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Jacquesass

macrumors regular
May 6, 2003
211
39
I plan to test with several Seagate GoFlex Pro drives that are 7200RPM as well as 256GB / 512GB Samsung 830s and may throw in an OCZ Vertex 3 for good measure.

I look forward to seeing your results. Any chance that you could throw in a Momentus XT 750GB?
 

shortcut3d

macrumors 65816
Aug 24, 2011
1,112
15
Sorry. But I do not own a hybrid drive. The closest would be the 750GB 7200RPM Seagate GoFlex Pro. Either way, the hybrid drive will be well within the performance capabilities of the Seagate Thunderbolt GoFlex 2.5" adapter based on philipma's testing so far. At this point, we are more interested in power out put of the 2011 Mac mini Thunderbolt port. All of philipma's test show that a SATA III 6.0Gbps can saturate the controller on the Seagate Thunderbolt GoFlex 2.5" adapter.

So far, I've already swapped out one enclosure for a 256GB Samsung 830. The SATA interface is already much more snug than the bare drive alone. This is due to a spring steel cage around the drive. The cage may also have a grounding effect. Tomorrow will have a lot more answers.
 

philipma1957

macrumors 603
Original poster
Apr 13, 2010
6,362
248
Howell, New Jersey
Sorry. But I do not own a hybrid drive. The closest would be the 750GB 7200RPM Seagate GoFlex Pro. Either way, the hybrid drive will be well within the performance capabilities of the Seagate Thunderbolt GoFlex 2.5" adapter based on philipma's testing so far. At this point, we are more interested in power out put of the 2011 Mac mini Thunderbolt port. All of philipma's test show that a SATA III 6.0Gbps can saturate the controller on the Seagate Thunderbolt GoFlex 2.5" adapter.

So far, I've already swapped out one enclosure for a 256GB Samsung 830. The SATA interface is already much more snug than the bare drive alone. This is due to a spring steel cage around the drive. The cage may also have a grounding effect. Tomorrow will have a lot more answers.

I am looking forward to see if you get or don't get the drop out issue. I was able to get a goflex on sale at staples and will test it. 89 bucks for a 500gb model.
 

shortcut3d

macrumors 65816
Aug 24, 2011
1,112
15
I am looking forward to see if you get or don't get the drop out issue. I was able to get a goflex on sale at staples and will test it. 89 bucks for a 500gb model.

How can I replicate the drop outs? Disk speed test? Real world file copy? Copy size?

If you want to swap out the 500GB HDD in the GoFlex it can be done by gently prying apart. If its the Pro model, the two black plastic parts are held together by the silver band. You can minimize the potential damage by prying apart only the bottom half. The case has six plastic snaps that can't be release by pushing in, only prying to over come the friction can work. The drive is held in place by 4 rubber grommets over hard drive screws and there is a half spring steel cage around the drive.
 
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Wicked1

macrumors 68040
Apr 13, 2009
3,283
14
New Jersey
Okay I just ordered one directly from seagate.


go to the accessory page and it is there.

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/accessories

STAE121


99 no shipping or tax.

when it arrives i will test it with a samsung 512gb series 830 ssd sata III

an intel 600gb ssd and sata II type

a series 470 samsung 128gb ssd sata II type




Pretty costly 99 plus 50 is 149 .

usb3 cases are as low as 15.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817388031



ON THE PLUS SIDE this will run with just the t-bolt cable. I should post results in a few days.


How did you order one, they are backordered and Seagate told me it might be a while?
 

martinm0

macrumors 6502a
Feb 27, 2010
568
25
How did you order one, they are backordered and Seagate told me it might be a while?

Just search online for "STAE121" and you'll find some other vendors selling it for cheaper. I found one through Buy.com (you can find them on Ebay and other vendors as well).

On the flip side, Seagate told me last Friday that my order wouldn't go out for another 2-4 weeks, then I got tracking info hours later saying it would be here today (and I had already cancelled the order with them...)

----------

Geesh. BH Photo is now selling just the adaptor again for $140. Talk about greedy.
 

DCJ001

macrumors 6502a
Dec 12, 2007
521
253
I bought a Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter from Buy.com on Friday for $88. I've been monitoring the following links for a while:

http://www.buy.com/prod/thunderbolt-adapter-dock-hub/227655877.html
http://www.provantage.com/seagate-stae121~7SEG904F.htm
http://www.macmall.com/p/product~dp...36590B3CEEF2?emOmni=null&source=MWBGOOGLEBASE
http://www.beachaudio.com/Seagate/Stae121-p-519459.html
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/840972-REG/Seagate_STAE121_GoFlex_Thunderbolt_Adapter.html

They are all sold out now. Apparently, people like us have been scooping them up. A couple of the above retailers were also selling them on eBay, and are also no longer available.

