One of the cool things about Apple’s new Thunderbolt I/O standard is its daisy chaining abilities. You can string one Thunderbolt device through another one to a single Thunderbolt port with no degradation in speed or quality.
So let’s say you’ve got Apple’s old 27-inch Cinema Display, the one that connects through Mini DisplayPort. You may have gotten the notion in your head when Apple started shipping out Thunderbolt versions of the Cinema Display of daisy chaining them together. After all, why not? Other Thunderbolt peripherals can handle a Mini DisplayPort monitor. 54 horizontal inches of muilti-display splendor should easily be at your fingertips!
Think again.
According to a new Apple support document posted in the wake of Apple shipping out its first batch of Thunderbolt Cinema Displays, you can’t daisy chain a Mini DisplayPort monitor off of a Thunderbolt Cinema Display.
My guess is that there are going to be a few returned Cinema Displays with this revelation. After all, other Thunderbolt accessories can daisy chain a Mini DisplayPort monitor, so it’s not entirely unrealistic to expect Apple’s first big Thunderbolt accessory to manage the same trick. Apparently not, though.
[via MacRumors]
