Why aren't there more offerings for Thunderbolt docks?

[lip5016]

Why aren't there more offerings for Thunderbolt docks? It seems like such a ******* move from Apple since most of the MacBook Pro's from a year or 2 ago were only built with 1 Thunderbolt and 2x USB 2.0's (Late 2011, purchased Apr. 2012)..

I've seen all the different offerings out there for Thunderbolt docks, but NONE of them seem to offer expandability beyond 1 extra input.. If I already only have 1 Thunderbolt port on my LATE 2011 MacBook Pro, and the "dock" requires to be connected via Thunderbolt-to-Thunderbolt..

THAT STILL LEAVES YOU WITH 1 THUNDERBOLT! WTF APPLE! WHY DO YOU NEED TO MAKE THINGS THIS DIFFICULT! :rant:

 

[boast]

but NONE of them seem to offer expandability beyond 1 extra input..

Because that is how thunderbolt (developed by Intel) works.

 

[niteflyr]

You can daisy chain thunderbolt devices.

https://www.apple.com/thunderbolt/

 

[simonsi]

You can daisy chain thunderbolt devices.

https://www.apple.com/thunderbolt/

Ummm this /\.

 

[lip5016]

You can daisy chain thunderbolt devices.

https://www.apple.com/thunderbolt/

The problem is that most external hard drives and devices only have that ONE port available on them.. and if you only have 1 Thunderbolt on your MacBook Pro, how would you go about daisy chaining them if you were to say have 2 external drives which each only have 1 Thunderbolt out?

 

[simonsi]

The problem is that most external hard drives and devices only have that ONE port available on them.. and if you only have 1 Thunderbolt on your MacBook Pro, how would you go about daisy chaining them if you were to say have 2 external drives which each only have 1 Thunderbolt out?

If you need daisy-chaining, buy a unit with two ports - peripheral design is down to the peripheral manufacturer and consumer demand. Of course you might need to pay a bit more as the second port adds cost.

For e.g.

LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt™ 2
The World’s Fastest Portable Storage.
Up to 1375 MB/s speeds for 4K video editing
Dual Thunderbolt 2 ports for daisy chaining
Compact size for field-based creative workflows
Whisper-quiet dual cooling

 

[dusk007]

You should just have bought a thunderbolt to USB 3 hub. Then get USB 3.0 drives.
With a 5400rpm hdd thunderbolt speeds are entirely unnecessary. USB 3.1 with its upcoming Type-C connector is the future and backwards compatible. Thunderbolt chips are way to expensive for external drives to make any sense unless you have some SSD RAID stripe set. USB is dirt cheap and so are the external cases and you get the start hub functionality.
Thunderbolt will like Firewire be something Apple alone uses just so they can say their investment was worth it. Displayport and USB 3.1 is all the rest of the world will need and use.

 

[Fishrrman]

Question:
[[ Why aren't there more offerings for Thunderbolt docks? ]]

Answer:
Because (for single drives) USB3 is far cheaper, and just as fast.

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Because only macs have thunderbolt

There is a dearth of thunderbolt peripherals and they are expensive because other PC manufacturers basiccaly went with the cheaper USB 3 option and failed to put it in any devices.

To be honest only 4K screens has the ability to reverse this trend as thunderbolt seems the best option for 4K connection, so as 4K adoption grows then thunderbolt may grow and hence the peripherals market.

 

[dusk007]

There is a dearth of thunderbolt peripherals and they are expensive because other PC manufacturers basiccaly went with the cheaper USB 3 option and failed to put it in any devices.

To be honest only 4K screens has the ability to reverse this trend as thunderbolt seems the best option for 4K connection, so as 4K adoption grows then thunderbolt may grow and hence the peripherals market.

4k screens won't change anything. The only display that uses Thunderbolt for video input is the Apple diplay. Everything else uses Displayport which has more bandwidth and allows to directly drive the panel and not require a huge power sucking and expensive extra chip like Thunderbolt. Compared to a usb controller thunderbolt requires a big chip and too many transistors, that just makes it expensive. As well as the cables who are also really expensive.
PC manufacturers don't use it because USB and Displayport serve the necessary functions much better and much cheaper. Thunderbolt needs too much power and logic board space for mobile applications and adds way to much cost to the materials cost of any device.
Displayport is even compatible with the new Type-C USB 3.1 connector. All we need is that type-c connector and we have Displayport, data for everything else and cheap, small mobile ready controllers that can scale to any application.

Again Thunderbolt has nothing to do with Display signals and is not going to be used for 4k display by anybody except possibly Apple. Displayport and newer HDMI standards serve that function better and cheaper.
Displayport 1.3 is faster than Thunderbolt 2.0 as well and DP 1.2 is essentially as fast and much faster than TB 1.0. Thunderbolt offers bidirectional transfer but that is useless for a display as it only needs a lot of bandwidth in one direction. There is a reason thunderbolt offers displayport along side it.
The only benefit thunderbolt has is low latency applications in external cases like expensive audio equipment. That is a very small portion of people and will stay a small part of the overall market.