Anyone use a TB SSD as a boot drive?

[gnow3623]

Rather than install an internal SSD in a 27 in 2011 iMac, I was thinking of getting an external enclosure or the Seagate "sled" and use a Crucial 240gb SSD that I already own and have available. Anyone try this?

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Right below me is a thread. Sorry.

 

[omvs]

Yes, it can be done. I have an Seagate / OCZ Agility 3 with both OSX and windows booting off it. OSX is trivial, windows requires some tricks to boot off thunderbolt.

Two notes with the seagate adapter:

1> The STAE121 (the sled version) is (or at least was) limited to SATA2 (~250MB/sec). The desktop version (STAE122) apparently goes up to 350MB/sec, but still shy of what a SATA3 SSD can do.

2> Apparently some SSD's consume more power than the seagate adapter can supply - might want to do some searches here and see if your crucial was a problem or not.

 

[mihai.ile]

2> Apparently some SSD's consume more power than the seagate adapter can supply - might want to do some searches here and see if your crucial was a problem or not.

Now this explains one of my problems with the SSD and now I think it's funny so I share with you:

Some years ago I got an kingston SSD that came in an external case, so I just opened it right away (not even screws were required) and inserted in my laptop and use it since then. This year my laptop died and thought I would still use the kingston SSD in the kingston external case, just to discover that id does not work! (as soon as I start transfer files it disappears from the OS). I had to use another "generic" usb case and it just worked.

So yes, for me lesson learned, it is a good measure to check whether the external case is compatible with the SSD you have (and don't be fooled in thinking that the SSD case that may come with the SSD certainly works!)

 

[WesCole]

Yes, it can be done. I have an Seagate / OCZ Agility 3 with both OSX and windows booting off it. OSX is trivial, windows requires some tricks to boot off thunderbolt.

Two notes with the seagate adapter:

1> The STAE121 (the sled version) is (or at least was) limited to SATA2 (~250MB/sec). The desktop version (STAE122) apparently goes up to 350MB/sec, but still shy of what a SATA3 SSD can do.

2> Apparently some SSD's consume more power than the seagate adapter can supply - might want to do some searches here and see if your crucial was a problem or not.

I have the STAE121 and it is SATA3...I get ~360MB read and write with and OCZ Vertex 4 128GB. The "sled" version does seem to have problems with drives above 256GB, possibly due to lack of power since it uses Thunderbolt for power. I really like my Thunderbolt SSD as a boot drive...I haven't had any disconnects, either.

 

[martinm0]

I have the STAE121 and it is SATA3...I get ~360MB read and write with and OCZ Vertex 4 128GB. The "sled" version does seem to have problems with drives above 256GB, possibly due to lack of power since it uses Thunderbolt for power. I really like my Thunderbolt SSD as a boot drive...I haven't had any disconnects, either.

I get SATAIII speeds as well with mine (or at least when I was using it). Since I have only one TB port and need my iMac to connect to my TV, I gutted my LaCie little big disk Thunderbolt and put the SSD in one side and a HDD on the other side for Time Machine. I get only SATAII speeds through this, but it allows me to have another TB port to daisy chain off of and its still much faster than the internal HDD.