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Any reason for an external USB 3.0 SSD?

Here is the screenshot for my Sammy 830 in the OWC mini 3.0 enclosure on a new 2012 13" high end MBP. The MBP was being booted thru the external to test it out before putting into the MBP.

USB screenshot.png
 
ACiB said:
You are wrong. USB is rated at 5 Gigabits per second which turn out to be 640 MegaBYTES per second. Taking into account real world numbers, lets say those 640 MB/s turn out to be around 540 MB/s.
Now, a good consumer SSD such as Crucial's M4, Samsung's 830, Vertex many drives, Sandisk new ones and Intel's 530 read speeds lie around the 500 MB/s mark (write speeds vary depending on drive capacity, but are generally slower than read speeds) and so, the USB3 port is NOT a bottleneck in this specific case (SSD's 500 MB/s vs USB3's real world 540 MB/s).

If you get a good USB3 enclosure and a good SSD, you're good to go.
Click to expand...

I have'nt seen any USB 3.0 enclosures with SATA 6.0 port. So the SATA 300Mb/s theoretical limit will be a bottleneck here.
 
As an extension to the 512GB already on my MBPR, but for big files like DVD ISOs and FLAC. Time Machine backups can be handled with regular HDDs over the network.
 
gentlefury said:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004MEZ5IM/ref=oh_details_o06_s00_i00

I got this one. They sell it for $80 at best buy...LOL! I went into best buy and asked if they had USB3 enclosures and they showed me that for $80, I went on amazon on my phone and found the exact one for $20 on amazon....ordered it in the store.
Click to expand...

That case does not provide an actual SATA III interface for the SSD.

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kdoug said:
This OWC Elite Pro Mini seems to be one of the best 3.0 enclosures according to Barefeats.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other World Computing/MEPMU3ES/
Click to expand...

SO even the specs on the OWC site do not confirm that the SSD interface is SATA 3.

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mattonthemoon said:
if I pop my SATA III Vertex 3 SSD in a USB 3.0 enclosure that says its a SATA III enclosure I get about 100MB/s real world speed.

Same drive with the seagate thunderbolt adapter I get 250MB/s read and write.
Click to expand...

Does it actually say its a SATA 3 enclosure or just that you can plug in a SATA 3 drive?

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freeskier989 said:
This ebay manufacturer claims to have a SATA III external enclosure:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290660885116#ht_582wt_1144

Seems to be a much more reasonable price. Think that is the same chipset though being used in the OWC enclosure, so is the OWC Sata III also?
Click to expand...

THat's the first one I've seen. Not a very attractive case...let us know if the USB 3 throughput improves with its use.
 
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ZipZap said:
THat's the first one I've seen. Not a very attractive case...let us know if the USB 3 throughput improves with its use.
Click to expand...

Yeah im getting around 250 MB/s read/write with this enclosure and a Samsung 830 SSD 256GB via USB 3. Pretty good, but not anywhere near theoretical USB 3.0 top speeds, nor SATA III speeds. Im not sure if the controller in the enclosure is a true SATA III speed connection or if im hitting the wall on the 3.0 port.
 
gentlefury said:
And they, just like circuit city, will go out of business before admitting they are doing it wrong!

A little customer service goes a long way...but when I walk in and get ignored the whole time I'm there then when I finally approach someone to ask where something is and they have no clue, so I have to find it myself to find its 4x as much as on Amazon, you are doing something wrong.
Click to expand...

your dissapointed because they dont approach you for help, thats crazy talk, i hate going there because they approach me tooooo many times. i prefer to be ignored until i make my decision...either way, theres always going to be more employees that dont know anything, and a couple that actually do.

ive never been in a best buy that didnt have employees approaching me every couple minutes.
 
freeskier989 said:
Yeah im getting around 250 MB/s read/write with this enclosure and a Samsung 830 SSD 256GB via USB 3. Pretty good, but not anywhere near theoretical USB 3.0 top speeds, nor SATA III speeds. Im not sure if the controller in the enclosure is a true SATA III speed connection or if im hitting the wall on the 3.0 port.
Click to expand...

Well that seem to jibe with other reports. I have a SATA II enclosure and the same drive and I get 180's

Its enough for peppy copying and for playing itunes movies.

I do wonder how USB 3 will ever perform better. TB looks like the only hope for very high speed peripheral connections.
 
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:)

I spent the better part of my evening researching this.

I've discovered what people in this thread have already said you're only going to find sata 2 to USB 3 until 6Gbps UASP enabled USB 3.0 controller chipsets become mainstream and commonplace.

