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Thunderbolt drive enclosure only?
- Thread starter xgman
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I doubt that very much. Multi-Bay USB3 enclosures have vastly inferior thruput compared to something like the Thunderbay IV/4. The same will apply to USB 3.1 enclosures.
Keep your eyes open at several vendors for refurb products. Purchase a smaller capacity and swap out the HDD.
There are actually a few "empty" Thunderbolt chassis new, used, and refurbs. Google is your friend, as are Amazon and ebay to name a sites.
For a single drive, Apple even sells a few configurations you might want to look at.
There are actually a few "empty" Thunderbolt chassis new, used, and refurbs. Google is your friend, as are Amazon and ebay to name a sites.
For a single drive, Apple even sells a few configurations you might want to look at.
Agree with the first point. TB2 multi enclosures from Caldigit, OWC, etc serve a nice purpose now, but if history is any indicator, 3.1 will likely cross back over these early products yet again, Ala 3.0 over firewire.
Let's hope that USB 3.1 takes a short time to get it right.
The 4-5 years of USB 3.0 adoption were painful for many. Lots of compatibility issues; many hub issues; and products released that could not be updated to fix issues.
Heck, there are still unresolved USB 3.0 issues today.
I think it is because vendors rushed products to market as certification was nota requirement to start selling them, and even today, certification is rare and still does not guarantee proper operation.
At least with Thunderbolt, without certification you cannot sell a product. Intel requires certification before a product can be sold.
If you pay attention, you will see some companies announcing Thunderbolt products but taking months to actually deliver to customers. I guess there must be some last minute issues that need to be resolved before certification is granted.
Agreed... is there any USB 3 enclosure that can achieve anywhere near 500MB/s? Almost any USB 3 enclosure I've seen reviewed (or owned) is lucky to achieve half that. Is that going to be the same for USB 3.1? Are the advertised speeds going to remain unachieved years after introduction?
And what about random disconnects. Will there be constant issues with USB 3.1 devices disconnecting or sleeping unasked for?
That's one thing I like about Thunderbolt... it's fast and reliable. Rock solid. It's not for keyboards and Mice.
Agree - When I finally settled in with 3.0 (a few externals to go with a late 2012 mac) the search for a quality hub was painful. Cables were always a mess.
Thunderbolt is not perfect, but it's a tiny set of products, so easy to troubleshoot.
I firstly bought the Seagate portable GoFlex adapter and I had disconnection problems with my 512GB SSD when I was working with really demanding applications like video production. I later found a post from a guy who explain why Thunderbolt powered enclosures can't support SSD over 256GB.
I then bought the Seagate GoFlex Desk Thunderbolt adapter. With is power brick, no more problems and blazing Thunderbolt for less than 200$ and I can use any drive I want! And even daisy chain my Thunderbolt display to it.
I then bought the Seagate GoFlex Desk Thunderbolt adapter. With is power brick, no more problems and blazing Thunderbolt for less than 200$ and I can use any drive I want! And even daisy chain my Thunderbolt display to it.
Well, maybe the earlier SSDs required too much power, but I've been running a 480GB Intel 730 from an external bus-powered thunderbolt enclosure without a single problem for the last 5 months.
Good solution.
Main problem with earlier Seagate Portable Thunderbolt GoFlex adapter was that it consumed a lot of power older SSD larger than 256GB made situation worse.
Fast forward to today's designs. LaCie and others now offering 512GB and even 1 TB bus powered Thunderbolt solutions.
We can thank newer Thunderbolt chip implementations, power management, and Samsung latest low-power SSD like 840 and 850 Evo, and 850 Pro. Lower power consumption than older SSD products.
Main problem with earlier Seagate Portable Thunderbolt GoFlex adapter was that it consumed a lot of power older SSD larger than 256GB made situation worse.
Fast forward to today's designs. LaCie and others now offering 512GB and even 1 TB bus powered Thunderbolt solutions.
We can thank newer Thunderbolt chip implementations, power management, and Samsung latest low-power SSD like 840 and 850 Evo, and 850 Pro. Lower power consumption than older SSD products.
It is a Samsung 840 Pro, so it's not a really old SSD. But I start to have problems only when I use it with big video file in demanding video editing software.
In this kind of situation, the desktop adapter work perfectly.
The 840 Pro is one of the "older" high-performance and high-current SSD models which may give problems with bus powered enclosures if the SSD capacity is > 256GB. The Crucial M4 is another one.
The 840 EVO however, seems to work fine for me using the LaCie Rugged and Seagate Thunderbolt Adapter. Other newer technology SSDs seem to work as well, although they don't have quite the high-performance of the previous generation drives.
Not quite. USB 3-1 and TB will live alongside each other for quite a while. These two technologies serve different needs. One does not have to die for another to be useful. FW and USB lived alongside each other on Macs for how many years?
OWC has plenty of them. 2.5" and 3.5", singles, duals, quads. As do quite a few others. Google is your friend.
There are a few 5-slot LaCie 5big drives here at attractive prices. Seagate drives inside. You could purchase the minimal 10TB configuration and swap in your own drives.
Refurb prices comparable to new empty chassis from others.
https://www.lacie.com/us/products/clearance/products/?id=10007
