Thunderbolt cables get longer

Thunderbolt cables get longer

Thunderbolt cables are no longer limited to lengths of only 2 metres, making it easier to configure your editing equipment and storage

Corning, makers of high specification glass products such as the Gorilla glass used in the iPhone, were showing new optical fibre based USB3 and Thunderbolt cables at Macworld last week.

Over the last year we have seen more and more computers and peripherals equipped with USB3 and Thunderbolt ports, bringing high speed connectivity to desktop and laptop computers.

Noisy disks

But one issue is the cables. Typically USB3 and Thunderbolt cables are around 2 metres long, which severely restricts how you can configure your system and especially in the case of hard drives means you have to live with noisy disks right next to you.
The cables that Corning were showing at Macworld were 30 metres long for USB3 and 100 metres long for Thunderbolt bringing the possibility of placing your peripherals further away from your computer, indeed, even in another room or a soundproofed enclosure.

Perfect for football

As you can see in this video, they are perfect for editing at football games.

The cables are also remarkably robust and can be tangled and knotted without affecting the transfer speed of the cable, allowing up to 5GBs with USB3 and 10GBs with Thunderbolt.