I think this is the fastest and best looking external dock around. Read some comments and reviews and people find this is a good enclosure to use for an ssd right now. You may want to add some small foam material to the inside so the drive doesn't rattle around but ssds are so light I think that's more of an issue for hard disks. Apparently had a nice sliding mechanism making it easy to switch out the drives if you even want to carry a couple 2.5 inch sata disks around with you

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Silverstone...F7JO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1342162025&sr=8-2

Silver stone Raven rvs02

I placed an order last night for use with my mbpr and an old intel 160 x25 ssd


Edit: interesting read about uasp USB 3.0 http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?11986-What-is-ASUS-USB-3-Boost-and-UASP
 
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Another way of using USB3.0 external massive storage and cost effective

Here is another way of using USB3.0 external

GET ANY eSATA with for or five hot swap enclosure with Port Multiplier tech

and USB3.0 to eSATA adapter

with 4TB you can have up to 20TB (5x 4TB), 7.2K rpm HDD can give you 115MB/sec

You can use SSD with 3.5 to 2.5 adapter, now you can get about 250~280MB/s
 
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nickbarbs said:
I spent the better part of my evening researching this.

I've discovered what people in this thread have already said you're only going to find sata 2 to USB 3 until 6Gbps UASP enabled USB 3.0 controller chipsets become mainstream and commonplace.

I think this is the fastest and best looking external dock around. Read some comments and reviews and people find this is a good enclosure to use for an ssd right now. You may want to add some small foam material to the inside so the drive doesn't rattle around but ssds are so light I think that's more of an issue for hard disks. Apparently had a nice sliding mechanism making it easy to switch out the drives if you even want to carry a couple 2.5 inch sata disks around with you

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Silverstone...F7JO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1342162025&sr=8-2

Silver stone Raven rvs02

I placed an order last night for use with my mbpr and an old intel 160 x25 ssd


Edit: interesting read about uasp USB 3.0 http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?11986-What-is-ASUS-USB-3-Boost-and-UASP
Click to expand...
I've also done quite a bit of research on USB 3.0 enclosures since starting this thread. In order to get 6gbs Bandwidth from your SSD, you have to have The Asmedia 1051E chipset. The 1051 is only good for 3gbs.

Unfortunately there seems to be only 3, 2.5 SSD enclosures on the market with the 1051E chipset. OWC's Mercury Elite Pro mini 2.5 for $60, Siig USB 3.0 to IDE/SATA 6Gb/s 2.5 for around $32 and lastly, one that was mentioned earlier on this thread from eBay for around $20.

I do realize that the maximum data rate for USB 3.0 is 5Gb/s but many people are putting their SSD's in $20 3.0 enclosures that are bottleknecked at 3Gb/s.

The OWC seemed a little expensive and the eBay unit looked a little cheap so I ordered the Siig enclosure JU-SA0H11-S1 From newegg. I'll have it next week and I'll perform some tests and report back.

http://www.siig.com/it-products/con.../usb-3-0-to-ide-sata-6gb-s-2-5-enclosure.html

http://www.asmedia.com.tw/eng/e_products_list.php?item=83&cate_index=0
 
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JohnRN said:
Here is the screenshot for my Sammy 830 in the OWC mini 3.0 enclosure on a new 2012 13" high end MBP. The MBP was being booted thru the external to test it out before putting into the MBP.

View attachment 346947
Click to expand...
I ordered the SIIG JU-SA0H11-S1 USB 3.0 6.0GB/s from Newegg. After installing my Samsung 830 SSD into the enclosure, I was able to get write speeds just over 250MB/s. I must have broke it because it quit reading the drive after about 10 minutes. I returned it today and ordered the one that somebody had posted earlier from eBay. It supposedly has the same Asmedia 1051e Chipset that OWC uses in their Mercury Elite Pro mini.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/290660885116?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649#ht_615wt_689
 
kdoug said:
I ordered the SIIG JU-SA0H11-S1 USB 3.0 6.0GB/s from Newegg. After installing my Samsung 830 SSD into the enclosure, I was able to get write speeds just over 250MB/s. I must have broke it because it quit reading the drive after about 10 minutes. I returned it today and ordered the one that somebody had posted earlier from eBay. It supposedly has the same Asmedia 1051e Chipset that OWC uses in their Mercury Elite Pro mini.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/290660885116?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649#ht_615wt_689
Click to expand...

Yep, that was my post, and the enclosure, while basic, has been working great. For the money, can't beat it, and its small and slim, very light. It does indeed have the Asmedia 1051e chipset in it. I covered the drive writing with a dandy sticker and improved its look a bit. :)
 
kdoug said:
Unfortunately there seems to be only 3, 2.5 SSD enclosures on the market with the 1051E chipset. OWC's Mercury Elite Pro mini 2.5 for $60, Siig USB 3.0 to IDE/SATA 6Gb/s 2.5 for around $32 and lastly, one that was mentioned earlier on this thread from eBay for around $20.
Click to expand...