My advice would be to check out the above links periodically, and to search for STAE121 in eBay periodically. As they come back into availability, I am sure that you'll find them.

I have also been looking for a Thunderbolt cable on eBay. Almost all of the are at $49 or above. I feel fortunate to have won an eBay auction for a new cable over the weekend for $35. You might want to search eBay for Thunderbolt cables to save some money too.

I'm looking for a new OCZ Vertex III 120GB SSD to use with the Thunderbolt adapter. Right now, they are on Amazon for $149 with a rebate. I missed one last month for $109.99 with a rebate and some discount codes. I'm hoping to get one soon, as the prices continue to fall with a possibly bigger rebate.
 

martinm0

macrumors 6502a
Feb 27, 2010
568
25
I'm looking for a new OCZ Vertex III 120GB SSD to use with the Thunderbolt adapter. Right now, they are on Amazon for $149 with a rebate. I missed one last month for $109.99 with a rebate and some discount codes. I'm hoping to get one soon, as the prices continue to fall with a possibly bigger rebate.

I'd be hesitant buying the OCZ SSDs right now. I pulled the trigger on one of that OCZ Petrol 64GB SSDs when NewEgg had it as a shocker deal for $70 ($60 AR), but as I look at all the reviews on the OCZ SSDs lately, there are a lot of failures. Seems like quite a gamble, and one I'm not willing to take (will be attempting to return mine, somehow...). Will go Crucial M4 most likely once the 64GB models drop again (128GB's can be had for $150 right now but will be putting them in a Lacie LBD Thunderbolt enclosure and don't need 256GB for just a boot drive). Just my opinion though. Lots of others not having issues.
 

shortcut3d

macrumors 65816
Aug 24, 2011
1,112
15
I'd be hesitant buying the OCZ SSDs right now. I pulled the trigger on one of that OCZ Petrol 64GB SSDs when NewEgg had it as a shocker deal for $70 ($60 AR), but as I look at all the reviews on the OCZ SSDs lately, there are a lot of failures. Seems like quite a gamble, and one I'm not willing to take (will be attempting to return mine, somehow...). Will go Crucial M4 most likely once the 64GB models drop again (128GB's can be had for $150 right now but will be putting them in a Lacie LBD Thunderbolt enclosure and don't need 256GB for just a boot drive). Just my opinion though. Lots of others not having issues.

OT: OCZ has a bad reputation that is not wholly deserved. They release a lot of firmware updates to resolve issues. Since FW 2.15 all the Sandforce 22xx series drives are stable. If its an issue the problem is likely the Windows user environment. Also, its important to take note that Newegg reviews tend to lean on the negative. Anandtech has a very good article on OCZ and reliability.

----------

I put in two orders on day one feb 2. they sent one in a week.

two more are coming to me on tue.

I only wanted 2.

I will have 3.

Please let me know how I should try to replicate the drop outs. The Seagate Thunderbolt GoFlex 2.5" adapter is on the UPS truck for deliver! :D
 

philipma1957

macrumors 603
Original poster
Apr 13, 2010
6,362
248
Howell, New Jersey
OT: OCZ has a bad reputation that is not wholly deserved. They release a lot of firmware updates to resolve issues. Since FW 2.15 all the Sandforce 22xx series drives are stable. If its an issue the problem is likely the Windows user environment. Also, its important to take note that Newegg reviews tend to lean on the negative. Anandtech has a very good article on OCZ and reliability.

----------



Please let me know how I should try to replicate the drop outs. The Seagate Thunderbolt GoFlex 2.5" adapter is on the UPS truck for deliver! :D

go mini to seagate make the seagate (ssd) an osx drive and run the system. try it with the samsung 830 I could not run my samsung as the boot drive for more then 20 or 30 minutes. if you get dropouts like i did. then go

mini/ lacie lbd (as a storage )/ seagate(samsung 830 as osx) this should work for hours on end no dropouts.

it this happens with all ssds you test My guess is the mini t-bolt port has an issue.

the samsung 830 had lots of drop outs. did you do the new firmwar 1.6 yet my tests were all done before the new mini firmware. oh btw my two new seagates arrived today.

