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luke.mac1

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 1, 2011
87
0
United Kingdom
I've been thinking today, I'm running out of USB and firewire ports on my 2011 iMac 27".
Wouldn't it be great if there was a thunderbolt hub that had maybe 10 USB ports, a couple of FW800 and FW400...

Does this already exist? If it doesn't... why not? Surely there would be a massive market for something like this. Anyone know of anything or anything soon-to-be-released that would do the job?
 

luke.mac1

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 1, 2011
87
0
United Kingdom
Belkin has announced a hub, but I don't see that it has been released yet.

Yeah...that's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for. I can't wait to see how overpriced that is!
I wish someone would design one with LOADS of ports. Thunderbolt should allow someone to design a hub with an obscene number of usb and fw connections.
 

jamesr19

macrumors 6502
Nov 7, 2009
251
0
I can't wait to see how overpriced that is!

I wish someone would design one with LOADS of ports.

You'll be waiting til spring 2012

Just get a powered USB hub. You can pick them up on eBay for £10 which will be far cheaper than the TB hub and work just as well for USB. I'm sure there are firewire 800 hubs available somewhere too...
 

luke.mac1

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 1, 2011
87
0
United Kingdom
You'll be waiting til spring 2012

Just get a powered USB hub. You can pick them up on eBay for £10 which will be far cheaper than the TB hub and work just as well for USB. I'm sure there are firewire 800 hubs available somewhere too...

Yeah, I've done that but just think how many full-speed devices you could have over a TB port, rather than splitting a USB port worth of bandwidth between them.
 
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miles01110

macrumors Core
Jul 24, 2006
19,260
36
The Ivory Tower (I'm not coming down)
Could the thunderbolt device not contain USB controllers? Is that a silly question?

It could, but it'd probably be more expensive. Most USB devices have low bandwidth requirements anyways (i.e. it doesn't take that long to send a 500k document to your USB printer). If you really needed the extra speed, chances are you wouldn't be using a USB device in the first place.
 

Lennyvalentin

macrumors 65816
Apr 25, 2011
1,431
793
Could the thunderbolt device not contain USB controllers?
Yes, but question is, is there a market for such a high-performance USB hub? As already noted, it would be more expensive, and I personally think it's kind of doubtful if customers would be able to recognize and appreciate the extra performance given by such a solution. Most people would just see the higher price tag and decide to go for the cheaper option instead...

Is that a silly question?
No, of course not. :) There are no silly questions, only silly answers. (Well, theoretically anyway...)
 

Smartie

macrumors regular
Apr 25, 2012
170
0
Stockholm, Sweden
It seems like Belkin won't launch their TB to USB 3.0 hub until September. Are there any other good USB 3.0 hubs available that someone has tested? Do they also look as nice as the upcoming Belkin hub? I can personally live with both a TB or USB 3.0 connection to the hub, not to keen on FW connectivity.
 
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HurryKayne

macrumors 6502a
Jun 9, 2010
982
13
September seems to be the key.
Even vidock (go on Fb) posted that Intel won't give out the thunderbolt development Kit to the mainstream (now its only to selected partners)till September.
Now it appears Apple has in its new Air and MacBookPro the latest 4 lanes Cactus Ridge,the 2011 Imac has the Light Ridge.
As many of you i'm evaluating between to buy the 2011 Imac or to wait...till.."nobody knows.." and one key of my thoughts is the thunderbolt speed.
Does the new Cactus Ridge work faster? or is the same ..in terms of speed,
because with the Belkin adapter i will add Usb 3 to the 2011 too,but if the new Air-Mbpro (with far slow Gpu ,65om is said to be 30% slower than 6970m)has better Thunderbolt speed could be a good compromize with a new Magma,Msi,Sonnetech,Vidock etc etc Gpu external adapter on my desk.
Can you help me decidin?Thanks and have a good day.
 
Last edited:

HiDeHo

macrumors member
Sep 19, 2012
68
2
I've been thinking today, I'm running out of USB and firewire ports on my 2011 iMac 27".
Wouldn't it be great if there was a thunderbolt hub that had maybe 10 USB ports, a couple of FW800 and FW400...

Does this already exist? If it doesn't... why not? Surely there would be a massive market for something like this. Anyone know of anything or anything soon-to-be-released that would do the job?

the more ports a usb or thudnerbolt hub has I think it would need to be powered separately
 
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