Actually, the Silverstone Raven rvs02 mentioned previously also uses the 1051E chipset. They mention SATA III support, and I emailed tech support to ask what chipset they use. They replied with 1051E.
 
ACiB said:
You are wrong. USB is rated at 5 Gigabits per second which turn out to be 640 MegaBYTES per second. Taking into account real world numbers, lets say those 640 MB/s turn out to be around 540 MB/s.
Now, a good consumer SSD such as Crucial's M4, Samsung's 830, Vertex many drives, Sandisk new ones and Intel's 530 read speeds lie around the 500 MB/s mark (write speeds vary depending on drive capacity, but are generally slower than read speeds) and so, the USB3 port is NOT a bottleneck in this specific case (SSD's 500 MB/s vs USB3's real world 540 MB/s).

If you get a good USB3 enclosure and a good SSD, you're good to go.
Click to expand...

benchmarks I've seen put real world performance at around 200-250 MB\s. Still pretty good.
 
kdoug said:
Waiting for my rMBP and somebody mentioned installing an SSD in external USB 3.0 enclosure. Are there any speed advantages or are you bottlenecked with USB?
Click to expand...

usb 3.0 enclosures can get up to about 250 mb/s in practice. That is about the limit of SATA II, and is definitely fast enough for everyday tasks. SATA III can get up to 500 mb/s, so an internal sata III drive has more potential performance. Keep in mind, this is the speed of the connection. The SSD still has to be fast enough to take advantage of it.

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heresjohnny said:
LOL - USB3 will never see anything close to it's theoretical max, same as USB 2.0 never hit it's 400Mbps. Just trust me on that. FWIW, USB2 typically maxes out around 25MBps, or 200Mbps. Firewire 800 used to be the best option on MBP's, but now we have thunderbolt.


OP: If you are spending the $$ on a SSD, you might consider using it with Seagates Thunderbolt goflex adapter. (Remove the magnetic drive and replacing it with the ssd - there are youtube videos on how to do this.) Tests have shown it is (not surprisingly) way faster than USB3. This is what I intend to do with my 480GB Intel 520, that is sitting my now unused MBP17.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but they like to play games in marketing. These are theoretical speeds. The controller uses up some of it and there is overhead. Also, I'm pretty sure that by 500 MB/s, they really mean 250 MB/s in each direction.
 
kdoug said:
Waiting for my rMBP and somebody mentioned installing an SSD in external USB 3.0 enclosure. Are there any speed advantages or are you bottlenecked with USB?
Click to expand...

I have been using an Intel 520 with a Thermaltake Silver River 5G External Enclosure which is beautiful and after some tests I got 460-480mbp/s reading performance and 420-440mbp/s writing's.

I wouldn't switch that combination for any other SSD + enclosure on the market. I'm 100% satisfied with the results every day.
 
The fastest USB 3.0 setup is a ASMedia 1051E controller with UASP (USB Attached SCSI) firmware
like the Thermaltak Blac X 5G.
I have it running with a Samsung 830 SSD.
I get 300MB/s writes, 400 MB/s reads.
real world, I've copied 30GB files in 1.33 minutes.

I have a blog and video showing it.

http://fortysomethinggeek.blogspot.com/2012/10/blacx-5g-usb-30-update-fastest-usb-30.html


I'm also evaluating $20-30 USB 3.0-SATA Go-Flex like adapters that have the 1015E.
So far, nothing is as fast as the Blac X 5G.


ssd-uasp.png
 
Here are some speeds from my tests.

So I have a new rMBP and I wanted some fast external storage but DIDN'T want to spend the money on Thunderbolt.

I had an extra Seagate Momentus 750GB HDD (SATA 3.0Gbs/16MB Cache/7200RPM) and a Corsair Force GT SSD that I coupled with a BYTECC HD3-S3U3 USB3.0 External Enclosure and wanted to share the results.

The tests are done with the Blackmagic Disk Speed app, a BASE model 2012 Macbook Pro Retina (2.3/8GB/256GB), 18" USB3.0 cord connected to the BYTEC USB3.0 external enclosure.

1.png



Corsair Force GT 240GB SSD

First Test: Copy/Paste 4.35GB .dmg file to OS to SSD
Time: 19 seconds

Second Test: Disk Speed Test
Write: 225.5 MB/s
Read: 254.2 MB/s


4.png




Seagate Momentus HDD

First Test: Copy/Paste 4.35GB .dmg file to OS to SSD
Time: 39 seconds

Second Test: Disk Speed Test
Write: 112.4 MB/s
Read: 114.1 MB/s


5.png



For ThunderBolt tests check this awesome thread out which inspired my thread. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1421396/
 
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