Thunderbolt 4 was announced in 2020.
It is compatible with USB4 and Thunderbolt 3.
Thunderbolt’s video tricks dont stop with connectingDisplayPort-enabled monitors.
Solomon203 / CC BY-SA 3.0
With the right cable adapters,HDMI displaysand VGA monitors are also supported.
This means there’s no more waiting overnight for the copying to complete.
This typically provides a nice increase in disk performance over what is available with internal boot drives.
Santeri Viinamäki / CC BY-SA 4.0
Perhaps your needs have more to do with the amount of storage and reliability.
When your computing needs require highly available storage, Thunderbolt 3 can help meet them.
Connections to USB-based devices use a standard USB-C cable, which is sometimes included with USB peripherals.
G-Technology
This, along with an overall lower cost of USB 3.1 peripherals, makes Thunderbolt 3 ports desirable.
One component that commonly uses this form of connectivity is the graphics card or GPU inside your gear.
Having the ability to connect an external graphics card to your system allows you to easily upgrade your graphics.
Roderick Chen / First Light / Getty Images
This is convenient with laptops and all-in-one computing systems that are difficult, if not impossible, to upgrade.
Docking
Other World Computing
Think of the Thunderbolt Dock as a port breakout box.
It makes all the port types supported by Thunderbolt available in one external box.
AKiTiO
Docks are available with various numbers and types of ports.
Dock manufacturers have their own blend of ports.
Some add older FireWire interfaces and card reader slots.
Other World Computing
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.
