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Hieveryone

macrumors 603
Original poster
Apr 11, 2014
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I already have an external hard drive and pen drive, which I connect to USB. I was wondering if there were any other useful accessories I could buy. I hate not using those 2 ports. I'm sure they can be utilized for something!
 
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Can you please tell me what that is? Like what it's used for?

It is used to connect multiple devices to that single point (the Thunderbolt hub). Like, for example, I have about 6 hard drives, two displays, several USB flash drives, and a Thunderbolt hard drive connected to my MacBook Pro at the moment. By using a Thunderbolt dock, instead of having to plug 6 different cables into the MacBook Pro, I could be able to plug only the Thunderbolt cable into it, and then connect all of the docks/devices to the Thunderbolt hub.

If you don't need more ports, it probably would have little functional benefit, but it would put the TB2 port to usage, gives you a clean setup, and it looks pretty badass.

For example
maxresdefault.jpg






Another option is you could purchase an external monitor and use a mini-display port to HDMI cable to attach to the external display, which would also fill the port :)
 
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It is used to connect multiple devices to that single point (the Thunderbolt hub). Like, for example, I have about 6 hard drives, two displays, several USB flash drives, and a Thunderbolt hard drive connected to my MacBook Pro at the moment. By using a Thunderbolt dock, instead of having to plug 6 different cables into the MacBook Pro, I could be able to plug only the Thunderbolt cable into it, and then connect all of the docks/devices to the Thunderbolt hub.

If you don't need more ports, it probably would have little functional benefit, but it would put the TB2 port to usage, gives you a clean setup, and it looks pretty badass.

For example
maxresdefault.jpg






Another option is you could purchase an external monitor and use a mini-display port to HDMI cable to attach to the external display, which would also fill the port :)


Wow that's pretty awesome.

I only have 1 external USB hard drive, 2 USB pen drives, an external USB cd drive, an SD card, an hdmi external monitor, and an iPhone dock.

Can you please tell me what someone might utilize all that equipment for? I can't imagine what I'd use 6 external hard drives for.
 
Wow that's pretty awesome.

I only have 1 external USB hard drive, 2 USB pen drives, an external USB cd drive, an SD card, an hdmi external monitor, and an iPhone dock.

Can you please tell me what someone might utilize all that equipment for? I can't imagine what I'd use 6 external hard drives for.

Media storage. I have twelve (so far) that I rotate. Archiving/backup and general scratch use for editing.
 
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Wow that's pretty awesome.

I only have 1 external USB hard drive, 2 USB pen drives, an external USB cd drive, an SD card, an hdmi external monitor, and an iPhone dock.

Can you please tell me what someone might utilize all that equipment for? I can't imagine what I'd use 6 external hard drives for.

For me personally, I have external SSDs that house operating systems I run on my Mac such as various versions of Windows, older versions of OS X, and, to a lesser extent, Linux. I opt there for the SSDs because the speed is so much faster. I also use another SSD to make a bootable clone of the local drive inside the MBP using Carbon Copy Cloner. But with larger data sets and video files, the sheer size of them needs 2.5 or 3.5 inch HDDs with higher capacities, and sometimes I like to put different projects on different drives. I've got a 3 TB HDD that's filled to the brim just with videos/music, and in the lower DVD res (I can't imagine how much space they would take up if they were 4k or 5k!). I've got another HDD I use to back up the MBP contents and the contents on the SSDs and project drives using TimeMachine+CCC. And with the MacBook Pro, you gotta have the dual displays! :)
 
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That's cool. I should get one of those docks while they're still available. It'd probably extend the useful life of my mid-2012 MBP.
 
For me personally, I have external SSDs that house operating systems I run on my Mac such as various versions of Windows, older versions of OS X, and, to a lesser extent, Linux. I opt there for the SSDs because the speed is so much faster. I also use another SSD to make a bootable clone of the local drive inside the MBP using Carbon Copy Cloner. But with larger data sets and video files, the sheer size of them needs 2.5 or 3.5 inch HDDs with higher capacities, and sometimes I like to put different projects on different drives. I've got a 3 TB HDD that's filled to the brim just with videos/music, and in the lower DVD res (I can't imagine how much space they would take up if they were 4k or 5k!). I've got another HDD I use to back up the MBP contents and the contents on the SSDs and project drives using TimeMachine+CCC. And with the MacBook Pro, you gotta have the dual displays! :)


Wow that's awesome.

I've always dreamed of having a setup like yours.

Unfortunately I don't know what I could possibly use it for.

I'm just a regular dude when it comes to tech. I use notes, calendar, safari, reminders, calculator, time machine, and other pretty basic apps and that's it.
 
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