Here are the top six ways you can use a Thunderbolt port to enhance connectivity, speed, and convenience. Thunderbolt 3 supports connecting two 4K displays at 60 fps, one 4K display at 120 fps, or one 5K display at 60 fps. To use a single Thunderbolt connection to connect multiple displays, you need a Thunderbolt-enabled monitor with the ability to pass through the Thunderbolt connection (it will have a pair of Thunderbolt-labeled ports) or a Thunderbolt 3 dock. Thunderbolt’s video tricks don’t stop with connecting DisplayPort-enabled monitors. With the right cable adapters, HDMI displays and VGA monitors are also supported. Using the peer-to-peer networking option is a great way to quickly copy a large amount of data between two computers, such as when you upgrade to a new computer and need to move your old data over. This means there’s no more waiting overnight for the copying to complete. Thunderbolt-based storage systems are available in many formats, including single bus-powered devices that can be used for booting your computer. This typically provides a nice increase in disk performance over what is available with internal boot drives. Multibay enclosures using SSDs and various RAID configurations can boost disk performance beyond the speed needed for producing, editing, and storing multimedia projects. Perhaps your needs have more to do with the amount of storage and reliability. Thunderbolt 3 allows you to use a large number of inexpensive disk drives to create a large mirrored or otherwise protected data storage pool. When your computing needs require highly available storage, Thunderbolt 3 can help meet them. USB 3.1 Gen 2 provides connection speeds up to 10 Gbps, which is as fast as the original Thunderbolt specification and fast enough for most general-purpose storage and external connection needs. Connections to USB-based devices use a standard USB-C cable, which is sometimes included with USB peripherals. This, along with an overall lower cost of USB 3.1 peripherals, makes Thunderbolt 3 ports desirable. USB 3.1 Gen 2 speeds of 10 Gbps make storage systems using this technology attractive because they have the bandwidth to fully utilize solid-state drives using SATA III connections. This type of connection is also a good choice for dual-bay RAID enclosures for standard disk drives and SSDs. One component that commonly uses this form of connectivity is the graphics card or GPU inside your computer. It connects via the PCIe interface within the computer, so it can also be connected externally using a PCIe expansion chassis with a Thunderbolt 3 interface. Having the ability to connect an external graphics card to your computer allows you to easily upgrade your graphics. This is convenient with laptops and all-in-one computing systems that are difficult, if not impossible, to upgrade. Adding an external graphics card is one way this technology can be helpful; another is the use of an external graphics accelerator that works with pro apps to speed up certain complex tasks, such as rendering in 3-D modeling, imaging, and filmography. Docks are available with various numbers and types of ports. In most cases, a Thunderbolt Dock has a number of USB 3.1 ports, DisplayPort, HDMI, Ethernet, audio line in and out, optical S/PDIF, and headphones, along with a Thunderbolt 3 pass-through port so you can daisy-chain additional Thunderbolt devices. Dock manufacturers have their own blend of ports. Some add older FireWire interfaces and card reader slots. It’s a good idea to browse each manufacturer’s offerings for the ports that you need the most. Docks also provide versatility, providing more connection points that can be used simultaneously. This eliminates the need to plug and unplug a number of cable adapters to connect the peripheral you need at the moment.
