Is thunderbolt hot swappable?

[Tulani]

Is it advisable to hotswap or unplug external THUNDERBOLT peripherals like displays and hard drives without having to power off the Mac first?

 

[TimothyJohn]

I use a LaCie rugged SSD as a audio/video scratch drive. There's no power switch, and the unit is bus powered via the thunderbolt cable. I have had no issues connecting or disconnecting with the Mac on; as long as I eject the drive first. However, I must admit that I'd feel more comfortable if the drive had a power switch.

 

[ColdCase]

Is it advisable to hotswap or unplug external THUNDERBOLT peripherals like displays and hard drives without having to power off the Mac first?

As long as you eject the drives from the finder first, there is no issue. I can't think of anything else thats not hotswap. Those of us with laptops routinely just unplug and go..

 

[Intell]

Thunderbolt was designed to be fully hot swappable.

 

[Tulani]

I ask because I have all my two thunderbolt ports feeding external monitors and occasionally want to back up my time machine via thunderbolt.

So can I just unplug one of the monitors and plug my hardrive and then reconnect my monitor after backup without causing issues to my iMac in the long run?

 

[Intell]

You will not cause harm to your iMac by unplugging them when the machine is powered on.

 

[Tulani]

Ok thanks