# Thunderbolt 3 Hubs .. please help



## Spectator (Feb 7, 2020)

sorry for a boring question - 

but I need a thunderbolt 3 hub and I cant find any out there - its to plug in other thunderbolt HD's into my iMac. 

can anyone advise a good one or where to find one?

many cheers


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## gsilbers (Feb 7, 2020)

Amazon and other sites are filled with them


Amazon.com : thunderbolt 3 hub



Is there anything specific u looking for or need help figuring out?


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## Loïc D (Feb 7, 2020)

CalDigit TS3 plus has got great reviews...


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## charlieclouser (Feb 7, 2020)

Just be aware that Thunderbolt hubs do not work like USB hubs - they are not "one in, four out" type things. There is no device that "splits" a Thunderbolt bus to feed more than a single chain of devices.

All flavors of Thunderbolt are strictly "daisy-chain" - you can connect a whole lot of TB devices to a single bus, in-to-out-to-in-to-out etc. This is why you'll only see two TB connectors on any device. If you have a device with a single connector, it winds up being a dead-end for the TB chain, and will be the last device in whatever TB chain you have it connected to.

That's why you don't see TB hubs that look like USB hubs, with one input and four or seven outputs or whatever. Ain't gonna happen - TB doesn't work that way.

However, Thunderbolt hubs CAN "peel off" other types of data busses from the stream, while passing the single Thunderbolt stream along to other downstream TB devices in a daisy-chain. That's why you'll see a ton of devices with just the usual two TB ports but a ton of other connections like HDMI, DisplayPort, USB3, Ethernet, card readers, etc. That's what a "Thunderbolt Hub" is. You could use one to peel off old-school USB3 and then send THAT to a USB hub (or even multiple USB hubs in series) and connect a massive number of keyboards, controllers, MIDI interfaces, and other USB gadgets - and this won't even put a dent in the TB stream.

So if you are running out of TB ports you'll just have to get creative with how you daisy-chain the TB devices, and maybe use a TB Hub to peel off other things like USB, HDMI, DisplayPort, etc. This approach can save you a port if, for instance, you're using up a whole TB port just to connect a display via a TB>DisplayPort adaptor. Connect the TB3 hub, peel off the DisplayPort or HDMI to drive the display, and you'll still have the second TB3 port on the hub to connect further TB devices.

But unless you have a few devices that only have a single TB port, you can daisy-chain monitors, drives, audio interfaces, etc. all on the same TB bus. Audio interfaces and drives don't really tax the TB bus much at all, it's mostly hi-res displays (4k and above) that come close to saturating a TB1 or TB2 bus. If you have TB3 it's going to be able to shove a LOT of data through that one tiny jack.

Another way to think of it is that you can have one dead-end, single TB port device for each of the TB ports on your computer, and everything else (that has two ports) has to go in between the computer and the dead-end device. 

If you are mixing and matching TB1, TB2, and TB3 devices and dongles, put the TB3 ones first in the chain, then dongle out to the TB2 devices, and finally put the TB1 dongles and devices last in the chain. Passing through a dongle lowers the speed of anything on the far side of it to that level of TB, so don't put a TB3 device after a TB2 device, even if you could wrangle the dongles to let you do it.


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## gsilbers (Feb 10, 2020)

oh.. a few posts got deleted from the crash.


For TB3 hubs, its still possible to have a USB A hub connected with 7ports and all of them work, right? 
so connecting an USB A hub to a TB3 hub and i can connect all of these dongles i have (ilok, elicneser, waves, virusti etc)


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## PaulieDC (Mar 3, 2020)

I got https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07ZBLVJXF (this one) because I have a port on my mobo in the rear and simply wanted 1 or 2 on my desk for easy access, plus I got a bonus of two regular USB3 ports. But if you just need a boatload of USB2 and USB3 ports for dongles galore, https://www.amazon.com/Updated-Adapter-Ethernet-MacBook-Laptops/dp/B07Y5Z2JTM (this one will probably work better), and still extend you one USB-C port (which of course works with TBolt3)


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## iggyigoe (Mar 3, 2020)

I sold my OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock for a CalDigit TS3 and haven't looked back.. Had all sorts of issues with the OWC and trying to connect external monitors to it.. But the CalDigit TS3 has worked like a dream.. Great piece of tech, highly recommended.


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## jbuhler (Mar 3, 2020)

iggyigoe said:


> I sold my OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock for a CalDigit TS3 and haven't looked back.. Had all sorts of issues with the OWC and trying to connect external monitors to it.. But the CalDigit TS3 has worked like a dream.. Great piece of tech, highly recommended.


I have the OWC TB3 hub and haven't had any issues with it—I'm running both a monitor and a bunch of SSDs off it. But I'm using it as a TB2 hub with an adapter since no one is making TB2 hubs any longer. The OWC hub was one of the few TB3 hubs that advertised that it worked with TB2 machines (so long as you use the official Apple TB2 to USB-C/TB3 adaptor.


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## iggyigoe (Mar 3, 2020)

Yeah they had this ongoing sleep issue when the dock connected to ext monitors, and the majority of forums that OWC replied to always blamed Apple and their MBP's.. Anyway, they couldn't fix it and promised updates but in the end I gave up and went with CalDigit.. very happy now


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## jbuhler (Mar 4, 2020)

Not having this issue with my iMac. External monitor attached to OWC hub sleeps and wakes from sleep as expected.


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## macmac (Aug 31, 2020)

I'm considering the CalDigit TB3 if it could really benefit me. Here goes:

Mac Mini i7 6-core

Computer Rear connectors:
- USB 1: eSata enclosure (with eSata to USB adapter)
- USB 2: USB connector from Apple 30" HD cinema display to provide USB power for its USB connectors on the back (yes, I still love that monitor)

- TB3 Bus 1:
First: TB3 to TB2 adapter into Akitio 4-bay HD enclosure (contains 4 drives)
Second: USB-C hub

- TB3 Bus 2:
First: RME Fireface 800 w/adapter
Second: Empty (The important cable from the Apple monitor used to be connected here – now it uses the daisy chain TB2 slot on the back of the Akitio

There are also 2 USB connectors on the back of the Apple monitor:
- Anker USB-3 Hub (This hub also connects to yet another USB hub for dongles...iLok, etc).
- My computer keyboard

The monitor also has 2 FW400 connectors, not used.

So to the questions:

Is there a better strategy with the hookups here for better efficiency?

Would the CalDigit offset any of the strain or load on the computer?

Thanks!


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