standard” that won’t “just work.

coffeebeqn• 2 years ago

Totally understandable. It’s not like most OSes can handle advanced use cases like copying files

dathinab2• 2 years ago

yes but also no

Also a few things which might be relevant to agree with my argument:

1. You don't need the license to install the Thunderbolt Share, only one device needs a license the other can use the software unlicensed

2. Licenses are not sold (to normal customers) they only come with new TB products, but this product are not limited to computers, i.e. in their FAQ they explicitly mention docks, hubs, monitors.

3. If we compare the experience with some other tech demos the Remote desktop feature on TB5 will be quite smooth, low latency, high resolution compared to TB4 or WiFi based solutions. Smooth enough to open up new application design space. That is if you can convince your management/boss that is its viable (which you now can by showing Thunderbolt Share).

4. While TB5 can convince tech affine people by it's speed it has a much harder time to convince others. Sure it has 120Gbps but so what? That doesn't translate to something non technical users have a intuitive understanding for. On the other hand demo a file transfer of a big file over TB5 which takes a few seconds and then over USB4 (using TB3 networking+network share) or WiFi (using network share) and you can be very convincing (for why TB5 is needed in new office Laptops).

5. TB4, no lets be honest TB3&USB4 are more then good enough for a lot of people, some people have hobbies or use-cases where it matters, most do not. But with Thunderbolt Share you have a convenient program bundled into products you can use for up selling them.

So in the end it doesn't matter if the product itself is widely successful.

It's there for demoing how useful TB5 is, for providing hardware vendors with a up sell opportunity which also discounts USB4 only devices (due to not being compatible at all) etc.

But I don't think they are trying to have a competition app at all (I mean getting a bit of additional revenue is nice but Intels priorities lie elsewhere).

pastelsky• 2 years ago

One would’ve thought that after looking at modern day computers that being able to run a wire through two computers being able to transfer data quickly, reliably, easily would be a 101 feature these boxes offer.

It’s 2024 and it doesn’t really work!

baq• 2 years ago

OTOH corporate security gets paged whenever you plug something that isn’t a power supply or a monitor into the corporate box, up to and including an Ethernet cable.

elric4• 2 years ago

I've seen banks disable USB ports by means of hot glue.

Hardware attacks are super hard to defend against. Depending on your threat model, drastic measures might be warranted. Anything with a USB plug can be a keyboard with an attack payload (e.g. Rubber Ducky). And if you think you can whitelist devices based on USB class or some identifier, you're wrong as they can be spoofed. Heck, there are "USB C cables" that are really attack payload delivery systems (e.g. O.MG Cable).

It's a scary world out there. Stay safe.

zokier• 2 years ago

USB4 networking is supported by Windows and Linux, and afaik macOS too in some form.

It’s 2024 and it doesn’t really work!

have you actually tried it?

ssl-3• 2 years ago

It used to work for some applications.

Back in the day, one could connect a bog-standard FireWire (IEEE 1394) cable betwixt a pair of Windows boxes, and it would create a (quite fast for the time) network for them to talk on.

Addressing was automatic with RFC 3927, and names just worked too.

After that, any appropriately-shared things on one machine would be accessible on the other.

stephenr7• 2 years ago

This exact functionality works out of the box with macOS and a thunderbolt cable (I believe going back to TB1, but I've only tested with TB3).

Does Windows not auto-provision thunderbolt networking automatically?

Neil44• 2 years ago

Seems at odds with the 'cloud everything' zeitgeist.

On Windows at least you can randomly send files to nearby machines using bluetooth, it's slow AF but faster than looking for a USB or making SMB work.

puzzlingcaptcha• 2 years ago

You can already have an 'ethernet' over USB4 https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/co...

suprjami• 2 years ago

Also in Linux:

https://www.phoronix.com/news/USB4NET-End-To-End-Flow-Contro...

trustno2• 2 years ago

Yeahhhh looking at the license stuff, I think flash disks are still safe

fsiefken• 2 years ago

wouldn't one be able to just setup a local ip address on the interface (thunderbolt or usb) on both ends of the cable so one can scp or tar mbuffer (on linux) things over? ip addr add 192.168.100.1/24 dev thunderbolt0.

that's probably to complicated for the average user. usb-c is fast enough for me by the way, but i keep loosing the usb disks, i'd be nice if they had a kind of airtag.

jeroenhd2• 2 years ago

You don't even need to set up a local IP, you'll get an IPv6 address for free. Combined with Avahi/Bonjour/mDNS (preinstalled on most computers these days), accessing devices through `hostname.local` should just work out of the box.

