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muaythai

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 3, 2009
39
0
My 15" early 2011 MBP only has one Thunderbolt port, and I need two. One for my UA Apollo Twin soundcard, and one for my Apple cinema display. Right now I've connected the display via StarTech USB-to-Thunderbolt adaptor. This creates a noticeable lag, i.e. mouse moves "slow" and other noticeable latency. If I could, I'd buy a newer MBP with two Thunderbolt ports but for now, that's not financially realistic. Could there possibly another solution I'm not thinking of?
 
I'm not an expert on Thunderbolt, but search for "Thunderbolt dock". Keep in mind if your laptop only has Thunderbolt 1, it may work differently.
 
That may not be his best option, and probably doesn't help him. Its not the best available TB dock and kinda expensive. It certainly is not a TB hub as those don't exist. TB is a daisy chain kinda thing.

You should be able to daisy chain that UA Apollo Twin soundcard with the display and use one Mac TB port. Both the display and soundcard have two TB ports, although I think one of the display's TB ports is the built in cable. You should be able to plug the display directly into the Mac and the soundcard into the back of the display (there should be a TB port there). You should also be able to plug the soundacard directly into the Mac and the display into the soundcard (there are two TB ports on the soundcard).

I'm not that familiar with the UA Apollo Twin soundcard or the cinema display, but thats typically how TB chains work. I have one TB port on my rMBP connected to a TB dock, a disk enclosure connected to the dock and another disk enclosure connected to the first enclosure. Three TB devices connected to one Mac TB port. I don't recall off hand how many devices can hang of a single port, maybe 11?
 
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