Thunderbolt Supports Booting From External Disk - MacRumors
Skip to Content

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 promise raid

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

Four iPhone 18 Pro Colors Mock Feature

iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Ultra: Pre-Orders and Release Date

Thursday July 30, 2026 6:12 am PDT by
Apple has yet to reveal when the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Ultra will be announced and released, but the dates usually follow a familiar pattern. Labor Day is September 7 this year. The last time the holiday fell on that day was in 2020, but the iPhone event that year was delayed until October due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So, the last time Labor Day was on September 7 in a normal year was in ...
iPhone 18 Pro Deep Red Feature

iPhone 18 Pro Launching Next Month With These 12 New Features

Sunday August 2, 2026 7:21 pm PDT by
It is now August, and that means the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max should be launching next month. The devices are expected to look similar to the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, but there will still be many year-over-year changes, with rumored features including a smaller Dynamic Island, 5G via satellite, and more. Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max, ...
Four iPhone 18 Pro Colors Mock Feature

iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Ultra: Pre-Orders and Release Date

Sunday August 2, 2026 7:32 pm PDT by
Apple has yet to reveal when the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Ultra will be announced and released, but the dates usually follow a familiar pattern. Labor Day is September 7 this year. The last time the holiday fell on that day was in 2020, but the iPhone event that year was delayed until October due to the COVID-19 pandemic. So, the last time Labor Day was on September 7 in a normal year was in ...

Top Rated Comments

gmcalpin Avatar
197 months ago
There's really no reason why it shouldn't.
If Apple expects their proprietary cable to become a defacto standard they can't be imposing restrictions just to protect their precious... (OSX).
…Proprietary?

The fact that they are currently the only people making them doesn't mean it's proprietary.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
0815 Avatar
197 months ago
Anything else would have been a big fail.

This is the beauty of MacOS that you can easily clone (a live running) system to external drives and than boot up the same (or complete different Mac) from that image. Would have been sad not to support this.
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)
197 months ago
Its not proprietary, and its not Apple's. It's Intel's.

Didn't we have a story last week where either HP or Sony was adding Thunderbolt technology to their systems, but under a different name?


There's really no reason why it shouldn't.
If Apple expects their proprietary cable to become a defacto standard they can't be imposing restrictions just to protect their precious... (OSX).
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
macbwizard Avatar
197 months ago
Um... any modern mac can boot from USB as well as FW, not sure why anyone expected TB to be any different.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
shamino Avatar
197 months ago
I'm sorry, but this alone is worth the "absurd" $50 cable.
I assume that other manufacturers will start shipping TB cables for less money.

Just like an HDMI cable that sells for $75 at a retail store can be purchased for $10 from other suppliers, I expect that in a few months, we'll be able to find TB cables selling in the $5-10 range.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
197 months ago
It's 2011, ALL storage buses should be bootable.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)