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

Anyone boot from Thunderbolt SSD?

R

ri0ku

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 11, 2009
952
0
Hey guys just wondering if anyone here boots their primary OS from an external thunderbolt SSD?

I have an iMac mid 2011 which has thunderbolt ports but only usb 2.0 ports (So I am planning on getting a thunderbolt dock to get USB 3.0 ports)

I am wanting to hold off buying another machine for a while so trying to do a few things to help improve performance, one of those things is loading times with the standard HDD inside the machine.

I am thinking about getting the Seagate Goflex thunderbolt adapter and buying a decent SSD to use as my OSX boot drive and installing my most favoured apps on it, then using the internal drive for data or possibly for my Windows bootcamp partition.

Am I overlooking something here ? this should be possible right ? and I should gain significant loading/performance improvements booting from an SSD via thunderbolt right ?

(the machine is still in warranty which is why I don't want to open it up and change things around internally)
 
ri0ku said:
Hey guys just wondering if anyone here boots their primary OS from an external thunderbolt SSD?

I have an iMac mid 2011 which has thunderbolt ports but only usb 2.0 ports (So I am planning on getting a thunderbolt dock to get USB 3.0 ports)

I am wanting to hold off buying another machine for a while so trying to do a few things to help improve performance, one of those things is loading times with the standard HDD inside the machine.

I am thinking about getting the Seagate Goflex thunderbolt adapter and buying a decent SSD to use as my OSX boot drive and installing my most favoured apps on it, then using the internal drive for data or possibly for my Windows bootcamp partition.

Am I overlooking something here ? this should be possible right ? and I should gain significant loading/performance improvements booting from an SSD via thunderbolt right ?

(the machine is still in warranty which is why I don't want to open it up and change things around internally)
Click to expand...

Many people are booting off an external TB SSD, and I haven't seen any issues as I've been looking through posts as I'm considering doing it myself.

I just bought the Elgato Thunderbolt dock today ... very nice bit of kit. Got 2 external 2.5" USB3 drives attached to it. Also using the ethernet port to replace a USB ethernet dongle I was using. And, plugged my TB/DVI dongle into the 2nd TB port on the dock to drive my 2nd monitor. Reviews stated that this dock has the fastest USB3 performance compared to the startech, belkin and caldigit. If you buy the dock from Apple, you get the TB cable included for the price of the dock on its own from other sellers.
 
MrGimper said:
If you buy the dock from Apple, you get the TB cable included for the price of the dock on its own from other sellers.
Click to expand...

...or if you buy it direct, or if you buy it from Amazon (same price, at all three, btw). The TB cable comes packaged with the dock from the factory.
 
Drewski said:
...or if you buy it direct, or if you buy it from Amazon (same price, at all three, btw). The TB cable comes packaged with the dock from the factory.
Click to expand...

Well a quick look on the Elgato site shows that the dock "from the factory" is 189.99, as opposed to 179.99 from Apple.
 
MrGimper said:
Well a quick look on the Elgato site shows that the dock "from the factory" is 189.99, as opposed to 179.99 from Apple.
Click to expand...

Yeah... no.

http://store.apple.com/us/product/HFA82VC/A/elgato-thunderbolt-dock?

Please include the link for the "179.99 from Apple." The Apple store site i see shows 229, as does Amazon. Not sure how to buy "from the factory" but that would be good info too.

EDIT: Hmm. I guess including the monetary designation could clear up the discrepancy.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back