Thunderbolt / USB C Hub

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Hi everyone

I store all my media on 3 external SSDs (Photos, Video and iTunes) and 1 external HDD (Photo and Video Archive).

These drives are connected to a 4-port USB 3 hub running off one of the USB 3 ports on the back of my iMac.

Now I've upgraded to a new iMac with Thunderbolt ports, I've been looking for a hub that can plug into one of my Thunderbolt ports that has 3 or more USB C / Thunderbolt ports off that so I can take advantage of faster speeds.

Despite searching I can find nothing. The closest I can find is a hub that plugs into a Thunderbolt port but has 3 or 4 USB 3 ports only with only one or no USB C ports (usually a charging port only), or hubs that offer a plethora of connections that look frankly confusing :-(

Does the hub I'm searching for actually exist?

thanks, Nick
 
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Can one Thunderbolt accept 3 Thunderbolt inputs (plus), at the same time? It doesn't sound like it is possible to me? Unless I'm misunderstanding something?
 

IWT


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OWC does a Thunderbolt 3 hub. Not cheap but they ship worldwide. I have the Thunderbolt 2 hub which is powered and can work off one Thunderbolt 3/USB C port on my iMac

My 2 offer a grand miscellany of choices and the 3 even more.

Worth the money in my view. Might be worth checking it out. As I said, they ship to the UK.


Ian
 

chscag

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Can one Thunderbolt accept 3 Thunderbolt inputs (plus), at the same time? It doesn't sound like it is possible to me? Unless I'm misunderstanding something?

I believe the TB3 hub offered by MacSales (OWC) does allow that. My iMac and the one that Nick has includes two TB3/USB-c ports. I only use one of those ports for my Samsung T5 external SSD (which is USB-c/TB3) but I can foresee needing more than those two ports in the future.
 
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nickyr
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thanks everyone

well, after getting the iMac and a recent new camera purchase (a Fujifilm GFX50R) I am broke, so I can't stretch to any of the expensive optons for now.

I think what I will get is a 4-port USB 3.1 (gen 1) hub that I can plug into one of the TB3 ports on y iMac. I think (hope) that will give me slightly better performance than my current set up at a fraction of the cost of a TB3 hub.
 
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Hi everyone

I store all my media on 3 external SSDs (Photos, Video and iTunes) and 1 external HDD (Photo and Video Archive).

These drives are connected to a 4-port USB 3 hub running off one of the USB 3 ports on the back of my iMac.

Now I've upgraded to a new iMac with Thunderbolt ports, I've been looking for a hub that can plug into one of my Thunderbolt ports that has 3 or more USB C / Thunderbolt ports off that so I can take advantage of faster speeds.

Despite searching I can find nothing. The closest I can find is a hub that plugs into a Thunderbolt port but has 3 or 4 USB 3 ports only with only one or no USB C ports (usually a charging port only), or hubs that offer a plethora of connections that look frankly confusing :-(

Does the hub I'm searching for actually exist?

thanks, Nick
I’m looking for the same hub and I found one that might work for us on OWC. Here’s a link that should take you there. It’s $138 and connects to one of the thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports and gives you three more thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports, which I think you can use for USB-C or thunderbolt 3 devices. Negotiating speed of course will be different 5 versus 40 Gb/s. But that’s funny fast, and I don’t know any hard drive that negotiates any faster than 1–2 G/s. I’ve been waiting for the new iMac 27 inch to come out, but I am beginning to believe that it’s going cost at entry-level $2500 to have all that specs that it is going to need to have. I remember when I bought my mid-2011 iMac 27 inch, I paid $2500 add a Best Buy; and, less than a year later it dropped $1799. I was A bit upset about that as I recall. But that Mac is still working great with two internal SSD’s I installed in the optical Bay, and a one terabyte HDD. Just recently replaced the optical Bay fan, where I broke the Display port ribbon cable connector to the motherboard – the one with the latch. All the videos say be very very careful Inserting that thing back into the motherboard connection. The darn thing was so brittle it fell apart. To my surprise you can buy them a half dozen different places, and even on Amazon for $8. I can return the iMac within 90 days which is well within the March 8 date I’ve heard rumors of an Apple Event where it might be announced. Costco had a decent deal of $400 off the 512 SSD version at 3.3 GHz, and also has a few other differences from the 256 version.
< OWC Thunderbolt Hub at MacSales.com >
Check this hub out and let me know what you think. Do you think this would work for us? As far as I know you can connect a USB – C device to a thunderbolt 3 port, but it will negotiate at 5 the 5Gb/s, rather than 40, but will work just fine. Best, Seth
 

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The rumors of a new M1X 27" iMac being presented at the March 8 event are fading. Latest rumors are the new large iMacs won't be ready until late Summer or early Fall. And yes, expect a $2000 plus price for the entry level model and probably $3000 up for the Pro model.
 
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The rumors of a new M1X 27" iMac being presented at the March 8 event are fading. Latest rumors are the new large iMacs won't be ready until late Summer or early Fall. And yes, expect a $2000 plus price for the entry level model and probably $3000 up for the Pro model.
That’s pretty much what I was thinking too…
Too soon after 24 inch M1 iMac’s…. Thank you. Best, Seth
 
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It means I need to do some more thinking about getting a mid to late, August 2020 iMac 27 inch purchase, even if it’s $400 discounted. Still, I suspect the new Apple Silicon iMac’s are going to be absolutely non upgradable, and tight as a drum on alterations. Still like my mid – 2011 iMac with two SSDs and an internal HDD, and a new optical bay fan. I remember back in the late 80s they came out with a few models that were not upgradable, and they were pretty much disposable after a couple years use in my office which I was just using for medical billing, and workstations at that. Best, Seth
 

chscag

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Thus far, none of the new M1 silicon Macs are upgradeable. And I suspect that any new large screen iMac or iMac Pro will likewise be non upgradeable. What you purchase is what you have to live with. And we all know that Apple charges premium prices for memory and SSD upgrades.
 
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Thus far, none of the new M1 silicon Macs are upgradeable. And I suspect that any new large screen iMac or iMac Pro will likewise be non upgradeable. What you purchase is what you have to live with. And we all know that Apple charges premium prices for memory and SSD upgrades.
That’s what I was thinking, even the ram is soldered in and not upgradable. So I decided to order heavily discounted 2020 iMac 27 inch with 512 SSD. I have two iMac 27 inches, 2011 and 2014 and 256 GB SSD is sufficient to hold apps an operating system and a few library files necessary and everything else stored on thunderbolt Drive via symbolic links, or photos and iTunes allows you to pick up external drive as well. 8 GB or 16 GB is not enough RAM for what I do with logic pro and I’m not about to pay the prices Apple chargers for RAM. After 40 years they haven’t changed.
they’ll have the new ports, thunderbolt four, but there’s not a lot of difference between thunderbolt three except you can run two monitors and it has some security protocol and 32 GB per second versus 16 GB per second. Unless you need to run 2 monitors, you wouldn’t notice that. I’ve never seen a drive go any faster than 900 MB per second or so. However, the speed may be needed for the monitors.
Best, Seth
 

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