Intel has promised that the Thunderbolt platform will support Ethernet networking at 10 Gbps. The company presented at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and informed that the USB 3.1 Will Do 10 Gbps But Intel's Thunderbolt 2 Will Rule With 20 Gbps will not only support 20 Gbps connections for all the connected peripherals; but also expand the capabilities of the platform to supporting Ethernet connections operating at about 10 Gbps. Intel's calling this new feature "Thunderbolt Networking" and is expected to be made available to all the PCs with Thunderbolt 2 ports.


Thunderbolt Networking will allow computer to computer direct networking with a 10GbE throughput. Intel's already released updates for the OSX Mavericks and a special driver update will be released for Windows. No doubt that Thunderbolt networking will make backups and upgrades faster and more efficient. The new feature apparently won't be enabled for the first iterations of the Thunderbolt controllers.

One of the applications of Thunderbolt Networking will be in connecting 4K hardware with the media peripherals which often require very high bandwidth. Moreover, Intel's already pitched the Thunderbolt 2 for high-speed RAID storages and backup machines. Several leaders like Western Digital, StarTech and LaCie have already partnered with Intel and the first range of products supporting new features is expected to hit the markets in the next few months.

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