SSD to thunderbolt adaptor cable

[brickers911]

Hi all

My first post, my imac is a late 2012 and I have been experiencing some slowness lately, im worried the conventional HDD could be at risk, rather than go straight in and replace the HDD with an SSD I want to first get an external drive set up and use time machine to back up everything. Im a relative novice and a bit thrifty so having done a bit of googling, I thought I might be able to purchase a 500GB 2.5 SSD to use for this, which if my HDD fails I could swap out and although there are a number of adaptors on the market I was thinking maybe theres a cable I can just use (cheaper). After a bit more googling the search seems to just throw up sata to USB cables, so my question is, are there cables out there just to plug my thunderbolt connection to an SSD or any other suggestions to simply achieve the same . Thanks

 

[chabig]

Your Mac has USB-A ports. Use one of them.

 

[brickers911]

But isnt the thunderbolt much faster?

 

[Fishrrman]

Listen to what chabig said above.

Forget about thunderbolt.
Use USB3 instead.

You can buy either a "pre-built" USB3 SSD (such as the Samsung t5 or Sandisk Extreme), or get a "bare" 2.5" SATA SSD and an enclosure (MAKE SURE the enclosure supports UASP).

You didn't tell us what the capacity of the internal HDD is?

IF you buy an SSD that has enough capacity to hold the entire contents of your internal SSD, then DON'T use Time Machine.

Use CarbonCopyCloner instead (or SuperDuper).
Both are FREE to download and use for 30 days.
Both will create BOOTABLE CLONES of your internal drive (EXACT copies).
A clone will boot and run just like the internal drive -- but it will be MUCH FASTER because you're booting from an SSD (instead of the internal HDD).

Try this.
Within a day, you'll be right back here posting "I never could have believed that this would make such a performance difference!"
You'll just have to trust me on this one...

 

[Anarchy99]

But isnt the thunderbolt much faster?

Yes unfortunately it is faster, but no one makes what you seek, ive tried looking and the closest options i have got to work are pretty pricey.

im going to assume when you mention SSD you want a really fast SSD eg a NVMe drive (because if your ssd is SATA or mSATA USB would be almost as fast but way cheaper)


option one: get a egpu enclosure then get a PCIE to NVME adapter so a akitio node is about $200and $30 or so for the adapter then because your mac has older than thunderbolt 3 you need Apple's Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter ($59.00 and yes you need this adapter no other Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapters are bidirectional)

so all told your about $290 dollars in before the SSD cost.

option 2: get a tekq rapide SSD (starts at $199.99 w/240gb ssd)its really a easily shuckable thunderbolt 3 to nvme adapter, then once again you need Apple's Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter ($59.00)

so you would think that would be the best option because the whole package is small like a deck of cards and cheaper except there is a major caveat.
no one makes a Apple's Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter with a way to inject additional power.

so then it needs to be connected via a thunderbolt 3 powered dock/hub or diasy chained off of another powered thunderbolt3 device.

so while this is a great option for people like me because i already have a thunderbolt 3 egpu that i plug my 2015 mbp into, if you dont your either adding that back in or going for a $100 or so dollar powered dock/hub.
so this ends up being the most expensive and convoluted but saves desk space potentially

TLDR: probably not worth the $300-500 minimum buy in for the additional speed over USB for most people

 

[mikzn]

another alternative is buy a 2.5" Serial ATA Hard Drive Enclosure you can put a 500 g in it ( ie Samsung EVO etc) and if you swap the drive later you can move the HDD into the enclosure and keep as a back up. Not much more $$ ($21.95 ?) than buying a USB cable.

 

[SaSaSushi]

The Delock 42510 Thunderbolt enclosure is $85 at Synchrotech. All you need is a Thunderbolt cable and an SSD. I booted my Late 2013 iMac off of my own for years.

I loved the enclosure so much that I invested in the Apple TB1 to TB2 adapter so I could continue using it with my 2017 iMac. Now I use the same 500GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD exclusively for BootCamp.

It's a great little device.

 

[brickers911]

Listen to what chabig said above.

Forget about thunderbolt.
Use USB3 instead.

You can buy either a "pre-built" USB3 SSD (such as the Samsung t5 or Sandisk Extreme), or get a "bare" 2.5" SATA SSD and an enclosure (MAKE SURE the enclosure supports UASP).

You didn't tell us what the capacity of the internal HDD is?

IF you buy an SSD that has enough capacity to hold the entire contents of your internal SSD, then DON'T use Time Machine.

Use CarbonCopyCloner instead (or SuperDuper).
Both are FREE to download and use for 30 days.
Both will create BOOTABLE CLONES of your internal drive (EXACT copies).
A clone will boot and run just like the internal drive -- but it will be MUCH FASTER because you're booting from an SSD (instead of the internal HDD).

Try this.
Within a day, you'll be right back here posting "I never could have believed that this would make such a performance difference!"
You'll just have to trust me on this one...

[doublepost=1545136674][/doublepost]Ok Ive ordered the 500Gb T5 at £116, such a lot of good reviews on Amazon, and one person has configured their mac to boot up from it instead of the existing 1TB HDD which is what I have at the moment, looks like the simplest and cheapest way to acheive what I want for now and saves open heart surgery on my imac.

 

[brickers911]

Hi all just to let you know I have now got my external SSD connected and configured to boot, I had a little problem with working out how to partition the drive with Mojave, something to do with newer APFS on Mojave. Anyway surprised myself really as everything lovely and fast now. What a relatively easy and cheap way of turbcharging your mac with an older HDD. BTW is the HDD just redundant now?

 

[chabig]

I think it is. I set mine up to make weekly clones of the boot SSD to the internal drive. At least it’s useful for something that way.

 

[brickers911]

I think it is. I set mine up to make weekly clones of the boot SSD to the internal drive. At least it’s useful for something that way.

That may be a bit advanced for me, im surprised I got this far, I might need a nap before I try