Macbook Pro – External monitors and harddrive

external-diskmacbook prothunderbolt

I have a Macbook Pro which only has 2 x Thunderbolt 3 ports. I want to allow the following

  1. 2 x external monitors, so the ability to have 3 different screens (includes the mac screen)

  2. Power a Lacie Thunderbolt 3 external hard drive.

  3. Charge the mac

Is this possible?

Best Answer

Yes, you can use a Thunderbolt 3 dock such as the OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock or similar available from many different makers of docks.

That dock allows you to connect the two monitors and charge the Mac via one cable going from the Mac to the dock. The second port on the Mac is then used to power the external Thunderbolt 3 hard drive.

Alternatively you could connect one monitor and the Thunderbolt 3 hard drive to the dock, and connect those with one cable from the dock to the Mac. The second port on the Mac is then used to output a display signal to the second monitor.

Another option, if you haven't already got your monitors, is to buy Thunderbolt 3 monitors with daisy-chaining. These will allow you to connect both monitors and the external drive to a single Thunderbolt 3 chain that will use up only a single port on your Mac.

Note: Not all monitors support daisy-chaining. Also note that if you have a DisplayPort monitor that support daisy-chaining - it can be part of the chain, but it must be the last device in the chain.

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