So, the HDD in my 2011 iMac finally died, and rather than fix it I figured it's high time for an upgrade anyway and bought the new mid-2017 iMac 27" with 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports. Now, I've had the newest 13" MBP since April, so am very familiar with Thunderbolt 3 and the adapters etc you need to make it work at the moment. I'm currently using the HyperDrive with my MBP and it's been really very good overall, so I'm confident that a TB3 hub will be even better with a desktop computer.
So, I went on the hunt for hubs that have what I need. Unfortunately, the vast majority are either designed for the MBP (and have designs like the HyperDrive), don't have the ports I want, or are ridiculously expensive.
I've found a handful that seem okay, the main contender being the Bourge Design Arc Hub.
Now, I was in the middle of purchasing it and noticed a disclaimer from the company basically saying that you can have two displays connected but they will mirror each other as the Macs have been designed to only have one video output per port.
I have two screens I want to use alongside my iMac, and I want them to be independent desktops, not simply two mirrored desktops (the idea is IMO rather strange).
Now, I believe this hub was designed around the time of the MacBook with the single TB3 port, and I've been unable to find any documentation from Apple that suggests you can only have one desktop per TB3 port. So, I'm wondering if perhaps it was a design of that MBP that's since been changed (and so I'll be able to run two separate desktops from the one hub), or if it's a limitation in the Arc Hub itself that Bourge Design is incorrectly blaming on Apple.
Has anyone heard of this before, or is anyone currently running three separate desktops using only one TB3 port? I don't really want to have to buy another adapter just to run a third desktop when there should be no reason I can't run them both off the one hub (I believe you could do this with TB2).
Any ideas?
So, I went on the hunt for hubs that have what I need. Unfortunately, the vast majority are either designed for the MBP (and have designs like the HyperDrive), don't have the ports I want, or are ridiculously expensive.
I've found a handful that seem okay, the main contender being the Bourge Design Arc Hub.
Now, I was in the middle of purchasing it and noticed a disclaimer from the company basically saying that you can have two displays connected but they will mirror each other as the Macs have been designed to only have one video output per port.
I have two screens I want to use alongside my iMac, and I want them to be independent desktops, not simply two mirrored desktops (the idea is IMO rather strange).
Now, I believe this hub was designed around the time of the MacBook with the single TB3 port, and I've been unable to find any documentation from Apple that suggests you can only have one desktop per TB3 port. So, I'm wondering if perhaps it was a design of that MBP that's since been changed (and so I'll be able to run two separate desktops from the one hub), or if it's a limitation in the Arc Hub itself that Bourge Design is incorrectly blaming on Apple.
Has anyone heard of this before, or is anyone currently running three separate desktops using only one TB3 port? I don't really want to have to buy another adapter just to run a third desktop when there should be no reason I can't run them both off the one hub (I believe you could do this with TB2).
Any ideas?
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