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Mobile thunderbolt drives?

R

RonShort

macrumors member
Original poster
What is out there? All I have see is the seagate... Ideally I want something fast/big and need someway to also connect to USB devices for transfer....
 
If a device is USB 2.0, going through Thunderbolt won't help.

For now though, the best consumer option are the Seagate drives unless you have a 2012 MBA with USB3.0
 
awer25 said:
If a device is USB 2.0, going through Thunderbolt won't help.

For now though, the best consumer option are the Seagate drives unless you have a 2012 MBA with USB3.0
Click to expand...


I mean its main use would be on a t-bolt port but to connect to other devices for data transfer...
 
Pretty lame read/write speeds for both the Thunderbolt and USB3.0...
Putting a regular drive in an enclosure for use through TB or USB3.0 isn't that great. SSDs are the way to go. Problem is, of course, their price...

This is a Mid-2010-128GB-MBP SSD that I took out and stuck into an USB3.0 enclosure. The enclosure was just 15€, so not the best one out there I guess.

86605264.png
 
Last edited by a moderator:
KPOM said:
CNet just reviewed this drive, which is $229 and compatible with both Thunderbolt and USB 3.0. Best of all, it comes with a cable.

http://reviews.cnet.com/external-ha...bolt-hd/4505-3190_7-35338125.html?tag=FD.epic
Click to expand...

It's still such a price premium. You can get a 1TB 2.5" drive for ~$85. Throw in another $15 for a USB 3.0 hub and you're at $100 for a 1TB external drive with an interface that's only bottlenecked by the drive itself. That means it's still a $130 premium just for the Thunderbolt interface/cable. Crazy.
 
awer25 said:
It's still such a price premium. You can get a 1TB 2.5" drive for ~$85. Throw in another $15 for a USB 3.0 hub and you're at $100 for a 1TB external drive with an interface that's only bottlenecked by the drive itself. That means it's still a $130 premium just for the Thunderbolt interface/cable. Crazy.
Click to expand...

This has been true for every technology at the beginning of its lifecycle. Not crazy and not new. You want the latest technology, you pay a premium for it.
 
kodeman53 said:
This has been true for every technology at the beginning of its lifecycle. Not crazy and not new. You want the latest technology, you pay a premium for it.
Click to expand...

It's not emerging technology. It's well over a year old now and on tens of millions of computers, and I can pretty much count the amount of devices on one hand. Price premium is too high for that.
 
awer25 said:
It's not emerging technology. It's well over a year old now and on tens of millions of computers, and I can pretty much count the amount of devices on one hand. Price premium is too high for that.
Click to expand...

Tens of Millions??????? 🙄 Intel introduced the first motherboard that supports the Thunderbolt peripheral standard in June (2012).
 
awer25 said:
It's not emerging technology. It's well over a year old now and on tens of millions of computers, and I can pretty much count the amount of devices on one hand. Price premium is too high for that.
Click to expand...

It's been out for just over a year and up until now has only been on a small handful of Macs. They've just started touching the PC world in the past few weeks.

I've had Thunderbolt on my iMac over a year, but this past month I was able to actually afford a few peripherals... and it's pretty amazing. But seriously, I got a 3TB Thunderbolt external w/ a cable for under $350. That's not bad at all.
 
TPadden said:
Tens of Millions??????? 🙄 Intel introduced the first motherboard that supports the Thunderbolt peripheral standard in June (2012).
Click to expand...

They were introduced in Macs as of early 2011.

As for the number, this 2012 CNet article cites them selling 5.x Million Macs in a single quarter.

This Fortune article says they sold 4 Million Macs in Q1 '11 (admittedly the quarter immediately preceding Thunderbolt)

I only looked at a few articles, but it seems Apple sells around 4-5 Million Macs a quarter, and every one of them has Thunderbolt (minus the Mac Pro, but no one still buys that). That's 16-20 Million Macs with Thunderbolt over the last 12 months.


Fortimir said:
But seriously, I got a 3TB Thunderbolt external w/ a cable for under $350. That's not bad at all.
Click to expand...

I got a 3TB USB 3.0 drive (& cable!) for $129. $350 for the same internal drive is overpriced, considering neither I/O system is the bottleneck.
 
awer25 said:
It's not emerging technology. It's well over a year old now and on tens of millions of computers, and I can pretty much count the amount of devices on one hand. Price premium is too high for that.
Click to expand...

Your reading comprehension skills match your ability to explain technology prices.

I did not call it emerging technology, you did. You then proceeded to build a bigger pile of fiction on your 'emerging technology' mistake.
 
RonShort said:
What is out there? All I have see is the seagate... Ideally I want something fast/big and need someway to also connect to USB devices for transfer....
Click to expand...
Are you running a 2012?

Ideally, Id prefer a TB drive but realistically USB3 offers incredible speed at ZERO price markup so is their a specific reasoning for needing TB?
 
urkel said:
Are you running a 2012?

Ideally, Id prefer a TB drive but realistically USB3 offers incredible speed at ZERO price markup so is their a specific reasoning for needing TB?
Click to expand...

after reading this thread... i am now looking into a USB3 😎

(yes on 2012 MBA)
 
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