Thunderbolt does not work on High Sierra iMac 27 mid 2011

[winnie_beex]

hello,

I have got
1- an old powered dock - on one end of the cable is a "plug" not dissimilar with Thunderbolt plug , on the other an ordinary USB plug , two black cables and one blue , all told ; they seem to have the same terminal plugs ( I suspect it is USB 2 ) -
2- an unpowered USB hub , two ports USB "regular"
3- these cables < For Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter A1790 + TB2 2M Cable >

on system preferences >> network >> Thunderbolt is on red

I googled and googled and could not find an answer using what I have at my disposition or otherwise ( I ought to mention that Apple is a complete new environment for me )

I cloned the spinner inside the machine on an SSD , works a tad faster as far as I can tell , only a smidgeon faster on USB

I would like to boot from external SSD via Thunderbolt , as I do not have the courage to replace the spinner with an SSD

please help

Please explain what steps are necessary to enable Thunderbolt , but like for a retarded kid , please

many thanks in advance

 

[PaulD-UK]

You have a 2011 iMac?
'An old powered dock' isn't much to go on. Does it have a label with any name or numbers on the bottom/back?

You seem to know the difference between TB2 and USB-C.
Which type of 'Thunderbolt plug' is on 'one end of the cable', and does that end plug into the dock ?
If the other end is a USB 2 plug it is not much use, but the blue cable is possibly a USB-A USB 3 cable.

If there is the slightest chance that you have a 2011 era TB1 dock that was bought with the iMac, with a blue USB 3 port, then that would allow a USB-A USB 3 SSD to be attached.

However, I've just read your 2022 post, and I think probably what you are calling a 'dock' is a Hard Drive (spinner) enclosure?

So you would have to use you TB2 cable, plugged into the iMac and into the TB2 to TB3 adapter.
Plug the adapter USB-C end into a modern TB 3 dock with a power supply, and then you could plug a new USB 3 or TB 3 enclosure with a SSD into the dock.

But the cost of all that is more than the iMac is worth, although you could use a second hand TB3 dock.

 

[macnavarra]

hello,

I have got
1- an old powered dock - on one end of the cable is a "plug" not dissimilar with Thunderbolt plug , on the other an ordinary USB plug , two black cables and one blue , all told ; they seem to have the same terminal plugs ( I suspect it is USB 2 ) -
2- an unpowered USB hub , two ports USB "regular"
3- these cables < For Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter A1790 + TB2 2M Cable >

on system preferences >> network >> Thunderbolt is on red

I googled and googled and could not find an answer using what I have at my disposition or otherwise ( I ought to mention that Apple is a complete new environment for me )

I cloned the spinner inside the machine on an SSD , works a tad faster as far as I can tell , only a smidgeon faster on USB

I would like to boot from external SSD via Thunderbolt , as I do not have the courage to replace the spinner with an SSD

please help

Please explain what steps are necessary to enable Thunderbolt , but like for a retarded kid , please

many thanks in advance

Plug Adapter directly in Thunderbolt port 1.

 

[PaulD-UK]

"Plug Adapter directly in Thunderbolt port 1"
You need to use the TB2 cable to do that, and any TB3 SSD you connect to the other end has to have it's own power supply, as the adapter doesn't supply power.

Supplying power if the enclosure doesn't have a power supply is easiest done with a TB 3 dock.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I ought to mention that Apple is a complete new environment for me

For an Apple newbie, a 2011 Mac is not what you want to use.

Sell/donate it and get something newer. Windoze if you can't afford a Mac.

 

[macnavarra]

"You need to use the TB2 cable to do that, and any TB3 SSD you connect to the other end has to have it's own power supply, as the adapter doesn't supply power," Doesn't supply power ? yes the cable for sure. Hint: connect direct to another Mac, boot the other Mac with a usb boot drive, disk utility reinstall or install another supported macOS version and at a given time use the screen dialog to copy your "settings".

 

[Dmelasecca]

hello,

I have got
1- an old powered dock - on one end of the cable is a "plug" not dissimilar with Thunderbolt plug , on the other an ordinary USB plug , two black cables and one blue , all told ; they seem to have the same terminal plugs ( I suspect it is USB 2 ) -
2- an unpowered USB hub , two ports USB "regular"
3- these cables < For Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter A1790 + TB2 2M Cable >

on system preferences >> network >> Thunderbolt is on red

I googled and googled and could not find an answer using what I have at my disposition or otherwise ( I ought to mention that Apple is a complete new environment for me )

I cloned the spinner inside the machine on an SSD , works a tad faster as far as I can tell , only a smidgeon faster on USB

I would like to boot from external SSD via Thunderbolt , as I do not have the courage to replace the spinner with an SSD

please help

Please explain what steps are necessary to enable Thunderbolt , but like for a retarded kid , please

many thanks in advance

I boot my late 2013 imac 27” off a thunderbolt 1/2 ssd. Well its a thunderbolt 1/2 enclosure with a 500 GB nvme m.2 ssd. I added pictures of the ssd and enclosure on my iMac. No dock required. I bought off eBay alittle less than a year ago. I also posted a picture of my speed. Imac is really fast. Havent seen the color spin wheel since I started booting from it.

I bought the enclosure with the nvme m.2 ssd already in it. Brand new btw. Guy had 40 in stock with different storage from 250MB to 2T.

All I had to do was plug the thunderbolt cable (provided) into the iMac and other end into the enclosure. I used disk utility to format the ssd and clone is from my HD which barely had any storage used up. I then went into setting and made the ssd the bootdrive instead of HD. I then restarted the iMac n ran speed test.

Success!