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External drive options
- Thread starter idntknw
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They are hard to find but you could use a Firewire (80MB/s) or Thunderbolt (10Gb/s, in theory) drive enclosure
They are both faster than USB 2.0 (40MB/s)
They are both faster than USB 2.0 (40MB/s)
Essentially, you have FW800 (about twice the working speed of USB 2), eSATA via a Thunderbolt to eSATA adapter, USB 3.1 (5Gbps gen 1) via a Thunderbolt to USB 3.1 adapter (the only one I know of offhand happens to have an eSATA port as well), or Thunderbolt. With some higher end enclosures, ethernet may also be a possibility.
If this is a SSD and you plan to actually boot into this drive on a somewhat regular basis, USB 3, eSATA, or Thunderbolt makes the most sense (the expense here is hardware costs.) If cost is an issue, or this is a vanilla 5400 RPM HDD, or you do not plan to boot into this drive unless your main drive fails, then using USB 2.0 is the most cost efficient...FireWire 800 will have noticeably faster backup speeds, but finding well-made, readily available, and reliable enclosures at a not-completely-ridiculous price has become somewhat difficult, and investing in one of the higher end FW800 enclosures has the downside that, unless the enclosure also has USB 3.1 or eSATA, it probably won't be super useful when you replace the system.
Examples are the AKiTiO Thunderbolt to eSATA 6.0G adapter (this will take SATA SSDs up to a working speed of 550 MB/s which is essentially the SATA 6.0 limit), the Kanex USB3/eSATA Thunderbolt adapter, and the Transcend and Buffalo Thunderbolt 2.5-inch SSD/HDD drives. Oyen Digital used to make a great 2.5-inch FW800/USB3.1 enclosure for about $60, but recently discontinued it. OWC may still offer some FW800 products.
If this is a SSD and you plan to actually boot into this drive on a somewhat regular basis, USB 3, eSATA, or Thunderbolt makes the most sense (the expense here is hardware costs.) If cost is an issue, or this is a vanilla 5400 RPM HDD, or you do not plan to boot into this drive unless your main drive fails, then using USB 2.0 is the most cost efficient...FireWire 800 will have noticeably faster backup speeds, but finding well-made, readily available, and reliable enclosures at a not-completely-ridiculous price has become somewhat difficult, and investing in one of the higher end FW800 enclosures has the downside that, unless the enclosure also has USB 3.1 or eSATA, it probably won't be super useful when you replace the system.
Examples are the AKiTiO Thunderbolt to eSATA 6.0G adapter (this will take SATA SSDs up to a working speed of 550 MB/s which is essentially the SATA 6.0 limit), the Kanex USB3/eSATA Thunderbolt adapter, and the Transcend and Buffalo Thunderbolt 2.5-inch SSD/HDD drives. Oyen Digital used to make a great 2.5-inch FW800/USB3.1 enclosure for about $60, but recently discontinued it. OWC may still offer some FW800 products.
Thanks for the replies.
This is mainly for doing CCC backups on a HDD and possibly a SSD and for photos and such. Obviously this can be done using USB but it's as you know not very fast. I did find this enclosure. It should work correct? I will be able to boot from CCC backup using this enclosure?
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MSTG800U3K/
This is mainly for doing CCC backups on a HDD and possibly a SSD and for photos and such. Obviously this can be done using USB but it's as you know not very fast. I did find this enclosure. It should work correct? I will be able to boot from CCC backup using this enclosure?
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MSTG800U3K/
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Don't buy a firewire800 enclosure -- isn't going to be any faster than USB2.
You -might- get a thunderbolt external drive, BUT... they are overpriced. Not worth it, in my opinion.
IF all you need is a bootable cloned backup, DO buy a USB3 drive (or enclosure), either HDD or SSD.
YES, it WILL be "slower".
BUT --- it's ONLY BACKUP. Speed doesn't really matter.
You're not going to be needing to boot from it that often.
You don't need fast speeds for general photo storage and editing, either.
USB2 will do well enough.
Sooner or later you're going to get a new Mac, and then the speed of USB3 will shine.
VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION:
Have you replaced the platter-based drive inside the MBPro with an SSD?
If not --- WHY not?
Cheapest, fastest way to "get more performance" out of it...
You -might- get a thunderbolt external drive, BUT... they are overpriced. Not worth it, in my opinion.
IF all you need is a bootable cloned backup, DO buy a USB3 drive (or enclosure), either HDD or SSD.
YES, it WILL be "slower".
BUT --- it's ONLY BACKUP. Speed doesn't really matter.
You're not going to be needing to boot from it that often.
You don't need fast speeds for general photo storage and editing, either.
USB2 will do well enough.
Sooner or later you're going to get a new Mac, and then the speed of USB3 will shine.
VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION:
Have you replaced the platter-based drive inside the MBPro with an SSD?
If not --- WHY not?
Cheapest, fastest way to "get more performance" out of it...
The Thunderbolt adapters are way overpriced, I will agree. But the FW800 adapters are much faster than the USB2.
I have a really nice 750GB G-Drive I bought on eBay for $30 bucks for doing exactly what you are looking to do. It's FW800 and does the job nicely. I partitioned it a few times for CCC5 cloning and also for Time Machine. Works very well for me.