Booting Thunderbolt iMac from LaCie Rugged SSD

I did this too

I can also recommend the use of LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt SSD to be used as the boot disk! (2011 27" iMac) I hooked up the TB SSD disk this weekend and installed a new clean copy of Mountain Lion on it. It is a nice overall speed increase and definitely worth it!

In my case it is the 120GB model as it was the budget limit at the moment, so it will only contain OS and programs.

While not as fast as a dedicated internal SSD it was in the end the better solution for me (family politics ).

I believe that the TB to SATA controller in LaCie's setup limits the performance somewhat, those who wan't to try it out can easily swap out the SSD for a more extreme one, as it at least looks very standard to me:

What about just using the SSD for specific apps and such? I have some apps, both windows and Mac, that would benefit greatly if run from such a drive. Can I simply split the drive so that each sees only a portion of it? I wonder if that would work under Parallels?

dlberg said:

I can also recommend the use of LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt SSD to be used as the boot disk! (2011 27" iMac) I hooked up the TB SSD disk this weekend and installed a new clean copy of Mountain Lion on it. It is a nice overall speed increase and definitely worth it!

In my case it is the 120GB model as it was the budget limit at the moment, so it will only contain OS and programs.

While not as fast as a dedicated internal SSD it was in the end the better solution for me (family politics ).

I believe that the TB to SATA controller in LaCie's setup limits the performance somewhat, those who wan't to try it out can easily swap out the SSD for a more extreme one, as it at least looks very standard to me:

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Is that the only warranty sticker in the drive?

pizzapappa said:

Is that the only warranty sticker in the drive?

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Yes, that is the only one as far as I could see. No special tools needed.

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Shivetya said:

What about just using the SSD for specific apps and such? I have some apps, both windows and Mac, that would benefit greatly if run from such a drive. Can I simply split the drive so that each sees only a portion of it? I wonder if that would work under Parallels?

Click to expand...

If you are using Parallels there is no need for splitting the drive. Simply right-click on the .exe -file and choose "Open with..." -> Windows Explorer (for example), directly from Mac OS X. I guess bigger program suites must be installed directly to the SSD (which is mapped as a remote drive in Windows through Parallels).

First I installed the OS on the SSD and then run iMovie from the original location on HDD. Then I moved iMovie to the SSD and that made quite a difference! Do make a backup of everything before you start moving things around thou...

After reading this i decided to get myself a LaCie drive, 256gb SSD version.

I got roughly the same blackmagic results as yours on thunderbolt, But.... USB3 Read is FASTER?.

USB3 - 241MB/s Write, 436MB/s Read


Thunderbolt - 250MB/s Write, 381MB/s Read


If you have USB3 would you try yours on USB3 and see if you get the same results.

Ste0803

I still say something other than the drives in the TB enclosures are slowing things down.

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ste0803 said:

I got roughly the same blackmagic results as yours on thunderbolt, But.... USB3 Read is FASTER?.

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Shouldn't be the case. I'm going to run some Samsung 840 pro SSD disk benchmarks later in a MyDuo TB case and see what going on there.

The drive in this enclosure (m4) is rated at 300 MB/s write and 550 MB/s read. so something is slowing them down, its appears something to do with thunderbolt is slowing it down more than USB3 which i just dont get.

Ste0803

ste0803 said:

The drive in this enclosure (m4) is rated at 300 MB/s write and 550 MB/s read. so something is slowing them down, its appears something to do with thunderbolt is slowing it down more than USB3 which i just dont get.

Ste0803

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With an OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G, I found the same result. I really expected only a very small slow down due to the TB to sata bridge, but it is very noticeable.

I'm about a year away from getting a new computer, but my 2007 iMac is definitely slowing down. I was thinking that an in-between fix would be to get an external SSD and run it firewire 800 for now, and then thunderbolt later. Unfortunately, I don't see any enclosures that have both. There are, however, firewire800 and usb 3.0 enclosures. It sounds like that might actually be the BETTER way to go now. Either way, I am really appreciating this thread. Thanks guys.

