Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Damian83

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 20, 2011
492
276
Hi, while im waiting for my new imac, i was going to use as main disk the seagate goflex thunderbolt enclosure + any SSD. howewer, from what ive heard around, inlcuding in this forum, the seagate enclosure even if 6G, limits speed to 375mb/s (thats effectively a 3G). now i noticed the lacie rugged 256gb ssd that's 380mb/s, all-in-one solution, and cheaper. the first solution costs me:
seagate goflex: 120€
elgato thunderbolt cable: 60€
240/256 gb SSD: around 160€

lacie disk (includes TB cable): 330€
what do u think about it? do u know other TB ssd's similar to this one?

the funny thing its that cheaper place where i found the lacie disk, is apple store :eek:
 

iancapable

macrumors 6502
Oct 4, 2006
279
0
London, United Kingdom
Hi, while im waiting for my new imac, i was going to use as main disk the seagate goflex thunderbolt enclosure + any SSD. howewer, from what ive heard around, inlcuding in this forum, the seagate enclosure even if 6G, limits speed to 375mb/s (thats effectively a 3G). now i noticed the lacie rugged 256gb ssd that's 380mb/s, all-in-one solution, and cheaper. the first solution costs me:
seagate goflex: 120€
elgato thunderbolt cable: 60€
240/256 gb SSD: around 160€

lacie disk (includes TB cable): 330€
what do u think about it?

the funny thing its that cheaper place where i found the lacie disk, is apple store :eek:


Speed tests I have seen? LaCie looks best.
 

Jimmdean

macrumors 6502a
Mar 21, 2007
636
627
Speed on these is going to be a wash - no perceptual difference.

If 120GB is ok for you, I'd go for the Lacie - it's just too easy.

but if you are thinking more like 250GB, I'd look harder at the Seagate and save yourself about $100.00...


another note to think about regardless - the SSD in the Lacie is just good enough to take advantage of what the controller can offer - in the future (when better controllers are available) that SSD is not going to look so great. If you were to go with the Seagate you could future-proof yourself a little better by having your choice of SSD.
 

Damian83

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 20, 2011
492
276
Speed on these is going to be a wash - no perceptual difference.

If 120GB is ok for you, I'd go for the Lacie - it's just too easy.

but if you are thinking more like 250GB, I'd look harder at the Seagate and save yourself about $100.00...


another note to think about regardless - the SSD in the Lacie is just good enough to take advantage of what the controller can offer - in the future (when better controllers are available) that SSD is not going to look so great. If you were to go with the Seagate you could future-proof yourself a little better by having your choice of SSD.

the prices i wrote are for 256gb on both solutions... if i have to look to the future than ill change all parts anyway (ssd, seagate, lacie)

----------

lets consider it in another way, the real way:
i already have the ssd, a 240gb sandisk extreme, that i paid 160€. im planning to sell it for 120€ (i never used it), then add 210€ and buy the lacie
if i decide to dont sell it, then i have to add 190€ (seagate 130€ + elgato TB cable 60€). what do u suggest to at this point?
 

iancapable

macrumors 6502
Oct 4, 2006
279
0
London, United Kingdom
the prices i wrote are for 256gb on both solutions... if i have to look to the future than ill change all parts anyway (ssd, seagate, lacie)

----------

lets consider it in another way, the real way:
i already have the ssd, a 240gb sandisk extreme, that i paid 160€. im planning to sell it for 120€ (i never used it), then add 210€ and buy the lacie
if i decide to dont sell it, then i have to add 190€ (seagate 130€ + elgato TB cable 60€). what do u suggest to at this point?

If you already have a SSD, then just buy the seagate goflex thunderbolt. You can get one for £100
 
Last edited:

Jimmdean

macrumors 6502a
Mar 21, 2007
636
627
I have to agree - go with the Thunderbolt adapter and cable.

That is a better SSD than the one Lacie sells you and you already own it.
 

Damian83

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 20, 2011
492
276
I have to agree - go with the Thunderbolt adapter and cable.

That is a better SSD than the one Lacie sells you and you already own it.

ok thanks! ill buy all, once i get that damn imac im waiting for from months!
 

Jimmdean

macrumors 6502a
Mar 21, 2007
636
627
Before you spend any more money at all, you might see if you have an option to test it via USB 3 - current single-drive Thunderbolt solutions are not much better than USB 3 in a lot of cases, and that would be a lot cheaper.
 

