Are there any decent options out there for a USB C Thunderbolt external SSD? Such as for a working drive. I can't afford the new fancy LacIe drives.
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External USB C SSD
- Thread starter BJB Productions
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afallnstar
macrumors regular
I just bought this USB-C enclosure and popped a Samsung EVO SSD in it. Works perfectly.
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I recommend this approach as well. Grab a respected USB-3 enclosure and low cost SSD drive and put together your own accessory. You don't need a Thunderbolt enclosure, a USB-3 (using USB-C connector) will suffice. TB is overkill for the transfer rate of single SATA and PCIe SSDs unless you need the daisy chain capability of TB peripherals.
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Thanks! I ended up purchasing a Samsung 250gb m.2 as a working drive to put in my new enclosure. However, If I could ever find a usb-C case to put it in, I may make it portable. Would USB-C Bottleneck the speed of the m.2?
What enclosure did you put it in? If your enclosure has a USB-3 port (e.g. a USB-3 micro B or type B) then you have no worries about a bottleneck. There's no need to get a USB-C enclosure where the only difference would the connector if USB-3 is the protocol.
ZapNZs
macrumors 68020
As I am actively learning in this area, someone can clarify or correct me if I am wrong. To my understanding...
Whether or not USB becomes your bottleneck will depend on the drive & the enclosure you purchased:
If you purchased a m.2 SATA SSD like the Samsung 850 Evo m.2 and a USB 3.1 gen2 enclosure...
These drives peak at around 550 MB/s as they are limited by SATA 3's saturation. USB 3.1 gen2 goes up to something like 1,200 MB/s IIRC as its theoretical peak - with a good USB 3.1 gen2 m.2 SATA enclosure, you should saturate the drive's capability (and hence get read/write speeds approaching the drive's limits.)
If you purchased a m.2 SATA SSD like the Samsung 850 Evo m.2 and a USB 3.1 gen1 (USB 3.0) enclosure...
If your enclosure is legacy USB 3.1 gen1 (formally known as USB 3.0, where you would use a C-->microA cable), then you will still get good speeds, but you will probably not quite max out the drive. 300-400 MB/s may be more of a realistic expectation, even though USB 3.1 gen1 has a theoretical peak of around 600 MB/s (with theoretical being the key word.)
A potential bottleneck for both of the above is the chipset in the enclosure, as I've found that some of the less expensive m.2 enclosures yield read/write speeds well below what the SSD and interface support, and lower than what other m.2 enclosures with the same SSD/interface are capable of.
If you purchased a m.2 PCIe SSD like the Samsung 960 Evo or 960 Pro...
USB will be a huge bottleneck, regardless of the version - The Samsung 960 Pro can read up to something like 3,500 MB/s and write something like 2,500 MB/s. So you would need ThunderBolt3 to take full advantage of the 960 Pro (along with an expensive enclosure) or ThunderBolt 2 (which would still not quite max the SSD.)
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I think you're spot on. USB3 gen 2 theoretically supports up to 10 Gbps (gigabits/s) and the new m.2 PCIe SSDs can do 2500MB/s (megabytes/s) == 20 Gbps so USB 3 gen 2 would be a bottleneck at maximum theoretical transfer speeds.