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                 Thunderbolt Improvements in the M1-Based Macs

   Adam Engst

   Over at the OWC Rocket Yard blog, SoftRAID developer Tim Standing
   shares [1]a welcome discovery about Apple's new M1-based Macs. Although
   the new Macs have only two Thunderbolt ports, compared to four on the
   Intel-based 13-inch MacBook Pro and Mac mini, Standing discovered that
   each port has its own Thunderbolt bus. By comparison, each pair of
   Thunderbolt ports on the Intel-based Macs share a bus, meaning that
   they also share bandwidth. If you plug two fast drives into ports that
   share a bus, performance suffers. Standing also notes that the M1-based
   Macs support Thunderbolt 4, which differs from Apple's implementation
   of Thunderbolt 3 in only one fundamental way: it offers support for
   Thunderbolt hubs that let you add more ports.

   So yes, the M1-based Macs may have only two Thunderbolt ports, but
   they'll both provide full bandwidth and allow users to add more ports
   through a hub. And as you might suspect, OWC has a [2]Thunderbolt Hub
   shipping soon for $149.

   [3]Read original article

References

   Visible links
   1. https://eshop.macsales.com/blog/68484-thunderbolt-on-the-m1-mac-mini/
   2. https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-thunderbolt-hub
   3. https://eshop.macsales.com/blog/68484-thunderbolt-on-the-m1-mac-mini/

   Hidden links:
   4. https://tidbits.com/wp/../uploads/2020/12/OWC-Thunderbolt-Hub.png

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