James Galbraith over at Macworld has written up a fairly in-depth article on how multiple Thunderbolt devices daisy chained together affects performance of each device in the chain.
The results?
After testing dozens of scenarios, we found that—for the most part—the two available bi-directional 10Gbps channels in the MacBook Pro (Late 2011) were more than able to keep up with the demand of multiple storage devices on a Thunderbolt daisy chain. However, if you add multiple displays to that chain, the throughput of some drives can be severely limited.
The article focuses on multiple scenarios for your Thunderbolt daisy chains, and then measures performance. Included in the study: drives in a daisy chain, drives and one display in a daisy chain, an iMac with two displays and three drives in a chain, as well as a couple of other scenarios.
It’s a good read if you’re interested in Thunderbolt and where we’re heading with the technology. It looks like it can pretty much handle anything you throw at it.
Read Thunderbolt: How devices affect each other on a daisy chain over at Macworld.
