Black Magic Disk Test Thunderbolt Adapter comparisons

[bonedaddio]

Hi, while waiting for my BTO iMac 27" to arrive, I've been doing some research and testing on TB adapters.
One of the reasons I did this was to see if my decision to go with a 1TB HDD and then use a TB SSD as a boot disk was a good one (relative to getting a Fusion drive or GOD FORBID the Apple $$D option. I'm satisfied that it was a good call... especially if I stripe a couple of drives in the J4.

I used Black Magic Disk Test; will post screen captures if I must, but here are some interesting results:
Test Bed:
Late 2011 MacBook Pro; Core i7; 16gb ram; internal HDD bay = Crucial M4 256 SSD; optical bay = 750 Gb HDD (stock disk, moved to optibay adapter); Apple TB cable
Notes: disk tests rounded up from 1 decimal place.

Pegasus J4 enclosure
1. Pegasus J4 TB enclosure, Samsung 840 256 Gb SSD; (running as boot drive):

Write: 269 — Read: 428

2. Pegasus J4 TB enclosure, Samsung 840 256 Gb SSD; (non-boot drive):

Write: 236 — Read: 506

Internal Sata connections
3. Internal HDD bay, Crucial M4 256 Gb SSD; (running as boot drive):

Write: 261 — Read: 500

4. Internal HDD bay, Crucial M4 256 Gb SSD; (non-boot drive):

Write: 260 — Read: 500

5. Internal HDD optibay, original 750 Gb HDD:

Write: 72 — Read: 99

Seagate GoFlex TB Adapter
6. GoFlex TB adapter, Samsung 840 256 Gb SSD; (running as boot drive):

Write: 239 — Read: 377

7. GoFlex TB adapter, Samsung 840 256 Gb SSD; (non-boot drive):

Write: 239 — Read: 372

8. GoFlex TB adapter, Seagate Sata3 2TB HDD:

Write: 187 — Read: 183

My comments: it would appear (and this is borne out by other's results) that the Pegasus J4 has a better TB implementation than the Seagate adapter especially for read tests; it is also more expensive. One of the best things about the J4 is that it will hold 4 drives and you can stripe a pair in raid 0 for READICULOUS speeds... As far as which is better, the Sammy or the Crucial, I really couldn't say at this point. I found it interesting that I got a better Read test on the Sammy when it was NOT the boot drive; while the Crucial M4 was virtually unaffected by this... although that could be accounted for by the M4 being an internal drive. And no, I'm not taking out the M4 and putting a Sammy in for testing purposes... I just want my iMac to get here before I start testing different Ram configurations in the pets... which would be messy and create problems with the wife and probably the authorities...
Hope this may be helpful to someone.
Les