The only challenge I can think of is "what is the other computer's hostname" and configuring the firewall to treat the TB link as a trusted network.

mixmastamyk3• 2 years ago

Addresses are assigned automatically on modem distros when the interface comes up.

kalleboo2• 2 years ago

If you're on a Mac (at least, I assume Windows too), you just plug them together, they automatically get link-local IPs, you click "enable" on File Sharing (SMB) and boom you're sharing files.

jeroenhd2• 2 years ago

If you have Thunderbolt3+/USB4 on both ends, you can just plug in a cable between the hosts and they'll network. From there you should just be able to find the other host(s) through the normal Windows networking environment for things like file share. RDP shouldn't be more than connecting to `otherhost.local`.

Looks to me like this is just a GUI for managing features that USB4 already supports. Maybe they have some optimisations for Thunderbolt network speeds (I don't think SMB is designed to work over 20Gbps links?) but it feels like someone could develop a small Windows application to do all of this without too much effort. The ground work has already been done.

I don't have a pair of devices to test this feature with, but based on the documentation alone, none of these features should be new. I would've expected this tool to come with the Intel driver package to make Thunderbolt relevant for end users, not for it to be sold and licensed.

justinclift3• 2 years ago

I don't think SMB is designed to work over 20Gbps links?

SMB Direct, which uses RDMA, is apparently designed for (very?) high speed links.

I have no idea if TB4 includes anything like RDMA in its list of capabilities though.

crest• 2 years ago

All the applications they're describing can already be done over IP and are only held back by the lack of easy to use, fast reliable network interfaces in consumer hardware especially laptops. If Intel made Ethernet over Thunderbolt fast and efficient on their hardware by making it look like a decent NIC to the operating system this problem would be solved and AMD would have to play catch up since they don't have a line of good enough modern NICs in house. Intel could even show off how fast and efficient their systems are compared to software packet processing.

Solve the usable external bandwidth bottleneck for mobile hardware. Launch a line of media converters to 10/25/40 Gb/s Ethernet priced to establish an ecosystem. Give users docking stations that just work.

jauntywundrkind• 2 years ago

Yes, usb4 standard includes host-to-host, which sets up IP networking between computers.

And yes there's lots and lots of file share over local network apps. That would just work.

Intel Thunderbolt Share adds their own ways reimplementation of something like MediaTek CrossMount, a set of standards atop UPNP to share sound cards, screens, input devices. From the article:

It’s really going to offer users an easy, fast, and efficient way to do more with your two PCs by securely sharing screens external monitors, keyboard, mouse, storage and all your files,

Intel Thunderbolt Share (ITS) has shown up a number of times, and this elementary confusion with base USB4 capabilities persists. ITS seems semi cool to me, just, 100% would rather have a protocol than a piece of software. Super glue usb-ip to mdns or UPNP, and be real about it. ITS feels like a cheap substitute of the real deal: Software as a Protocol Substitute. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=thunderbolt%20share&sort=byDat...

justinclift3• 2 years ago

Seems to have conflicting info?

Second paragraph:

    Thunderbolt Share offers several options, all at blazing 40Gbps or higher speeds ...

Yet further down the page it has:

    Thunderbolt Share uses up to a 20Gbps connection over Thunderbolt 4 ...

And even further down the page it has this:

    Drag and drop files: Nothing special, though the copy/move functions should take
    place at Thunderbolt speeds — between 80Gbps and 120Gbps speeds, depending on the
    specification.

marginalia_nu• 2 years ago

Nothing special, though the copy/move functions should take place at Thunderbolt speeds — between 80Gbps and 120Gbps speeds, depending on the specification.

That seems a bit fantastical. There are no hard drives I'm aware of that will permit sustained I/O at those speeds, in fact I'm pretty sure NVMe doesn't have the bandwidth for this.

Unless you hook up a drive with RAM characteristics to PCIe 6.0 x8+ I don't see this happening anytime soon.

vardump• 2 years ago

For example Crucial T705 [0] can do 14.1 GB/s sequential reads. That's 113 Gbps. Requires PCIe5, though.

