Struggling to find a thunderbolt drive..

The Buffalo Thunderbolt drive seems like the drive you may be after.
Its hit or miss with the RPM on those...I've gotten some that were 7200RPM and one or two that were 5400RPM.
So unfortunately no consistency there, but 7200RPM is 7200RPM 2.5" and 3.5"

FWIW, with a spinning platter drive, even at 7200RPM, USB3 transmits data faster than the drive can read/write it, so you won't get any real boost from Thunderbolt. SSDs might be a different matter.

If you want any form of cross-compatibility and future upgrades, look no further than Seagate's backup plus lines (formmerly go-flex).
These drive enclosures come with interchaneagle dock connectors. They come standard with USB 3.0 now. They have eSATA, Firewire, USB 2.0 and Thunderbolt adapters. Since they are standard SATA connectors, these adapters will even work with other drives.

Future compatibility is a big deal.. I've been using these when they were USB 2.0. I upgraded to FW, then now to Thunderbolt. When they have Thunderbolt 2.0 with 20 Gbp/s, Seagate will probably make newer Tbolt version 2.0 adapters.


In either 2.5 portable or 3.5" desktop. You will need to buy an adapter but that is a one time purchase.
The backup plus comes right off the bat with USB 3.0. Decide if you want to go portable or desktop. The portable firewire adapter is $89.The desktop is $150. Once you buy the adapter, you can even plug in third party drives.

The desktop one allows you to daisy chain which is cool.

Here are all of them. Desktop Thunderbolt adaper, USB 3.0 desktop and 2.5" portable thunderbolt.




The portable one uses a standard USM case. YOu can buy third party USM enclosures.





Here is a SSD connected to a portable adapter.



Desktop adapter with standard 3TB 7200 drive



Desktop adapter with SSD


Desktop adapter, allows for daisy chaining multiple Thunderbolt adapters.



Here is the FW800 adapter for the desktop drives.



Here is the 2.5 w/ USB 2.0 and Firewire 800 adapter ($20 at Best Buy on clearance)

fortysomegeek said:

If you want any form of cross-compatibility and future upgrades, look no further than Seagate's backup plus lines (formmerly go-flex).
These drive enclosures come with interchaneagle dock connectors. They come standard with USB 3.0 now. They have eSATA, Firewire, USB 2.0 and Thunderbolt adapters. Since they are standard SATA connectors, these adapters will even work with other drives.

Future compatibility is a big deal.. I've been using these when they were USB 2.0. I upgraded to FW, then now to Thunderbolt. When they have Thunderbolt 2.0 with 20 Gbp/s, Seagate will probably make newer Tbolt version 2.0 adapters.


In either 2.5 portable or 3.5" desktop. You will need to buy an adapter but that is a one time purchase.
The backup plus comes right off the bat with USB 3.0. Decide if you want to go portable or desktop. The portable firewire adapter is $89.The desktop is $150. Once you buy the adapter, you can even plug in third party drives.

The desktop one allows you to daisy chain which is cool.

Click to expand...

I have this same setup. It is by far the fastest yet most versatile way to go.

Uplift said:

That Seagate is only £59 at the minute. bargain.

I'm worried about the 54000rpm drive though..

Click to expand...

1) you neglected to mention a budget

2) clearly as was mentioned the seagate system pretty much works like leggos, you don't like the drive change it.

Uplift said:

That Seagate is only £59 at the minute. bargain.

I'm worried about the 54000rpm drive though..

Click to expand...

Have you thought about the Western Digital My Book Thunderbolt Duo? 5400rpm, yes, but it's TWO 5400rpm WD Green drives AND can be set as a striped RAID for better performance. I have the My Book Studio II (same thing, but Firewire 800) and it's plenty quick. Now I'm gonna have to benchmark it when I get home lol... (mine won't be as fast, though - mine's set as a mirrored RAID)

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=630

Depending on how fast your sound bank needs to be, the fastest option would be a 1TB LaCie Little Big Disk with SSDs.

Otherwise the WD MyBook Thunderbolt Duo, LaCie 2big Thunderbolt or LaCie d2 Thunderbolt.


The two-bay drives are twice as fast if you RAID0 them or offer redundancy if you RAID1 them, if that's your priority. You can do that in OS X with approx. five clicks.

for you guys with the seagate thunderbolt adapters, any issues with connecting a monitor at the end of the chain? I am trying to put a DVI monitor with adapter at the end of the TBolt chain with no success. Just wondering what your luck was like.

