Is it safe/okay to plug and unplug Thunderbolt display into side port while machine is turned on?

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Level 1

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Is it safe/okay to plug and unplug Thunderbolt display into side port while machine is turned on?

Wondering if it's safe and okay to unplug and plugin my Thunderbolt display into my Retina Macbook Pro while the machine is booted up.

I know several years ago (and different technology of course) and Apple rep in the store told me to NEVER do such a thing. But wondering if times have changed and if it's okay now; 'cause it'd be a lot more convenient than shutting down and booting back up the laptop everytime I want to connect or disconnect the display.

Thanks.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), with 27" Thunderbolt Display

Posted on Oct 9, 2012 9:36 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

clintonfrombirmingham

Level 7

30,100 points

Oct 9, 2012 10:17 PM in response to Brian Covalt

Sure - I do it all the time. Unplug to take my MBP on a journey, plug it back up when I'm back to my desk. It won't harm a thing.

Clinton

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Answer 2

Oct 9, 2012 10:23 PM in response to Brian Covalt

Yes it's fine, unless you have a mounted drive or something that needs to be ejected when removed. If you have a Thunderbolt hard drive mounted in the port, you have to eject the drive first. Once it shows that it is ejected (the icon will be gone) than you can remove the connection from the port. But that is true for USB devices and firewire devices. But just putting on and taking off the connector itself is no problem.

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Answer 3

Oct 9, 2012 10:27 PM in response to Barry Fisher

Indeed. NEVER EVER unplug an HDD (Harddrive) Platter or Solid State that is mounted to a computer without first ejecting it.

Good advice!

Displays aren't mounted devices.

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Answer 4

Brian Covalt Author

Level 1

64 points

Oct 15, 2012 9:33 PM in response to Brian Covalt

I forgot to say thank you!

But thanks for your response.

And to the others, yes good advice. I'd know better than to unplugg if I had a drive plugged into the display hub, but good to point out still in case that was overlooked.

Thanks again!

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Answer 5

steve626

Level 6

10,001 points

Oct 15, 2012 9:45 PM in response to conorfromvictoria

conorfromvictoria wrote:

Indeed. NEVER EVER unplug an HDD (Harddrive) Platter or Solid State that is mounted to a computer without first ejecting it.

Good advice!

Displays aren't mounted devices.

However the new Apple displays include hubs to which you can connect multiple hard drives (firewire and USB hubs on the rear of the display). The display (and those hard drives) connects to the Mac through thunderbolt. So simply unplugging the thunderbolt without first ejecting the connected drives generates an immediate error about improperly disconnecting disks without first ejecting them. This can cause disk or directory damage if done repeatedly.

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Answer 6

Omne

Level 1

8 points

Mar 13, 2015 12:37 AM in response to steve626

Use to be...now my new Mac Pro (2013) has a major melt down when I do it. 😟 So, won't be doing that anymore!

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