Can USB 3.0 & Thunderbolt Co-Exist? COMMENT THREAD
 

Thunderbolt hit the scene like a light drizzle. Its announcement by Intel and Apple was met with a slight air of confusion – don’t they remember FireWire?

Why, oh why, would a regular user care about an extra half-second on an MP3 transfer? The situations seemed almost too similar to be credible, with a high-performance option striding obstinately forward into a storm of high pricing and low penetration.

Read more here: Can USB 3.0 co-exist with Thunderbolt? | Hardware Canucks

Interesting read. I can see some scenarios where it would be useful, but in all honesty I have never really payed any attention to it. It would take some mass adoption and pricing cuts before I will be interested. So likely USB for me.

+1

USB is everywhere, backwards compatible, fast enough for 99% of the stuff you put on a usb key(mp3, excel files for work, etc...) and cheap.

Most flash media have horrible write speeds anyways and can't even saturate usb 2.0 speeds half the time

The most wide spread will win, so usually the cheapest. If thunderbolt can pump out 10Gbit it could be interesting as server/workstation expansion if the I/O response is kept low, or a graphic card in a box for a laptop... specialty things like that it could be and would be used today. If they try selling it as only faster then USB 3 then it will lose for the next few years until USB 3 is saturated and considered painfully slow.

Much like Firewire it will be somewhat of a novelty. Firewire was never really integrated properly into Windows based systems. Thunderbolt seems to be something many might consider these days for enthusiasts and those not schooled in the uses.

Big props for the salesmen at Futureshop that'll dupe many people into thinking this will be the required norm.

If the price was the same as USB3 then it would have a chance