Any point in a thunderbolt HD

[Ben1l]

I have a new macbook pro and need some additional storage.
I've been looking at Thunderbolt Hard Drives, but was wondering if there is really any point in them? I know Thunderbolt is superfast, but isn't there a massive bottleneck in the read/write speeds of the HD? Obviously this is a different case with external SSDs... but for HDs, is it worth it?

 

[ColdCase]

For a single rotational or SSD drive for file storage or backup, thunderbolt doesn't help much over USB3 and is expensive.

If you are doing something like editing images or media and the working files are out on the external drive, you will notice the performance advantage of TB.

If you are hooking up a performance multi-drive raid, Thunderbolt makes a lot of sense...

 

[Fishrrman]

For a HDD -- that is, a "spinning" hard drive -- I doubt you'll see much of any "perceivable" differences in speed between an HDD in a Thunderbolt enclosure vis-a-vis an HDD in a USB3 enclosure.

You can buy one "off-the-shelf", but I'd suggest you "roll your own". That is, buy the "bare drive" of your choice, then put it into a USB3 enclosure. Usually, a screwdriver is all you'll need.

The advantage of putting it together yourself is that -- when the time comes and you have a problem with the drive -- you'll know just what to do to take it apart and diagnose.

No "high tech" involved here, anyone can do it....

 

[Weaselboy]

I have a new macbook pro and need some additional storage.
I've been looking at Thunderbolt Hard Drives, but was wondering if there is really any point in them? I know Thunderbolt is superfast, but isn't there a massive bottleneck in the read/write speeds of the HD? Obviously this is a different case with external SSDs... but for HDs, is it worth it?

Here is a test confirming your suspicions. USB3 is just as fast.

 

[thedeske]

Here is a test confirming your suspicions. USB3 is just as fast.

Yep - Rob tends to pull the curtain back doesn't he

 

[opinio]

I have a new macbook pro and need some additional storage.
I've been looking at Thunderbolt Hard Drives, but was wondering if there is really any point in them? I know Thunderbolt is superfast, but isn't there a massive bottleneck in the read/write speeds of the HD? Obviously this is a different case with external SSDs... but for HDs, is it worth it?

You hit the nail on the head that most people never pick up on. Yes as noted, USB 3.0 is ample to cover a HDD. I would say it would even extract the max from an SSD if the controller is good.

 

[MCAsan]

For me TB is part of a network design. TB from rMBP to ATB to LaCie 2Big6TB.

 

[MacRumoren]

Here is a test confirming your suspicions. USB3 is just as fast.

Thanks for sharing the article confirming USB3 being as fast or faster than the TB drives. The only concern I have is whether using Samsung 840 EVO on the FirmTek USB3 drive would result in some kind of "garbage collection" issue that is plaguing the Crucial drives, leading to data corruption and inability to access the SSD in the end because of lack of TRIM support on external SSD on OSX?