The wife wants me to take her out today so no toys are being tested tonight.
 

martinm0

macrumors 6502a
Feb 27, 2010
568
25
Thunderbolt to any HDD

I got my (cancelled) order from Seagate about an hour ago. I promptly tested connecting the T-Bolt sled to a HDD dock via a eSata to Sata male cable and it works! I know philipma1957 has covered a lot of this kind of stuff (thanks!), but my main goal was to be able to dump TB's of storage onto a single disk when needed, and this does the trick. However, I was limited by the SataII speeds of the eSata connection, and the disk is a 3.5" Sata III...

So, I plugged it into my desktop Sata connections for power and used the other cable I bought (Sata male to Sata female) and this time I got faster throughput! This is the fastest I expect to get out of a platter based drive since I went directly from the HDD to the sled adapter. I'm going to pick up a basic Sata power adapter kit with plug so I can power any 3.5" HDD and connect it to TB (until someone comes up with a nice TB dock, that is).

Anyone out there that needs the quick and dirty way to dump lots of storage, or wants to get in on Thunderbolt on the cheap, this appears to work well for now.
 
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shortcut3d

macrumors 65816
Aug 24, 2011
1,112
15
I'm on the West Coast so the UPS driver is still out.

@philipma -- OT,,, treat the wife well. WAF is no joke. Gadgets go to the scrap heap very quick when the Wife Acceptance Factor is low (see my 2011 Mac mini HTPC build thread for what it can take).

I had a crazy though, are these drop outs caused by the SSD going to sleep and not waking properly? Are the drop out happening when actively copying data?

I may try a slow copy USB 2.0 to Seagate Thunderbolt GoFlex 2.5" adapter to 512GB Samsung 830. I have files to copy that will take at least an hour over USB 2.0.

I also plan to test a hot swap in Windows 7. According to Apple and confirmed, you can hot swap Thunderbolt devices in Windows if the first device in the chain is not ejected. I'm curious if I eject the drives, but not Thunderbolt and swap in the Seagate what will happen.
 

shortcut3d

macrumors 65816
Aug 24, 2011
1,112
15
Seagate Thunderbolt GoFlex 2.5" adapter results:

2011 Mac mini server (Bootcamp w/ AHCI)
ATTO Disk Benchmark (write/read)
750GB Seagate GoFlex Pro (7200 RPM Momentus 7200.4) - 118/118 MB/s
512GB Samsung 830 (in Seagate enclosure) - 360/398 MB/s

2011 15" Macbook Pro
Black Magic Disk Speed Test (write/read)
750GB Seagate GoFlex Pro (7200 RPM Momentus 7200.4) - 98/105 MB/s
256GB Samsung 830 (bare drive) - 328/360 MB/s

2011 Mac mini 2.7GHz Dual-Core Intel i7
+100GB File Copy LaCie Thunderbolt Little Big Disk (no RAID, dual 240GB OCZ Vertex 3) to Seagate Thunderbolt GoFlex Pro 2.5" adapter (512GB Samsung 830)
Sustained 222 MB/s
Approximately 9 minutes 30 seconds

Notes:
The Seagate Thunderbolt GoFlex Pro 2.5" adapter appears in System Profiler as an unknown AHCI controller. However, the Link Speed is 6.0Gbps and the Negotiated Link Speed is 6.0Gbps. This differs from the LaCie which shows a Negotiated Link Speed of 3.0Gbps.

I'm getting nearly the same speed with one Samsung 830 in the Seagate Thunderbolt GoFlex 2.5" adapter (398 MB/s) as with the LaCie Thunderbolt Little Big Disk in RAID 0 with two OCZ Vertex 3 SSDs (471 MB/s). The OCZ Vertex 3 drives are rated about 50 MB/s faster than the Samsung 830.

For those using bare Samsung 830s the spacer / adapter that Samsung supplies for 9mm installations is perfect fit between the Seagate Thunderbolt GoFlex 2.5" adapter and the Samsung 830.

An interesting note is that you can hot swap the drives in Windows 7. Simply eject the drive and not the host Thunderbolt device (i.e. Seagate Thunderbolt GoFlex 2.5" adapter). However, hot swapping did not work adding it to the end of the chain after the LaCie Thunderbolt Little Big Disk.

No drop outs so far. I'm going to play a 720p Blu-ray conversion from the drive to test the reliability.

Is it just me or is the base some what magnetic?
 

fgullama

macrumors member
Jul 23, 2011
40
0
Just wanted to chime in with my results on the Seagate Thunderbolt adapter.

First off, I have an 27" 2011 base model iMac, not a Mini. I thought this was relevant still and have been following this thread closely, so I wanted to post in hopes that it may help others as they have helped me.