Damian83

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 20, 2011
492
276
Before you spend any more money at all, you might see if you have an option to test it via USB 3 - current single-drive Thunderbolt solutions are not much better than USB 3 in a lot of cases, and that would be a lot cheaper.

i dont think so... too much benchmarks shows that ssd-tb are A LOT more faster than ssd-usb3
 

Jimmdean

macrumors 6502a
Mar 21, 2007
636
627
I was thinking of reviews of the Lacie Rugged Thunderbolt SSDs where they compare the 2 interfaces to each other. From what I remember they weren't very far apart...
 

g4cube

macrumors 6502a
Apr 22, 2003
760
13
The Rugged implements UAS on the USB 3.0 port, which leads to the better performance. Not all USB 3.0 bridge/drive chassis/docks implement UAS.
 

kaktus

macrumors newbie
Dec 20, 2012
11
0

Damian83

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 20, 2011
492
276
I also think that TB is today not really faster than USB 3 (Sata 3), maybe in the future when firmware getting better.

Here some benchmarks:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1510842/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1483374/

Please show me TB benchmark that are faster then the Thermaltake Silver River 5G USB 3 case.
I`m looking for the fastest connection before I buy a case. Now i tend to buy the Thermaltake Silver River 5G.

ok ive changed mind for another time. ill get a good usb3 enclosure instead if the seagate. problem of seagate is that's is effectively a sata2 so even if connected to TB, its still worst a sata3 usb3.0. the rank is
sata2 usb3
sata2 tb
sata3 usb3
sata3 tb

considering there arent sata3 tb enclosures, i have to look for a usb3...
 

petsk

macrumors 6502
Oct 13, 2009
477
417
Only a fool would put a SSD in a USB enclosure. Random read/write through USB interface is terrible compared to TB/SATA interface. The reason one would buy an SSD in the first place is for the amazing IOPS performance. If you're only interested in sequential performance, get two traditional HDDs and RAID them and you will get the same sequential performance as SSD, PLUS that you will have a ton of storage.

These stupid people who measures SSD performance with Blackmagic Disk Speed Test and what not are really starting to annoy me. It's the same retards who compares number of MP's in digital cameras and GHz's in CPU's.
 

g4cube

macrumors 6502a
Apr 22, 2003
760
13
Only a fool would put a SSD in a USB enclosure. Random read/write through USB interface is terrible compared to TB/SATA interface. The reason one would buy an SSD in the first place is for the amazing IOPS performance. If you're only interested in sequential performance, get two traditional HDDs and RAID them and you will get the same sequential performance as SSD, PLUS that you will have a ton of storage.

These stupid people who measures SSD performance with Blackmagic Disk Speed Test and what not are really starting to annoy me. It's the same retards who compares number of MP's in digital cameras and GHz's in CPU's.

Petsk, there is no one benchmark that will provide a user with an indication of what is best, because the benchmark has no idea how a particular user will use his computer and external storage.

You bring up one good point that few will understand - IOPS - the number of IO operations per second that can be instigated. Contrast that with thru-put which is what benchmarks like Blackmagic and AJA measure.

Some operations perform many, many transactions, each with a small amount of data transferred in each operation; web browsing or data base lookups. Other operations like streaming, which start a transaction, and access contiguous data; like streaming video or streaming audio. For streaming (whether audio or video), this is not very taxing at all, unless one is streaming uncompressed 4K HD video.

Video editing does expect fast contiguous transfers af large amounts of data. In complex editing systems, multiple HD streams may be in use. The faster the thruput, the more streams can be handled; if working with uncompressed video, even more bandwidth is required.

What is nice about a benchmark program is that it is an indicator of performance when comparing one device or interface to another. So for comparative purposes, almost any benchmark is useful. IS one benchmark the end all or be all. Of course not.

For the average user perusing the voluminous info here? Plenty to digest and to keep one occupied. But I advise everyone to look beyond the benchmarks, and look to what the benchmarks are really measuring, and to look closely at how you are actually going to use your computer.
 

Damian83

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 20, 2011
492
276
I finally got the elgato tb cable from amazon and ordered from apple store (again, cheaper place) the seagate enclosure. Tomorrow ill post benchmark results
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.