What is thunderbolt port

Pocket-lint is supported by its readers. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more. Pocket-lint - The ports on the side of your laptop are important. They decide what you can do on your device and how quickly you can do it. In when Apple introduced a new style MacBook Pro , it ditched every single port of its old machines and replaced it with just Thunderbolt 3.

Many PCs makers followed suit. Intel introduced the Thunderbolt platform in at a time when USB 3. Thunderbolt was capable of twice that, 10Gbps, plus it could transfer multiple types of data - not just serial data to storage devices.

It could, for instance, pipe video data to displays. It could also daisy-chain devices together, such as your hard drive to your computer and a display to your hard drive. Technical Furniture. Shop Brands. Crimson AV. Kendall Howard. Klein Tools. Platinum Tools. Rhino Brackets. Structured Cable Products. Vertical Cable. View All. Enter your text to search Search. About Us. Have a question? Our Live Chat operators are ready to help!

USB-C 7. The new wave of Thunderbolt 3 Docks from Belkin brings fast data transfer, ultra-high definition monitor support and all the features you want from your ideal workstation.

A unit of data transfer rate measuring bandwidth speed by the billions of bits transferred per second. A port designed for use with an industry standard connector to communicate data and supply electric power between devices. USB 3. Gen 2 successfully doubled the transfer speed rate of Gen 1 USB 3. A new type of USB connector, hailed as the new standard.

A miniaturized version of the DisplayPort interface, Apple developed audio-visual digital interface Mini DisplayPort in See the Apple Support article Find the right power adapter and cable for your Mac notebook. Depending on your Mac, you may be able to connect multiple Thunderbolt devices to each other, then connect the chain of devices to the Thunderbolt port on your Mac.

See Use one or more external displays with your Mac.