My Corsair 240GB Force GT boots fine with the Seagate. No dropouts or strange behavior so far.

As stated before, mine comes up as an unknown AHCI controller, but I too appear to have a 6 Gigabit link.

I was able to enable TRIM with TRIM Enabler successfully.

Speeds have been around what I would consider best case scenario and exactly what I had hoped for. Using the Black Magic Disk Speed Test which apparently only tests using incompressible data, I am getting around 250+MB/s writes and 360+MB/s reads.

The whole system boots in under 30 seconds from a cold power on, and 18 seconds of it is before I even get the Apple logo showing the OS is actually loading. From an option-startup menu where I choose the OS to boot from, it loads in around 10 seconds.

Even though it was painful waiting 26 days for this part to arrive from Seagate, all in all I am VERY satisfied! :D

Frank
 

shortcut3d

macrumors 65816
Aug 24, 2011
1,112
15
Not sure if I got a drop out or crashed my 2011 mid-range Mac mini Windows 7 HTPC. I was stupid and tried to initiate a network copy of a Handbrake encode that was about 75% complete weighing in at 1.4GB. That seemed to choke the system. So I made things worse and tried to RDP while the system was recording 5 shows and my wife was watching the Voice. Once connected I was able to browse to the 512GB Samsung 830 connected via the Seagate Thunderbolt GoFlex 2.5" adapter and attempted to delete the bad file. That window hung so I opened another browsed again to the bad file and tried to delete again. Finally, the system crashedm:eek:

So I'll keep monitoring. The drive did pass the video play back test.
 

philipma1957

macrumors 603
Original poster
Apr 13, 2010
6,362
248
Howell, New Jersey
Not sure if I got a drop out or crashed my 2011 mid-range Mac mini Windows 7 HTPC. I was stupid and tried to initiate a network copy of a Handbrake encode that was about 75% complete weighing in at 1.4GB. That seemed to choke the system. So I made things worse and tried to RDP while the system was recording 5 shows and my wife was watching the Voice. Once connected I was able to browse to the 512GB Samsung 830 connected via the Seagate Thunderbolt GoFlex 2.5" adapter and attempted to delete the bad file. That window hung so I opened another browsed again to the bad file and tried to delete again. Finally, the system crashedm:eek:

So I'll keep monitoring. The drive did pass the video play back test.

so a sign of instability but better then my issue.

you did mini / seagate only.

do you have the 1.6 firmware installed it came out 2 or 3 days ago.

all my tests did not have that firmware.


also try running mini/lacie/seagate

should be perfect as the seagate will use part of the lacies psu not the minis.


BTW you pushed the system much harder then I did. makes me wonder if I have a bad cable. then again if the 1.6 firmware is on your mini that could be the improvement. okay i pulled the lacie out of the chain and I am running mini to seagate. I have a samsung series 470/810 256gb ssd as osx with 10.7.3 i am just going to run it and see what happens.
 
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shortcut3d

macrumors 65816
Aug 24, 2011
1,112
15
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A406 Safari/7534.48.3)

I repeated the file copy over night and had no issues this time around. This Mac mini does not have the latest firmware update. I think the crash was related to copying an active handbrake file by accident over the network. The crash was related to the six network cable card tuners hanging and eventually killing WMC.

The Seagate drive behaves differently from the LaCie, so next I'm going to try to boot a cloned bootcamp Windows 7 drive.
 

philipma1957

macrumors 603
Original poster
Apr 13, 2010
6,362
248
Howell, New Jersey
I have been running my firmware updated mini since this morning with the seagate and a samsung series 470/810 sata II 256gb ssd so far it is flawless. which is cool. I can live with the seagate if it runs best with this drive. I am going to use this for 1 more day then try other ssds.
 
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shortcut3d

macrumors 65816
Aug 24, 2011
1,112
15
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A406 Safari/7534.48.3)

I just did the fastest clone I've ever for me. 240GB OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS (internal) to 256GB Samsung 830 (external Seagate Thunderbolt GoFlex 2.5" adapter). Unfortunately, Norton Ghost Shadow Copy doesn't provide a summary but it took about 9 minutes!

For those curious, the Seagate Thunderbolt GoFlex 2.5" adapter installs a PCI to PCI bridge in Windows 7 and appears as a generic Standard AHCI controller.

I'll try to boot later tonight.
 

fgullama

macrumors member
Jul 23, 2011
40
0
Boot Camp And The Goflex - Got It Working

In case anybody might be interested in a bit of hackery, it was actually fairly easy to get my Seagate Goflex attached Corsair SSD to install Boot Camp and Windows 7. I used to play around with the hackintosh stuff and frequent tonymacx86.com a bit before getting my iMac, so I thought I'd look to MuiltiBeast for a simple solution.

