Thunderbolt Supports Booting From External Disk
Ever since Apple and Intel introduced the Thunderbolt high-speed data connectivity standard back in late February, there has been speculation about whether the standard would support booting from external disks. At that initial release on revamped MacBook Pros, Andy Ihnatko reported that booting was not supported, although Target Disk Mode was supported. But a report from The Mac Observer early last month indicated that booting from disk would be supported over Thunderbolt.
With Apple's Thunderbolt cable and the first third-party drive systems hitting the Apple Store yesterday, Apple posted a few support articles outlining some of the Thunderbolt functionality, but failing to disclose any booting capabilities and thus leaving potential customers still in the dark about compatibility.
AnandTech's 12 TB Promise RAID setup
It now appears, however, that we do have confirmation that booting over Thunderbolt is supported, as we received word yesterday from a reader who had received multiple confirmations from LaCie representatives that the feature will indeed be supported. Meanwhile,
AnandTech has already received one of the new
12 TB RAID systems from Promise and
confirms that booting over Thunderbolt is supported.
Popular Stories
Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) starts today with the traditional keynote kicking things off at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time. MacRumors is on hand for the event and we'll be sharing details and our thoughts throughout the day.
We're expecting to see a number of software-related announcements today, headlined by a reset on Apple's push into AI that should see a significant overhaul...
Last year, Apple launched CarPlay Ultra, the long-awaited next-generation version of its CarPlay software system for vehicles. Nearly a year later, CarPlay Ultra is still limited to Aston Martin's latest luxury vehicles, but that should change fairly soon.
In May 2025, Apple said many other vehicle brands planned to offer CarPlay Ultra, including Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis.
CarPlay Ultra...
Apple today announced that macOS 27 is named macOS Golden Gate.
Much like Mac OS X Snow Leopard in 2009, Apple said it focused on improving macOS's performance and dozens of underlying technologies this year.
Apple says macOS Golden Gate offers quicker AirDrop transfers, faster network file browsing, improved syncing in the Messages app, better Spotlight search suggestions, and other...