ToomeyND said:

I'm about a year away from getting a new computer, but my 2007 iMac is definitely slowing down. I was thinking that an in-between fix would be to get an external SSD and run it firewire 800 for now, and then thunderbolt later. Unfortunately, I don't see any enclosures that have both. There are, however, firewire800 and usb 3.0 enclosures. It sounds like that might actually be the BETTER way to go now. Either way, I am really appreciating this thread. Thanks guys.

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A word of warning. They also said that any additional i/o, such as usb3 etc, on an external TB chassis other than TB, will slow TB down even more.

xgman said:

A word of warning. They also said that any additional i/o, such as usb3 etc, on an external TB chassis other than TB, will slow TB down even more.

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Does that only apply to TB? In other words, are you confirming that if I want a temporary fix now, that the FW800 and USB 3.0 really is the better way to go?

Benchmarks can be designed to show USB 3.0 faster than Thunderbolt and vice-versa.

Also, not all USB3 bridges are created equal. The LaCie Rugged happens to implement UAS on the USB3 interface which helps to improve performance immensely.

As to why the same SSD device is slower over Thunderbolt when compared to a direct connection inside a computer when connected to native SATA interface, this has to do with the delays introduced:
- inside computer when PCIe is converted to Thunderbolt
- inside the peripheral when Thunderbolt is converted back to PCIe
- inside the peripheral when PCIe is converted to SATA

The round-trip delays affect overall performance.

is there some reason im only getting 199mb write and 350 read or is the 128gb lacie rugged a little slower than the 256? this is on a 2012 imac 27"

ashleypenny said:

is there some reason im only getting 199mb write and 350 read or is the 128gb lacie rugged a little slower than the 256? this is on a 2012 imac 27"

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Have you tried hooking it up by usb-3?

xgman said:

I have a OWC Mercury Xtreme Pro 6G 480gb ssd ina TB enclosure and a Fusion drive in the imac. The read speed is noticeably slower on the TB SSD. In fact Geekbench is about 1000 points slower. And I have more than filled my fusion portion of the ssd, so some of the i/o should be on the 7200 drive I would think.

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If you aks me, a portion of the SSD is reserved space (to swap files around). So if you do a benchmark, it still uses the SSD for performance. It's advised to keep +- 5-10% of SSD free for optimal performance, so I think Apple is taking care of that.

ToomeyND said:

Does that only apply to TB? In other words, are you confirming that if I want a temporary fix now, that the FW800 and USB 3.0 really is the better way to go?

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Yes, I think your temp fix makes sense.

Thanks, xgman.

Now the other question, will booting a SSD from FW800 increase the speed of my iMac 20"? Or is the transfer rate not fast enough to make it faster than my internal 320 GB WD3200AAJS-40VWA1?

Hi Guys,

I thought I'd join the discussion by posting my findings comparing USB3 vs. 2 Thunderbolt solutions for those with SSD's that they want to use externally via TB. Note that cost might be a factor if you have to buy the SSD and the adapters. That will just have to be weighed against just getting an all in one TB unit from LaCie or USB3 units from other manufactures. My tests were really to find out what were the best performing options through Thunderbolt for my SSD's so I can pair that with my incoming 2012 iMac with 3TB Fusion.

Here are the 3 scenarios I tested using the Black Magic Disk Speed Test (used this so everyone could compare against the tests already on this thread) on a 2012 MacMini i5 I had handy.

