This may be useful to someone. The difference between Thunderbolt 3 ports on M1 macs and earlier models.
Story (with image of device) available here: https://tidbits.com/2020/12/02/thunderbolt-improvements-in-the-m1-based-macs/ <https://tidbits.com/2020/12/02/thunderbolt-improvements-in-the-m1-based-macs/> Thunderbolt Improvements in the M1-Based Macs <https://mailer.tidbits.com/l/hXWTpT6FK9WfKlm763R28R763w/yZ892ZsGUBUWzKULfHpf25Xg/VRPGF6w8MQteyAJn8O3hqg> Over at the OWC Rocket Yard blog, SoftRAID developer Tim Standing shares a welcome discovery about Apple’s new M1-based Macs <https://mailer.tidbits.com/l/hXWTpT6FK9WfKlm763R28R763w/fm5MrsjoTTQDVmHDOphKKQ/VRPGF6w8MQteyAJn8O3hqg>. Although the new Macs have only two Thunderbolt ports, compared to four on the Intel-based 13-inch MacBook Pro and Mac mini, Standing discovered that each port has its own Thunderbolt bus. By comparison, each pair of Thunderbolt ports on the Intel-based Macs share a bus, meaning that they also share bandwidth. If you plug two fast drives into ports that share a bus, performance suffers. Standing also notes that the M1-based Macs support Thunderbolt 4, which differs from Apple’s implementation of Thunderbolt 3 in only one fundamental way: it offers support for Thunderbolt hubs that let you add more ports. So yes, the M1-based Macs may have only two Thunderbolt ports, but they’ll both provide full bandwidth and allow users to add more ports through a hub. And as you might suspect, OWC has a Thunderbolt Hub <https://mailer.tidbits.com/l/hXWTpT6FK9WfKlm763R28R763w/uts7637R2aiofzZ3G9ZlL5Lg/VRPGF6w8MQteyAJn8O3hqg> shipping soon for $149. <https://mailer.tidbits.com/l/hXWTpT6FK9WfKlm763R28R763w/6WSqemSv4ErndIHRK30r4Q/VRPGF6w8MQteyAJn8O3hqg> Paul Owen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sussex Mac User Group" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/smug/D213186A-1830-4007-9F77-8699B64DD311%40mac.com.