A lot of "old" NVMe disks can also do over 50 Gbps. Samsung 980/990, WD SN850X come to mind right away. You could run two in a RAID-0 configuration to get over 100 Gbps.

[0] https://uk.pcmag.com/ssds/150961/crucial-t705

justinclift3• 2 years ago

In the business/enterprise space, local arrays of flash drives can push those kinds of speeds in a sustained fashion. For example:

https://www.highpoint-tech.com/nvme-individual/ssd7749e

(that card can theoretically go quite a bit faster)

But yeah, seems like a bit of a stretch to be portraying it as consumer stuff. Maybe give it a few years though, cat pictures aren't losing resolution. ;)

nxobject• 2 years ago

Everyone's talking about how USB4 can do the same job perfectly well with host-to-host networking or presenting as a disk, i.e. target disk mode.

That's lame and no fun. Why not do something more exciting and fast and furious (the author said, sarcastically), like PCIe DMA over USB4? I want to send files as fast I can stream vertices to a GPU dammit!

dathinab2• 2 years ago

Like mentioned in the article Thunderbolt Share contains two fast file sharing modes.l

Furthermore Thunderbolt Share is focused on TB5 so ~120Gbps which is roughly PCIe4 x8 / PCIe5 x4 so it's getting there ;)

stephenr7• 2 years ago

Assuming you're referring to the DMA vulnerability, that isn't present when doing IP over TB, because it doesn't use the PCIe layer.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)

dash2• 2 years ago

Step back, big picture: Intel's hot new idea, in 2024, is connecting two computers.

With a cable.

Wow, these guys are really lost.

ajsnigrutin• 2 years ago

Yep!

File transfer!

But now with a paid licence!

In 2030 maybe they'll have subscriptions available!

mixmastamyk3• 2 years ago

This is years old.

rjst013• 2 years ago

I hope we get a mac client for this at some point - travelling with two laptops sucks, so bringing a NUC I could remote into with good performance would be a huge win.

stephenr7• 2 years ago

Macs have had IP over TB for over a decade, you just need to make sure the OS on your chosen NUC also supports it.

rjst013• 2 years ago

Yes - but as this is a purpose-designed protocol for display transport over thunderbolt, I would expect it to perform better than a remote desktop solution intended to go over a potentially low-bandwidth network.

In the past I've found that using RDP to a VM running on localhost can actually perform better than the console provided by the VMM, but it's still not close to the experience of using the OS natively. I would expect this to be a lot closer.

dingaling• 2 years ago

So today I learned that a USB-C port with a little lightning bolt beside it doesn't mean "can charge through this" , but means Thunderbolt.

Why does Thunderbolt still exist as a discrete technology?

ianburrell• 2 years ago

It doesn't in USB4. USB4 adds Thunderbolt compatible signalling for DisplayPort and PCIe tunneling. It also adds some faster data modes. Thunderbolt 4 is separate, but USB4 products can be Thunderbolt 4 with all the features presumably including Thunderbolt 3 compatibility.

lostmsu• 2 years ago

How long can these cables be?

mixmastamyk3• 2 years ago

I moved to a new machine, both with recent Linux. First needed to buy a USBC/TB4 cable, about $30 at the time for Anker. Bummer, but it works.

I already had sshd running on the older one.

Just plugged in to both sides. Ran ‘ip a’ to find the local addresses. Then ran rsync on the new one to sync the data partitions.

Transferred at ~10 GB/s !! Half terabyte came over in under 15 mins. Not sure, I made a sandwich and ate it, transfer was done when I returned.

kotaKat• 2 years ago

I think the only special thing here that you can't already do with TB networking (as everyone else is mentioning) is the desktop control over-the-wire.

Are they basically exposing some form of AMT control over Thunderbolt here? That's more what I'm getting is special out of it.

EricE• 2 years ago

Apple has had this forever - Target Disk Mode for legacy Mac's or share disk/Mac sharing mode for Apple Silicon Mac's. It's come in handy more than a few times for me!

https://iboysoft.com/howto/target-disk-mode-mac.html

yunohn• 2 years ago

Target Disk Mode requires shutting down and putting the macOS device into that mode. Usually to migrate files from your old to new laptop while setting it up.

On the contrary, the article shows 2 normally switched-on laptops connected by a cable doing a live transfer whenever you want.

Intel's Thunderbolt Share is a speedy sneakernet replacement and more

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