How long can a Thunderbolt cable be?

Optical Thunderbolt 3 Cables Begin Rolling Out in Lengths Up to 50 Meters. The Thunderbolt 3 standard has been available for roughly four years now, but cable lengths have so far generally been limited to a couple of meters due to signal degradation over long distances of copper wiring.

What is the longest Thunderbolt cable you can get?

Active Thunderbolt 3 cables support Thunderbolt at 40Gbps data transfer at lengths of up to 2m. Optical cables are targeted later, with lengths of up to 60m. Passive lower cost cables are only capable of 20Gbps data transfer at 1m or 2m lengths, but can achieve the full 40Gbps at a shorter cable length of 0.5m.

Why are Thunderbolt cables so short?

For starters, active cables are more expensive, which is probably one of the reasons why companies tend to bundle shorter, passive cables with their Thunderbolt 3 products. Another issue with active cables is that they lack backwards compatibility with USB 3.

How long can thunderbolt 4 cables be?

Thunderbolt vs. USB

Why are Thunderbolt cables so expensive?

The first reason comes down to length, as cables like these tend to get much more expensive the longer they are but still promising support for the maximum 40Gbps Thunderbolt 3 rate. The 2 meter cable is also braided, which means that it’s more durable and less likely to tangle, so that increases the price further.

Why are Thunderbolt 2 cables so expensive?

Thunderbolt is expensive because of two reasons: Licensing fees required by Intel (initially co-developed with Apple but Intel gained all rights in 2012) Technical requirement of having a Thunderbolt controller module on both the host and peripheral device.

What is the longest Thunderbolt 2 cable?

The maximum length of Thunderbolt cable that can be used with a Red Range interface is 3 meters (9.8 ft) when using a copper cable. Optical Thunderbolt cables can also be used up to 100 meters (328ft) in length. These are the maximum lengths of cable allowed by the Thunderbolt standard.

How long is the Thunderbolt cable?

The first such optical Thunderbolt cable was introduced by Sumitomo Electric Industries in January 2013. It is available in lengths of 10 m (30 ft), 20 m (70 ft), and 30 m (100 ft). However, those cables are retailed almost exclusively in Japan, and the price is 20 to 30 times higher than copper Thunderbolt cables.

What is an active Thunderbolt cable?

An active Thunderbolt cable contains transceivers in the plugs that regulate data transfer. A passive Thunderbolt cable does not — it’s just wires between connectors. A typical 0.5m (19″) Thunderbolt cable that comes packaged with gear will be passive and have slower transfer speeds at lengths greater than 0.5m.

What is Dell Thunderbolt?

The Dell Thunderbolt Dock (TB16) is a device that links all your electronic devices to your laptop computer using Thunderbolt™ 3 (Type-C) cable interface.

What is a thunderbolt connection?

Thunderbolt is the brand name of a hardware interface developed by Intel (in collaboration with Apple) that allows the connection of external peripherals to a computer. Thunderbolt 1 and 2 use the same connector as Mini DisplayPort (MDP), whereas Thunderbolt 3 re-uses the USB-C connector from USB.