Just go to http://www.tonymacx86.com and download and install the latest version of MultiBeast. The only thing you need to install (for the iMac, and I assume the Mini) is under: Drivers & Bootloaders - Kexts & Enablers - - 3rdParty SATA

This will make all devices plugged into the Marvell SATA controller appear non removable after a reboot, allowing Boot Camp installation to continue without issue. I of course recommend a backup, should you attempt this.

The only ill effect I have seen so far is that the option to boot directly into Windows when holding Option on a cold boot appears to be missing. You can however set the boot device and reboot into Windows from within OSX (or tell Windows to reboot boot back into OSX).

I installed all the Windows support drivers and getting peak 385MB/s reads and 353MB/s writes testing with ATTO. In OSX, I am still getting around 350MB/s reads and 260MB/s writes testing with Blackmagic (I guess it does use any compressible data to test, hence the lower scores). This hack does not appear to alter performance or mess up the 6 gigabit link, etc.

TRIM is enabled in both OS's. I used TRIM enabler on the Mac side, not the install from within MultiBeast (although I imagine it works fine). The Boot Camp drivers handled the Windows TRIM piece automatically. The machine is smoking fast :)

I know this hack may not be for everybody, but if you really want to use Boot Camp on your external SSD, it can be done!

Frank
 

shortcut3d

macrumors 65816
Aug 24, 2011
1,112
15
Thanks for the update.

I was able to get Windows to boot using Norton Ghost clone, but the issue is Windows get to the desktop with just the cursor and not a genuine copy of Windows message displayed.

I believe you could also transplant an internal drive that proper had bootcamp installed into the Seagate Thunderbolt GoFlex 2.5" adapter.
 
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fgullama

macrumors member
Jul 23, 2011
40
0
I Spoke Too Soon :(

Thanks for the update.

I was able to get Windows to boot using Norton Ghost clone, but the issue is Windows get to the desktop with just the cursor and not a genuine copy of Windows message displayed.

I believe you could also transplant an internal drive that proper had bootcamp installed into the Seagate Thunderbolt GoFlex 2.5" adapter.


Well, interestingly enough it seems that the whole reason this worked is because when I went to boot Windows, it was still hitting the boot loader off of my internal drives boot camp installation from before that I hadn't wiped out yet, but booting the SSD OS.

That works in a kludgey fashion, as you would still have to keep a bootable copy of Windows 7 on your HDD to boot the SSD Windows 7.

Can't Blame Apple for this one... I guess it's a matter of finding a third party AHCI driver that can fully fool Windows into allowing it to install and boot to the SSD. Oh well...

Still, I suppose it's progress!

Frank
 

shortcut3d

macrumors 65816
Aug 24, 2011
1,112
15
Well, interestingly enough it seems that the whole reason this worked is because when I went to boot Windows, it was still hitting the boot loader off of my internal drives boot camp installation from before that I hadn't wiped out yet, but booting the SSD OS.

That works in a kludgey fashion, as you would still have to keep a bootable copy of Windows 7 on your HDD to boot the SSD Windows 7.

Can't Blame Apple for this one... I guess it's a matter of finding a third party AHCI driver that can fully fool Windows into allowing it to install and boot to the SSD. Oh well...

Still, I suppose it's progress!

Frank

That's pretty close though.

Here is some additional detail... The image I made had the Thunderbolt drivers and Seagate GoFlex drivers already installed. I also did the AHCI hack from the OCZ forums. Unfortunately, I had to use Norton Ghost Shadow Copy from the live Windows 7 bootcamp because there are no current cloning software for Lion or bootable tools that allow GPT cloning without using shadow copy. The AHCI hack messes with the MBR, so I selected the option to copy it as well. I might try to install a drive in my MacBook Pro and do a fresh bootcamp install without hacks, then transplant it in the Seagate Thunderbolt GoFlex adapter. I think my issue is driver related and a clean bootcamp install should work.
 

philipma1957

macrumors 603
Original poster
Apr 13, 2010
6,362
248
Howell, New Jersey
depending on your windows use you can do vmware fusion to install windows 7 and the seagate drive will run windows and lion at the same time.

you could also install bootcamp on the internal. not ideal but a half way decent workaround for some users.

completely and totally off the subject i built my first pc.

uses an intel i 2500k pretty nice but not quite what I want.

it would be exactly what I want if it could run lion legally oh well
 
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