JoeFkling said:

for you guys with the seagate thunderbolt adapters, any issues with connecting a monitor at the end of the chain? I am trying to put a DVI monitor with adapter at the end of the TBolt chain with no success. Just wondering what your luck was like.

Click to expand...

No problem on my end. I've connected:

1) Dell 24" via DVI. I used the Apple dp-dvi adapter.
2) Dell 24" via HDMI using some cheap amazon adapter.
3) Dell 24" via mini-displayport to hdmi to hdmi/dvi adapter connected to dvi on the monitor. Basically the monitor is really old and only has DVI. I put a DVI-to-HDMI dongle on the monitor itself. This way, I can easily plug and unplug different computers without unscrewing DVI. I connect to it by plugging in a HDMI cable. When connected to a mac, obviously, it is connected to anotehr adapter which is HDMI female to male mini displayport.


4) Dell 27" U2731HM via displayport cables.

I notice I did have problem using an expensive thunderbolt cable connected to a n adapter. Once I replaced the thunderbolt cable with a normal mini-dp cable, all worked.

hmmm. Ill have to keep trying. Its a viewsonic connected via dvi with an apple adapter.

I was actually able to get it get a signal and the iMac to recognize that it was there. Just no image. But I plug it back in straight to the iMac and it works fine. Ill have to keep fiddling. thanks for the response.

splitpea said:

FWIW, with a spinning platter drive, even at 7200RPM, USB3 transmits data faster than the drive can read/write it, so you won't get any real boost from Thunderbolt. SSDs might be a different matter.

Click to expand...

for some reason this doesnt make sense, thunderbolt is 10Gbps each way? and a sata 6Gbps drive would work at maximum speed?

A lot of reviews state that thunderbolt is faster than eSATA....perhaps USB3 is a tad slower,,,but dont see how a SATA 6GBPS drive and Thunderbolt wouldnt make it efficient?

the read/write of the drive regardless of USB 3 or Thunderbolt is the slowdown i'd believe

ZMacintosh said:

for some reason this doesnt make sense, thunderbolt is 10Gbps each way? and a sata 6Gbps drive would work at maximum speed?

Click to expand...

Just because the actual drive interface is 6Gbps, it doesn't necessarily follow that the drive can achieve anything like these higher speeds. The stated speed is only the theoretical transfer speed of the interconnect.

dannyp1996 said:

Just because the actual drive interface is 6Gbps, it doesn't necessarily follow that the drive can achieve anything like these higher speeds. The stated speed is only the theoretical transfer speed of the interconnect.

Click to expand...

Right. Some SSDs can saturate a SATA III connection, but HDDs can't come close. (AFAICT, they can't even saturate a SATA II connection, which is far slower than USB 3.) So USB 3 vs TB doesn't change how fast a spinning platter hard drive can transmit data.

TB only matters for some SSDs, or for drives in striped RAID configurations; and SSDs are still cost prohibitive for most cases where you're trying to expand external storage - which is probably why single drive enclosures are hard to find.

it all depends on what you are using the external drive for...

your best option for speed and capacity is a raid configuration with 7200 rpm drives - the lacie 2big drives are really good and a reasonable price.

i'm getting around 325MB/s read and 325MB/s write on a 4TB lacie 2big - which is about the same as you'll get with a good ssd in the seagate with a fraction of the storage.

plus, i don't have a load of adapters and cables and crap all over my desk.

"It's going to hold sound banks and sample libraries for music production so a standard USB drive wont cut it."

A 7200rpm drive in the _right_ USB3 enclosure WILL "cut it" -- and may actually be FASTER than a thunderbolt enclosure.

See this page:
http://barefeats.com/hard161.html

Fishrrman said:

"It's going to hold sound banks and sample libraries for music production so a standard USB drive wont cut it."

A 7200rpm drive in the _right_ USB3 enclosure WILL "cut it" -- and may actually be FASTER than a thunderbolt enclosure.

See this page:
http://barefeats.com/hard161.html

Click to expand...

Very true.

Even 2 x 7200 stripe will work well with USB 3, the only exception might be a couple of velociraptor drives striped as they could saturate the USB 3 line. One thing to be sure of is not all TB are created equal or the cables. Same can be said for USB 3.