Connectivity Question for a Newb

I’m looking to purchase a M1 Mac Studio and 2 Studio Displays and I’m switching over from PC.


Its for music production and possibly getting into some light to medium photography work.


I currently use 3 (1 TB) built in hard drives on my pc…..1 for projects and 2 sample based instruments and data.


trying to decide how to allocate the 4 TB4 ports on the Studio….I need 1 TB port for my interface as well.


Can I run the 2 Studio Displays off a hub?


The TB4 busses are maybe fast enough to store everything on 1 larger SSD?


I need to plug in 6 TB4 devices …. A point in a any direction would be appreciated.




Posted on Oct 9, 2023 9:42 AM

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Oct 9, 2023 3:57 PM in response to Studio5150

A single mechanical hard drive will not use up the full bandwidth of a USB 3.0 port – much less that of a USB 3.1 Gen 2 or Thunderbolt one. A Thunderbolt enclosure may have the advantage of being more likely to report your hard drive's S.M.A.R.T. status (useful for determining when a drive is in the early stages of failure), but its speed won't make your hard drive run faster.


With SSDs, speeds and interfaces vary a bit. You can get

  • USB / SATA SSDs that don't benefit much (if at all) from anything faster than USB 3.0.
  • USB / NVMe SSDs that benefit from USB 3.1 Gen 2 speeds.
  • Thunderbolt / NVMe SSDs


You can daisy-chain up to six Thunderbolt devices off one Thunderbolt port – provided that these devices offer daisy-chaining ports (not all do). Daisy-chaining 5K Studio Displays may be out of the question, but it might be possible to daisy-chain some of your other Thunderbolt peripherals.


Some recent Thunderbolt hubs and docks can split a single Thunderbolt chain into three chains. You still have a limit of six devices (total) – which means five, after you count the hub or dock itself. One example of such a hub:


https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-thunderbolt-hub

Oct 9, 2023 10:04 AM in response to Studio5150

<<. Can I run the 2 Studio Displays off a hub? >>


NO, Absolutely NOT. Each requires essentially the full bandwidth of a thunderbolt Bus.

Hi-color, hi-resolution display data is THE fastest, most unrelenting data stream your computer uses.


Re: Drives:

Unless you have genuine ThunderBolt enclosures, your drives are likely perfectly fine off the front USB-C ports, which are limited to 10 G bits/sec = 10,000 M bits/sec or counting overhead about 1,000 M Bytes/sec, plenty fast for most drives.


-------

The Max version has genuine Thunderbolt ports on the BACK, USB-C 10 G ports on the front.

The Ultra has all genuine Thunderbolt ports all around, but is more money.

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Connectivity Question for a Newb

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