buggz Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 Not knowing where to post this, so, I thought I'd try here. Before I buy expen$ive Thunderbolt 3 devices, what would be a cheap way to test the Thunderbolt 3 connection? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kye Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 What setup are you thinking of investing in? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buggz Posted January 10, 2019 Author Share Posted January 10, 2019 Wanting a mega RAID 10 NAS. Testing a new to me PC build with windoze10 pro. Luckily, my Resolve Studio dongle is legit, it works coming from the older Win7Pro station. ASRock Z370 Killer SLI/ac - 8700K - Zotec 2080 - only 16GB right now... ASRock Thunderbolt 3 AIC is at the PO, I missed the delivery today. I've read many other forums this combo works, even with Hackingtosh builds. Wanting a cheap way to test the communications protocol first... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
webrunner5 Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 What kind of monitor you have? Isn't a Thunderbolt 3 port usable as a Display Port? No I/O data, well it would show output, not input, but you would know it is active. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UncleBobsPhotography Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 46 minutes ago, webrunner5 said: What kind of monitor you have? Isn't a Thunderbolt 3 port usable as a Display Port? No I/O data, well it would show output, not input, but you would know it is active. USB 3.1 can also be used as displayport, but only has 10Gbit/s transfer rate compared to Thundersbolts 40Gbit/s. I would therefore image the issue is how to test if the connection has the full 40Gbit/s capabilities. I have no solution for this, but I would mention that USB-C/Thunderbolt has been a somewhat unreliable technology from my experience. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kye Posted January 10, 2019 Share Posted January 10, 2019 1 hour ago, UncleBobsPhotography said: USB 3.1 can also be used as displayport, but only has 10Gbit/s transfer rate compared to Thundersbolts 40Gbit/s. I would therefore image the issue is how to test if the connection has the full 40Gbit/s capabilities. I have no solution for this, but I would mention that USB-C/Thunderbolt has been a somewhat unreliable technology from my experience. I have this kind of setup to connect my 4K Dell to my MBP via a cable. In terms of testing it beforehand, I'm not sure how you would do that, but I also think that maybe you don't need to. If you get the RAID setup and it doesn't work with the ASRock Thunderbolt 3 at 40Gb/s then just return the ASRock and get something else that does work. Even if you have to bin it and buy another Thunderbolt card, you'd still lose less than buying your second RAID choice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buggz Posted January 11, 2019 Author Share Posted January 11, 2019 18 hours ago, webrunner5 said: What kind of monitor you have? Isn't a Thunderbolt 3 port usable as a Display Port? No I/O data, well it would show output, not input, but you would know it is active. Thunderbolt can be used for a LOT of things. Thunderbolt 3 is 40GB/s data stream. Yo9u can daisy chain devices. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xavier Plagaro Mussard Posted January 11, 2019 Share Posted January 11, 2019 Why would you suspect your Thunderbolt doesn't work?? If in doubt, buy your RAID in a place where you can return it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UncleBobsPhotography Posted January 11, 2019 Share Posted January 11, 2019 8 hours ago, Xavier Plágaro Mussard said: Why would you suspect your Thunderbolt doesn't work?? If in doubt, buy your RAID in a place where you can return it. You make it seem like Thunderbolt3 performance is predictable. Here is one example of how unpredictable it can be: The left side Thunderbolt3 ports on a 2017 MacBook Pro Touchbar has higher bandwidth than the right side Thunderbolt3 ports. I want an external GPU, but it seems like the only way to find out how well it will work on your specific configuration is to test it yourself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buggz Posted January 12, 2019 Author Share Posted January 12, 2019 Seems to be working. I got a Dell Business Thunderbolt 3 Dock - TB16 from IT at werke to use over the weekend. All is working okay, monitor ports, etc... Cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xavier Plagaro Mussard Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 On 1/11/2019 at 5:06 PM, UncleBobsPhotography said: You make it seem like Thunderbolt3 performance is predictable. Here is one example of how unpredictable it can be: The left side Thunderbolt3 ports on a 2017 MacBook Pro Touchbar has higher bandwidth than the right side Thunderbolt3 ports. I want an external GPU, but it seems like the only way to find out how well it will work on your specific configuration is to test it yourself. I didn't knew, I have Thunderbolt 2 and use it as video output. It's not good news then Thunderbolt 3 performance is finicky... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
buggz Posted January 13, 2019 Author Share Posted January 13, 2019 Saving pennies for Thunderbolt 3 RAID enclosure. Anyone have a working one they recommend? Seems like QNAP systems are working good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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