SSD's:

Samsung 840 Pro 128GB
OCZ Vector 512GB


Dock Solutions:

IcyDock USB 3 (yeah I know not the greatest to show off USB3 speeds but, I'll post it)
Seagate GoDesk STAE129 Adapter
OWC Helios + Apricorn Velocity Solo X2 (PCIe card)


OCZ Vector Performance (mouse over each image for label)

What you'll immediately notice is that the enclosure components make a huge difference where thunderbolt throughput is concerned. The OWC + X2 gets me the closest performance to what the drives full capabilities are but, at a price to my wallet. Secondly, the Seagate works well but, something in the SATA III to TB translation is slowing the unit down hitting performance. Third the USB3 performance was interesting considering ste0803 opposite results again proving that spec implementation of USB3, SATA III and Thunderbolt are key to the performance of our SSD's.

Here are the further results.


Samsung 840 Pro Performance (mouse over each image to see label)

*Note: the 840 Pro wouldn't connect via the ICY Docks USB3 connection so, I don't have results for that drive via USB3.

In the end I'll stick with the Helios solution. Two things stand out the X2 PCIe card allows for 2 SSD's to be connected but, only allows power to 1 drive. I talked to Apricorn already that perhaps their next revision allows for 2 SSD's with power. I also think that the Helios is being held back from fully utilizing the 840 Pro and Vector due to the X2's throughput (although it states 550Mb/s)

The other thing is I'd like to test this solution against the Promise Pegasus J4 which just got released. Supposedly the SATA3 connection on it allows for 600Mb/s and this might allow the 840 and Vector to reach their full potential. It also has the benefit of allowing RAID 0 and 1 with up to 4 drives in one TB unit. Just finding the thing is a pain right now though.

Hopefully this info can help folks making choices for their external SSD needs.

qamaro said:

Hopefully this info can help folks making choices for their external SSD needs.

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Thanks for all your input, gamaro. I guess I'm now back to square one deciding what I want to do with my external SSD purchase!

qamaro said:

Here are the further results.


Samsung 840 Pro Performance (mouse over each image to see label)

*Note: the 840 Pro wouldn't connect via the ICY Docks USB3 connection so, I don't have results for that drive via USB3.

Click to expand...

I'm writing this and viewing this mobile site from my iPhone, so I can't mouse over the images to see info and clicking on the image does nothing.

I'm guessing on both results the images are in order of: Icy, Seagate, and Helios?

I was already thinking of getting the Seagate TB Dock, but I'm trying to choose an SSD. I just think the price of the Samsung 830 & 840 are too expensive (830 doesn't have high availability right now, for 256GB the 830 is more than the 840). So I've been looking at Kingston HyperX with the Seagate Dock, that would go pretty well together, no?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B007R67FTY/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

I'm not a power user at all, just going to put the operating system and applications on the external drive so I don't need the cream of the crop, but still fast on day-to-day operations.

ToomeyND: sorry didn't mean to muddy things up.

palmerc2:

Yes you are correct Icy, Seagate, Helios. I think the the Kingston paired with the Seagate TB Dock (Desktop version if you want TB chaining) will work just fine. Just understand you might not see "full" SATA III speeds with it over TB as my results showed. It's not slow by any means though! It should do fine for you needs. The plus is being external you can always change docks or drives as prices and tech improve.

has anyone tried to replace the standard ssd in the Lacie with another faster ssd?

I have the 120 Gb LaCie Rugged SSD (Thunderbolt and USB 3.0).
I noticed the same as the other users: USB 3.0 has faster read speeds compared to Thunderbolt. Heck, USB 3.0 read speed is even faster than my 1TB Fusion drive:

Tested on a late 2012 27" iMac (i7 3.4GHz, 32Gb RAM, GTX680MX) using Disk Speed test by Blackmagicdesign, using the 5Gb read/write test on a 20 Gb FAT partition on the LaCie disk:

• LaCie Rugged 120 Gb SSD Thunderbolt: write: 190.3 MB/s - read: 383.1 MB/s
• LaCie Rugged 120 Gb SSD USB 3.0: write 189.7 MB/s - read 428.2 MB/s
• 1 TB Fusion drive (internal): write 325 MB/s - read 382.7 MB/s