On the other hand, if you want to connect non-Thunderbolt cables into your chain, it should be connected to the last cable or it can slow down or otherwise negatively affect performance. When connected to the Thunderbolt port, then subsequent cables connected to each other, the quality of the connection will not be adversely affected. The advantage of using Thunderbolt ports over USB ports is the design is not intended to see the quality of the video or audio (or speed) impacted by having cables connect one to the next. It is possible to connect up to six different devices to one Thunderbolt port as long as they are connected off of the first Thunderbolt port, then various cables connected to each other. This spring there will even be adaptors that will allow users to connect USB, FireWire 400, and FireWire 800 to Thunderbolt ports. The video is also high resolution, and, of course, convenient because you only have to use one port to connect the video and the audio instead of using a separate port for each. It is also important that Thunderbolt’s port can handle audio and video just like the DisplayPort port that most Apple users have been using in the past. Moreover, the speed combined with the convenience will make the average Apple user wonder how they were able to survive before the Thunderbolt, at least without pulling out their hair. This makes taking your computer on the road much easier, and it can make adding connections to different devices and different media much easier.
However, convenience is also important since Thunderbolt can support audio, data, power, and video all through one single port. The biggest advantage of using Thunderbolt is that the performance is much better. Thunderbolt is much faster than previous technology such as FireWire 800 and 3Gbps.
What makes the speed and connectivity of Thunderbolt even more impressive is that it is bi-direction-it can transmit data, and receive data at the same time. Each port on Thunderbolt includes two channels. The connectivity of Thunderbolt is very fast and can provide up to 10 Gigabits per second worth of data throughput. Peripherals can also be connected so that high def video using display port protocol is also available.
This new technology combines audio, data, power, and video through one connection. Thunderbolt (and Light Peak before it) is a fairly new peripheral connection technology that was made with Intel and Apple working together. Some people may know Thunderbolt better through its former name, Light Peak. Quality will not suffer from connecting more devices, either. The access to more and better video and audio experiences are available through one Thunderbolt cord. External devices like video capture solutions are now hot-pluggable and can be moved between more than one Mac computer. Thunderbolt has technology built into it that allows PCI Express speed to come in a simple and convenient way.
Thunderbolt gives users a chance to use one cable to access high-speed and high-resolution media using one port with a cable that can access both DisplayPort and PCI Express. Thunderbolt is a relatively new technology that supports high-resolution displays and high-performance data through one single port, but the connectivity allows you to add several devices to your computer through a daisy chain of cords.