My 13-inch MacBook Pro was shipped brand-new from Apple in March 2020. It has only two receptacles (physical sockets or holes into which one can plug a device), both Thunderbolt-3, on the left side. These are occupied by my LG Electronics Ultrafine 27-inch external monitor and the power cord. (The receptacle on the right appears to be for a microphone.)
A previous MacBook Pro, purchased 2015, had plenty of old-fashioned USB Type A receptacles. On that machine:
- I regularly backed up via Time Machine onto a LaCie Porsche Design external, mechanical (spinning) HD. (For backup, I favor physical, spinning HD over solid state alias SSD, because they are less likely to lose all my data if something goes wrong.)
- I used another, identical LaCie external HD for transferring large blocks of data to other computers.
- Occasionally, I plugged a flash drive into the USB receptacle to transfer small files.
- And I plugged an external SuperDrive into the USB receptacle to watch DVD movies.
I need to keep accomplishing all these tasks on the new computer. But it appears that the current, 2020 computer simply is not designed for attaching devices via wires plugged into physical receptacles.
I have already purchased three different adapters for this macbook pro:
- Satechi USB-C multiport
- HyperDrive DUO 7-in-2 USB-C HUB for Mac
- Apple USB-C AV Multiport Adapter
None of these support the external monitor. The first 2 will not support the SuperDrive. The third will accept the SuperDrive, but it has only one USB Type A receptacle. Thus, if I want to watch a movie, I have to unplug the Time Machine disk. And then remember to re-plug the Time Machine disk after the movie.
In view of all this, is there a way to connect external devices — DVD player, spinning mechanical 2T hard drives, flash drives —
via Bluetooth or via my Wi-Fi router? For instance, can I purchase an external spinning HD and an external DVD driver which will connect to this MacBook Pro either by Bluetooth or via my wireless network (Wi-Fi router)? Can an external monitor be connected by Bluetooth or via Wi-Fi and handle internet streaming and movies?
How can I perform large data transfers and watch DVD movies on this MacBook Pro?
Best Answer
Assuming your "LG Electronics Ultrafine 27-inch external monitor" is the 27MD5KL 5K display that Apple co-developed with LG and resells through the online Apple store, then it's important to note a few things:
If you have a peripheral that needs more than 5Gbps, it will have to connect via your MBP's second Thunderbolt 3 port, which is now free since you won't be using it for charging any more.
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are slow in comparison and thus are terrible choices for the kinds of high-bandwidth mass storage and video peripherals you've been talking about. It's hard to make Wi-Fi reach even 1Gbps, and it's usually a lot more like USB 2.0's ~480Mbps. Bluetooth is way worse; it's only good for 1-2 Mbps, limiting it to audio devices like headsets and speakers, and low-bandwidth input devices like mice and keyboards.