thunderbolt external drive and external monitor options?

[soooty]

I have a 13inch early 2014 macbook air. I use it like a desktop computer permanently plugged into an external 42inch TV via the thunderbolt 2 port. I want to get a fast external drive. I see on apple site that the best ones seem to have thunderbolt connection.. but thats where my TV is plugged it. I like the laCie 4tb.

Can you plug the drive into the thunderbolt 2, and then the monitor into the drive etc or something like that? Can I do both? What are my best options.. I'm finding it difficult to learn. Thanks

 

[saulinpa]

First most TB drives are single port. You need more of a chassis that has a 2nd TB port.

But, yes, it is supposed to work that way. Plug storage into Mac, then monitor into storage. Assume you have a Thunderbolt to HDMI or similar adapter.

That said, using the USB 3.0 port should do most of what you need for the drive attachment and it costs a lot less.

 

[satinsilverem2]

A thunderbolt dock is going to be your best option if you want to use the single Thunderbolt port for the drive and display.

 

[soooty]

thanks for both replies. Yes i use an hdmi to thunderbolt adaptor (on a separate note I have to replace that every few months as they don;t last -cheap or expensive). I might look into dock. USB3 port would be okay but i notice it disconnects external drives occasionally with no warning. So does the card drive drive. Reading this back neither the thunderbolt or usb are reliable lol.

 

[Johnny365]

The 2014 MBA is only at Thunderbolt 1 specs. It wasn't until the 2015 that it switched to TB2.

I'm still using the same Thunderbolt to HDMI adapter I found at Goodwill for $.99 cents. It's a Monoprice brand and haven't had any issues with it. It's been over 1-1.5 years now.

 

[Boyd01]

Can you plug the drive into the thunderbolt 2, and then the monitor into the drive etc or something like that? Can I do both? What are my best options.. I'm finding it difficult to learn. Thanks

I did that with my 2011 MBA, because it only had USB 2.0 which is too slow for external drives (only about 30MB/sec). I got a small Seagate dock that you could snap different drives into (don't think they make it anymore). It was always a bit flakey and sometimes the monitor didn't work. It also ran really hot. And thunderbolt cables are *really* expensive, think I paid $40 back then.

I gave up on it when I got my 2013 MBA with USB 3.0. I don't know what you consider "fast", but suspect that USB 3.0 is more than adequate and should be very reliable. I have a couple Samsung T3 external SSD's, one is 500gb and another is 1TB. They are great and really fast. Samsung has now replaced the T3 with the T5, which is a bit faster. Here's what I get:

If you can't afford a SSD, then I get about 180MB/sec with inexpensive external USB 3.0 hard drives. These are drives that have external power supplies, not the cheap bus-powered USB drives that typically only get around 100MB/sec.

IMO, it makes no sense to use a thunderbolt drive unless you have some special needs and don't mind spending a lot of money.
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i use an hdmi to thunderbolt adaptor (on a separate note I have to replace that every few months as they don;t last -cheap or expensive).

That is really strange. I am still using the inexpensive "store brand" adaptor that I bought at Best Buy (a big US electronics retailer) in 2012. Works fine, and I plug/unplug it several times a day.