Thunderbolt 5 is here, and we're starting to see new drives hit the external storage market. They're pricey, as is always the case with new technology, but you could enjoy speeds up to 6,000 MB/s, making it almost as fast as the best PCie 4.0 internal M.2 SSDs. But why should you be excited about Thunderbolt 5 for storage, and will it completely transform how we use storage on supported systems? I've rounded up some points on why I'm stoked for next-gen external storage.

3 Increased data throughput

PCIe 4.0 is a big win

Interested in external storage? How does 6,000 MB/s sound? That's precisely what you could enjoy with Thunderbolt 5 should everything align perfectly. I'm talking about compatible ports, supported hardware, and a decent Thunderbolt 5 external SSD. You'll have no trouble running apps and games and loading files from such a drive. Thunderbolt 5 has enough throughput to almost match the best internal PCie 4.0 drives, which are often used for storing an OS and everything else.

Though not directly corallating with Thunderbolt generations, here's how PCIe has improved over the generations:

My main PC has a PCIe 4.0 SSD as the primary drive simply because I haven't found the need to upgrade to PCIe 5.0 yet, and the SSD isn't much faster than the theoretical throughput of Thunderbolt 5 external storage. It makes using a drive to transfer files quickly between two locations a viable option for those with big data. Previous-generation external drives were slower, making a NAS or DAS oftentimes a better solution. Thunderbolt 3 and 4 were great upgrades, but the 5th generation turns everything up to 11.

2 Huge bandwidth increase

Up to a whopping 120 Gbps

The major selling point for Thunderbolt 5 is the higher bandwidth. This allows Thunderbolt 5 to allow for up to 80 Gbps for bidirectional compared to "just" 40 Gbps with Thunderbolt 3 and 4. This is excellent news for GPUs and other devices that can be linked through a single Thunderbolt 5 connection. If your PC only has one Thunderbolt port, you can connect multiple compatible devices without hampering bandwidth that you'd notice a slowdown in task completion.

Why not attach more than two external Thunderbolt 5 drives sharing the same host port on your desktop or laptop PC? There are more possibilities with the latest generation of Thunderbolt that simply weren't possible with earlier iterations of the tech. Higher bandwidth also makes for more efficient processes, whether you're running files off the drive or using it to store some backups. As they complete faster, time is cleared, and valuable system resources are freed to handle other tasks.

1 Better performance

Perfect for video and gaming

For gaming and video work, using external drives would always bring with them slightly slower speeds than internal storage. This wouldn't be good for loading massive games and larger video files for editing. While not terrible, Thunderbolt 4 would slightly increase load times depending on what internal drive your PC had. That's less likely with Thunderbolt 5, which offers some seriously high speeds and plenty of bandwidth. It's also great for accessories with Thunderbolt 5, smashing it in power delivery.

8K video and 4K gaming require larger files, and you'll need higher bandwidth and faster transfer speeds to ensure software and games can fully saturate your entire pipeline, as opposed to being bottlenecked by external storage. Will this solve all issues relating to external storage? Absolutely not, as there's always a place for cloud and network-based storage, but it at least places this rather expensive storage solution in a unique position for throughput.

Another positive with the introduction of Thunderbolt 5 is lower latency, which should aid with playing games off the external SSD or working with live data.

Thunderbolt 5 is brilliant in other areas

I've covered the power supply bump, which brings Thunderbolt 5 up to 120W, but it's also great for external displays and even GPUs. Depending on what you plan to connect to your device, you can rock an advanced SSD with a high-res display and other peripherals without sacrificing too much on storage performance. It's going to be expensive as the technology sees new products made available — and you'll need Thunderbolt 5 support on your device — but it can be worth it for those who can take advantage of the improvements.