HDN Thunderbolt & Windows Laptop

[8dB.co.uk]

Two years ago now saw a Lenovo S450 Laptop recording multi track off a venue system through HDNTB. Simply install the HDN PCIe drivers and PT then basically ignores the fact it's connected by TB and treats it like any other PCIe card, which is all it is in reality.

[maunaloa]

But the TB drivers in the OS were Lenovo specific, and probably Lenovo model specific. TB uses PCIe lanes just like SATA, AVB, USB, DisplayPort, etc., and TB is managed by the Platform Hub Controller (except Haswell chips can reserve a few lanes, called NVMe (aka NVMHCI), that would otherwise be used for PCIe by the PHC). Haswell CPUs use NVMe for direct SSD communication (no PHC delay).... called an M.2 port. TB is essentially DP plus power. Same mini-DP connector, in fact. In that model of laptop, Lenovo wrote proprietary glue code so the PHC talks TB, just as the PHC can also talk DP or USB over PCIe lanes.

Physically, an M.2 card is mated with a SATA Express (SATAe, not eSATA) connector. The SATAe connector can also deliver regular PCIe lanes in addition to NVMe lanes. Which lanes are used depends upon the mobo design and how the card is "keyed" (slotted).

Want a faster OS and PT? Load them on an M.2 card ... so long as you have Win 8.1. IIRC NVMe was introduced in Win 8.1. IDK Apple status on NVMe.

[8dB.co.uk]

I think the TB drivers are chip set not OS specific. If your laptop has the correct revision Intel only chip set, you have the correct drivers as supplied by Intel for their chip set.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by maunaloa

But the TB drivers in the OS were Lenovo specific, and probably Lenovo model specific. TB uses PCIe lanes just like SATA, AVB, USB, DisplayPort, etc., and TB is managed by the Platform Hub Controller (except Haswell chips can reserve a few lanes, called NVMe (aka NVMHCI), that would otherwise be used for PCIe by the PHC). Haswell CPUs use NVMe for direct SSD communication (no PHC delay).... called an M.2 port. TB is essentially DP plus power. Same mini-DP connector, in fact. In that model of laptop, Lenovo wrote proprietary glue code so the PHC talks TB, just as the PHC can also talk DP or USB over PCIe lanes.

Physically, an M.2 card is mated with a SATA Express (SATAe, not eSATA) connector. The SATAe connector can also deliver regular PCIe lanes in addition to NVMe lanes. Which lanes are used depends upon the mobo design and how the card is "keyed" (slotted).

Want a faster OS and PT? Load them on an M.2 card ... so long as you have Win 8.1. IIRC NVMe was introduced in Win 8.1. IDK Apple status on NVMe.

I am not sure of the point of all the detail here but some of this is a little wrong, or might give wrong impressions about different technologies.

Thunderbolt is not just DP plus power, far from it. A Thunderbolt connection does happens to carry display port as well as other data.

NVMe *is* PCIe. The physical layer is plain garden variety PCIe. What NVMe is is a standardized SSD controller interface. With the intention that drive vendors lives are simplified/it will be easier to get SSD drives to market and drives will be compatible with standard NVMe drivers. NVMe drives will/are starting to be available in PCIe card, 2.5" and M.2 formats. But it is early days yet and there are relatively few drives available. Most PCIe card, 2.5" and M.2 SSDs available today, even those using PCIe (vs. SATA) do not unfortunately use NVMe.

The M.2 standard provides a huge amount of flexibility, with M.2 cards that support USB, SATA and PCIe data interfaces. M.2 does not require NVNe even for PCIe based M.2 SSDs and still few if any PCIe based M.2 cards use NVMe today. For example the really impressive recently released Samsung SM951 M.2 SSD with a 4xPCIe 3.x interface does not use NVMe. A big user of PCIe M.2 drives today is Apple, they are just starting to support NVMe based drives.

[maunaloa]

Thanks, Darryl. I was generalizing about DP + DC = TB... how about... data from PCIe lanes + DC = TB.
What's interesting about Haswell CPUs is direct NVMe slots to SSD, bypassing the PHC.

Isn't is more accurate to say that NVMe is PCIe physicial layer and SSD specific higher layers in the OSI stack, since NVMe is directed no non-volatile memory?

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by maunaloa

Thanks, Darryl. I was generalizing about DP + DC = TB... how about... data from PCIe lanes + DC = TB.
What's interesting about Haswell CPUs is direct NVMe slots to SSD, bypassing the PHC.

It is more accurate to just say that Thunderbolt is PCIe lanes + Displayport + Power.

Isn't is more accurate to say that NVMe is PCIe physicial layer and SSD specific higher layers in the OSI stack, since NVMe is directed no non-volatile memory?

I would not want to mangle the OSI stack and use to describe a SSD disk interface. But NVMe is just the controller interface, control registers, behavior etc. of the SSD. It uses PCIe as a physical layer. I am guessing (but have not checked) that the NVMe links you are referring to are just labeled that way becuase that system has NVMe BIOS boot support for those PCIe lanes. A system designer could use those same PCIe lanes for anything they want, including PCIe but non NVMe SSD. There are only up to four PCIe lanes on an M.2 card, those lanes get used for both NVMe and non-NVMe M.2 PCIe SSDs.

Although the M.2 card slot keying makes sure things are physically compatible, it does not say ensure/help with driver compatibility. This is likely to be very confusing for consumers buying M.2 SSDs, it's already bad enough between SATA and PCIe M.2 SSDs. I really hope manufacturers try to explain this and include clear product descriptions and labeling.

[maunaloa]

It appears the "SM961" (my incrementing the product line, XP941, SM951, ...) will be NVMe compliant.

"Samsung has, however, stated that the company is working on a client NVMe SSDs, which means we may seen one soon after all."

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8979/s...-512-gb-review

See also, https://www.ramcity.com.au/blog/m.2-...ility-list/189

[Brandonx1]

Originally Posted by TAMBOR

At this date, is there anybody out there that is successfully using a Windows 7 based HD system with the HDN Thunderbolt interface?

I have a Lenovo W540 laptop with built in Thunderbolt interface, 32GB RAM, I7 4-cores, and would like to be able to possibly go mobile with PT HD11.

Thanks.

Yes I have hd native thunderbolt working with asus x99e ws motherboard.

[blizzard]

Gonna dig this up again...

Can anyone chime in with a success story with running PTHD on a Windows Laptop using Thunderbolt? Both of the Avid recommended laptops are out of date and hard to find (as far as I can tell).

Cheers,
Andrew

[8dB.co.uk]

Hi. Take a look at my Pro Tools Expert article - "Will it work on Windows". I've seen video footage of HDNTB on a Lenovo laptop, which is now discontinued (I tried without success to buy one). I also had good success running it on Windows on a desktop machine with a £65 Thunderbolt upgrade card. See my articles for more details.