What cable should I get? USB C or Thunderbolt

[canderson]

Likey a dumb question but cables confuse me. Have a new Mac Studio and Studio Display. I want to connect an external 1 TB SSD that is USB C (Samsung T7). The SDD won’t be for active use, more for backups and to hold music. No active files, necessarily.

Should I get a USB C cable or just update to a Thunderbird 3 one?

 

[Batman Likes The Sox]

I'm not the expert here but my understanding is that this is just a cost vs. time analysis.

If it were me and I already have an extra USB C lying around I'd probably use that since it doesn't seem like there will be frequent data transfer.

If I were buying a cable I'd probably get the 2x or 3x cost Thunderbolt just to have it around and in case I do get into more active data transfer in the future for some unanticipated reason. I tend to overbuy on storage, cables, etc. because I don't want to waste time later managing data or waiting on data.

 

[sodenj5]

My understanding is that all Thunderbolts are USB C, but not all USB Cs are Thunderbolts.

So in short, if you have a TB cable, it solves both issues without you having to concern yourself if you have the correct cable or not.

The USB C cable will work fine for your application, but you might want to pick up a TB cable in case you have a use for it in future applications.

 

[canderson]

Thanks all. What prompted this is I tried to use a USB C charging cable from my iPad Pro and the transfer rate was realllllll slow, slower than a USB C to USB A connection.

I'll grab the TB 3 cable for future proofing.

 

[Omar's Wacky Neighbor]

Should I get a USB C cable or just update to a Thunderbird 3 one?

IIRC they're up to Thunderbolt 4.

Check monoprice.com . They put out some quality components at a friendlier price.

 

[cgori]

USB consortium did itself no favors by having different subtypes of USB-C (which really only refers to the physical connector, but that is very non-obvious to anyone using it). An older cable will only support USB-C 2.0, similar rates to USB-A (480Mbps = 0.48Gbps max). A newer cable (3.1 or 3.2 Gen2) will be very fast - 10Gbps max, about 20x faster than the other one. (In between would be USB3.1, at 5Gbps, around 10x the speed of 2.0.)

As @sodenj5 said, all Thunderbolt cables are also USB-C (but USB-C is not Thunderbolt - only Thunderbolt cables can carry DisplayPort video). The newest Thunderbolt4 cable will support up to 40Gbps. (Your SSD might not support that high though, usually it's only displays or hubs.)

I'd buy the 3.2Gen2 cable and call it a day, unless you know you need another Thunderbolt4 cable for the Studio Display for some reason.

 

[ifmanis5]

IIRC they're up to Thunderbolt 4.

Check monoprice.com . They put out some quality components at a friendlier price.

Yes and yes.
Also, Thunderbolt 5 is expected to be released sometime later this year.