Adaptor for Thunderbolt or Firewire ports - WIFI

[MacMan2023]

Hi all

I’ve just added a new internal 1TB SSD to my iMac 2011 i5 with 16GB of RAM. It now works like a dream, but I’m still looking for tweaks that are not too expensive. Recently, I purchased a USB wifi dongle for less than £10 and it has doubled/tripled my wifi speeds, which shows that the internal wifi is struggling.

However, I’m wondering if there is an adapter available that would allow me to connect to either my Thunderbolt or Firewire ports in order to maximize my wifi speeds, as I am currently using a USB 2.0 port. Can these ports be used for such connectivity?

In the meantime, it would be nice to know what you use the Firewire (FW) and Thunderbolt (TB) ports for. I have never touched them before!

And if you can upgrade ie find adaptors for Thunderbolt to upgrade to a thunderbolt 4 connection (currently 2 on an imac 11?) Any benefit?

Thanks for any input.

 

[MacsBug]

You may be to find an older Thunderbolt 1 dock that has USB 3 ports on it. You can then plug a USB 3 dongle into the dock, and that may improve things. As far as going to a newer version of Thunderbolt, thats not an option.

The Thunderbolt ports on your iMac are Thunderbolt 1 (up to 10 Gbps)
The Firewire 800 ports that is on your iMac is for older Hard Drives that used FireWire.

 

[deliriouscat]

As @MacsBug suggested, you could find an older Thunderbolt dock with USB 3.0 ports and use a USB 3.0 wifi dongle for potentially better performance. That's because USB 3.0 provides faster data transfer rates than USB 2.0, which could translate to better wifi speeds.

As for your question on upgrading to Thunderbolt 4, unfortunately, that's not feasible on a 2011 iMac. The Thunderbolt ports are hardware-based and can't be upgraded to a newer version through an adapter.

Thunderbolt and Firewire ports can be used for various high-speed data transfer tasks. People often use them for things like connecting to high-performance external hard drives or other peripherals, audio/video equipment, and even some high-resolution displays.

 

[MacMan2023]

Only found one such dock Thunberbolt-USB3 (with added SATA connection)- £180 - ridiculous price. Cant see any others anywhere..... i guess outdated.

shame

But thanks all

 

[MacsBug]

If you do a search for a Belkin F4U055 you may find some in your price range.