How to use the New Macbook Pro

[TommyT]

Sorry if this has been covered, but need to soon upgrade my portable laptop system, & still trying to be compatible with my Studio Towers...

Anyone switch over to a new macbook Pro ? How does all that work ?
How do you hook up an iLok to new Thunderbolt 3 ?
What external media drives work with this new MBP that can still hook up to my Studio Cheese grater Macs.. I still use firewire & esata

17"MBP . PTHD12 OSX12
2012 Cheesegrater 5,1 12core 3.46GHZ HDX PTHD12
2012 Cheesegrater 5,1 8core 3.2GHZ HDX PTHD12

Much Appreciated, Tom .

[Darryl Ramm]

Apple USB-C to USB adapter to iLok (iLok 2 in my case) works fine.

You don't say what you are doing? e.g. Video or how much storage you need. Kinda makes a difference.

The internal PCIe/NVMe SSD in these MBP are so fast the best external drive is not to have one and just install everything on the internal SSD. Turn disk cache on as well, although it's often not even needed. Spend the money and buy as much SSD as you can inside the MBP. You can't upgrade it later.

If you still really need more external storage say for samples, I would first look at the Samsung T3 SSD drive. You can connect to your Mac Pro with a USB3 PCIe card. Slow old Firewire storage in 2017? There are Thunderbolt expansion chassis/boxes that offer eSATA connectivity, but why bother unless you have massive libraries on multiple drives.

Do you want HDX on the MBP? What do you need to move between studio towers and MBP? I would just copy sessions over the LAN and/or a NAS backup/archive system and not be shuffling external drives at all unless there is a reason.

[percussion.richard]

So I won't have issues running an iLok through a dongle?

[Drew Mazurek]

Originally Posted by percussion.richard

So I won't have issues running an iLok through a dongle?

You mean through an adaptor? nope.