Macbook Pro 2012 with Thunderbolt hub?

[themagichoof]

I've never used Thunderbolt before but this used Macbook Pro mid 2012 has a Thunderbolt port on it. Apparently the connector is the same thing as a minidisplay port.

I intend to hook up an external monitor to the Thunderbolt port for a proper 1080p monitor, but now that I think of it, I could really use an external hard drive for storage.

Would it be possible to buy a Thunderbolt hub, then connect that to my Macbook, then have both a monitor and an external hard drive connected to the Thunderbolt hub and have it all work fine?

I'll have to look into getting an external enclosure that has a Thunderbolt port on it. I intended on using a 3TB 3.5" SATA II drive in it. I've already got the Thunderbolt/mini display port to DVI adapter on the way.

 

[chas_m]

Would it be possible to buy a Thunderbolt hub, then connect that to my Macbook, then have both a monitor and an external hard drive connected to the Thunderbolt hub and have it all work fine?

I'll have to look into getting an external enclosure that has a Thunderbolt port on it. I intended on using a 3TB 3.5" SATA II drive in it. I've already got the Thunderbolt/mini display port to DVI adapter on the way.

Yes, that should work fine, but isn't strictly necessary. You have two USB 3 ports on that machine, both of which are very fast (not nearly as fast as Thunderbolt, but hugely faster than USB 2), and it would likely be a lot cheaper to get a USB3 hard drive.

If you want to experience the speed of Thunderbolt, then by all means get a Thunderbolt drive, I'm sure it will be extremely impressive. But USB 3 would probably meet your external drive needs at a fraction of the price unless you are doing something with the external drive that relies on very fast transfers.

 

[themagichoof]

I've never used a proper USB3 device before, only USB 2.0. I wasn't too satisfied with the speed with USB 2.0. Maybe It's not so bad with USB3?

 

[chas_m]

USB 3 is about 8-10x faster than USB 2 in real-world use. Thunderbolt (gen 1) is a lot faster -- more than twice as fast -- but that seems to me better suited to SSD devices than traditional physical hard drives, that can't really saturate the connection.

 

[themagichoof]

I need the 3TB drive for editing Pro Res files. Do you think a USB3 enclosure would suit me well for video editing? Hope it'll be fast enough.

 

[chas_m]

I have a 3TB Western Digital that I use for streaming 1080p movies and it seems to work beautifully on USB3, so I think the answer would be yes, but if you're doing that for a living I'd suggest investing in the Thunderbolt drive since you'll doubtless be needing 4K capability soon enough.