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Thunderbolt hard drive carrier

Dweez

Dweez

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 13, 2011
1,248
10
Down by the river
I'm looking for an empty thunderbolt portable hard drive carrier, something similar to the Oyen Digital FW800/USB3 enclosure which I recently purchased.

There's a 1tb Samsung EVO SSD on my desk which I'd like to use for external storage via thunderbolt.

The Seagate Thunderbolt Adapter isn't an option as it needs to be truly portable - something which I can toss into my laptop bag & drag around on airplanes.

Thanks in advance for suggestions.
 
Thanks maflynn, if only they were single drive enclosures. I should have specified that in my initial post.
 
Last edited:
For the time being I think you're stuck with USB. Haven't seen any single-drive empty TB enclosures.
 
Dweez said:
I'm looking for an empty thunderbolt portable hard drive carrier, something similar to the Oyen Digital FW800/USB3 enclosure which I recently purchased.

There's a 1tb Samsung EVO SSD on my desk which I'd like to use for external storage via thunderbolt.

The Seagate Thunderbolt Adapter isn't an option as it needs to be truly portable - something which I can toss into my laptop bag & drag around on airplanes.

Thanks in advance for suggestions.
Click to expand...

Just get the 2.5" USM enclosure for the Seagate Thunderbolt adapter?
 
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maflynn said:
oops, my bad, I should of realized :eek:
Click to expand...

OK, I finally have to ask...

I have seen this quite often, and it always intrigue me, and was always afraid to ask because I didn't want to come across as a dumb ass.

The "of" in "I should of realized" sounds really weird to me. Does it mean "I should have realized"? When would one use the prior in place of the latter?
 
meistervu said:
OK, I finally have to ask...

I have seen this quite often, and it always intrigue me, and was always afraid to ask because I didn't want to come across as a dumb ass.

The "of" in "I should of realized" sounds really weird to me. Does it mean "I should have realized"? When would one use the prior in place of the latter?
Click to expand...

I believe the correct work there is "Have"
 
You do realize that your Samsung 1TB EVO drive draws too much power to be bus powered via Thunderbolt, right?

Consider:
- find a Seagate Backup Plus portable drive, extract the HDD, and replace with the EVO
- use the Seagate Thunderbolt Desktop adapter and separate AC power supply

Or, use one of the many USB 3.0 cases if your computer has USB 3.0 and you need the speed.

I have the 500GB EVO and can confirm that there is not enough bus power on Thunderbolt for reliable operation. Why? The available bus power has to supply the cable, the SSD, and the Thunderbolt controller. Therefore, I doubt the 1TB will work.

USB controllers take much less power.

I also have several 256GB LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt/USB3.0 drives, and on my Macbook Air and my Macbook Pro Retina, the performance is quite similar between USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt for a single SSD (The LaCie has Micron C500 or Sandisk X100 inside). For some apps, the Thunderbolt is the better performer. Thruput benchmarks like Blackmagic Design Disk Test doesn't tell the entire picture about performance.
 
meistervu said:
OK, I finally have to ask...

I have seen this quite often, and it always intrigue me, and was always afraid to ask because I didn't want to come across as a dumb ass.

The "of" in "I should of realized" sounds really weird to me. Does it mean "I should have realized"? When would one use the prior in place of the latter?
Click to expand...

Grammar tangent :)

Yes, you're correct. It's often spoken as "should've" which some people hear as "should of".

It belongs on the same shelf with "alot" and "could care less".
 
g4cube said:
You do realize that your Samsung 1TB EVO drive draws too much power to be bus powered via Thunderbolt, right?
Click to expand...

No it doesn't.

To the OP, do like I did - snag a 500GB Buffalo Thunderbolt MiniStation and pop the 1TB EVO 840 into it!

Take apart the Buffalo Thunderbolt MiniStation
 
RE: It does work

Run some extensive tests over few days and then check your conclusion. The power issue may not appear until after some extensive stress testing.

Sure, it may work for a few minutes, but may not work reliably under continuous use.

I'm writing about stress testing. The SSD will consumer more power after extensive I/O operations.
 
I was under the impression that most SSD's use <5 watts under maximum load. Thunderbolt is able to supply 10 watts. Are you telling me the controller is that wasteful?

Adam
 
I was under the impression that the Thunderbolt port on my 2012 MBP provided (per Mac World) 10 watts of power. Using Tom's Hardware as a reference for power consumption numbers of the 840 EVO, the 1tb unit looks to max out at 3.2 watts. I hadn't factored in the external controller/adapter, but surely it's not going to consume 6+ watts?

The goal is to store VMs on the external and not see a perceived performance difference between internal and external. When showing demos VMs will be spread across internal and external SSDs.

Am I off base on the bus power provided via Thunderbolt?

And I can only wish that this laptop had USB3...
 
Each end of the Thunderbolt cable consumes 1.5w worst case, then there is the overhead of the Thunderbolt controller and related circuitry which is another 3-4w.

As activity in an SSD increases, power consumption increases.

I have several SSDs here that consume more power than specified, worst case. Note well, that most SSD suppliers do not specifiy worst-case power consumption.

Just a word of warning as you venture more into DIY.

Review the previous posts from other users when attempting to use SSD devices larger than 256GB.

The good news? Newer SSDs seem to be getting more efficient, power wise. We're not too far from seeing suitable 500GB and larger capacities that may work well within the power envelope.

Your first clue should be that no manufacturer, except for the Promise J2, is offering a bus powered Thunderbolt drive larger than 512GB. And with the Promise, there is power and performance throttling. Inside the casing is power management which reduces the performance of the SSDs inside when bus-powered. Only when an external power supply is used does performance achieve what you would expect from a few SSDs.

To summarize, the 10W of power available from Thunderbolt is to power the cable, the controller and power management circuitry, and the device. No manufacturer specifies the power available to the SATA device inside accounting for the entire power allocation.

Be careful! Your data corruption may come at the most inopportune time. Review the previous efforts experimenting with larger SSD devices.
 
Thanks for the input, all. I'm leaning towards an AC powered enclosure, which while not convenient for my purposes will most likely be the most stable/flexible.
 
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