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Thunderbolt SSD

A

antman2x2

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 1, 2011
538
220
New YAWK
:mad:Honestly, I refuse to open the machine to install an SSD, so I figured TB is my next best bet.

Can anyone tell me my options for UNDER 400 dollars to get an SSD running through thunderbolt? I cannot find a single affordable product. Perhaps you guys can advise?
 
You add the word thunderbolt to any product and that equates to an exorbitantly price product
 
One solution:

Seagate GoFlex TB adapter ($99) + Thunderbolt Cable ($49) + SSD (?)

Thats what I'm running. Its a bit ugly with just a bare drive, but if you wanted you could probably remove the hard drive from a cheap goflex drive and put the SSD inside. I opted for cheap and ugly. :)


I would discourage against opening up the machine unless you're really motivated and know what the heck you're doing. I like to think I know what I'm doing, but I was worried I was going to accidentally break something when I took apart my iMac. I've seen at least a few threads here where people broke connectors... :(

Plus if you ever need to take it in for service, you'll probably need to swap the drive out -- which is why I eventually removed my SSD from inside the machine and put it in the setup above.
 
omvs said:
One solution:
I would discourage against opening up the machine unless you're really motivated and know what the heck you're doing. I like to think I know what I'm doing, but I was worried I was going to accidentally break something when I took apart my iMac. I've seen at least a few threads here where people broke connectors... :(
Click to expand...


i have watched a video 2-4 times, readed and re-readed the instructions
at first i was like OMG, but reading again and again, and looking for what seems to be the best way to go 'inside' i told myself, it's true, it takes time, you must be careful, but if the guide is 100% correct there is no reason to spoil anything

it's important to have a laptop or printed papers while you have the imac opened (you dont wanna go on remembering what you saw before, but perhaps, do step-to-step everything the guide-video says (ex: watch out for the cable there there and there and you are done here)
no kids around, maximum concentration, all the required tools

if you have opened pcs before or imacs etc, i think it's doable.
 
New Apple said:
no kids around, maximum concentration, all the required tools
Click to expand...

And most importantly something you can touch to act as "ground" for static... ;)

----------
antman2x2 said:
:mad:Honestly, I refuse to open the machine to install an SSD, so I figured TB is my next best bet.

Can anyone tell me my options for UNDER 400 dollars to get an SSD running through thunderbolt? I cannot find a single affordable product. Perhaps you guys can advise?
Click to expand...

It depends what speed you want. You can get a nice looking enclosure from OWC in FireWire which I believe will be faster than internal HDD in real use cases because of the random access latency, whereas the capped sequential read/write will be around 80ish MB/s which will be the same as the HDD. That still leaves you the opportunity to move the SSD to a better TB enclosure in the future.

Sources
SSD + Firewire 800 as a bootdrive?
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/12764128/

Is upgrading an iMac to an SSD over USB 2/FireWire an upgrade?
http://apple.stackexchange.com/ques...imac-to-an-ssd-over-usb-2-firewire-an-upgrade
 
omvs said:
One solution:

Seagate GoFlex TB adapter ($99) + Thunderbolt Cable ($49) + SSD (?)
Click to expand...

That seems to be a good solution. There are plenty of good 128 GB drives for under $200.

At that price, you might even be able to get something like the 256Gb Mushkin Chronos Deluxe, which can be had through Newegg.com for $230 with free shipping. It's a well reviewed drive, although perhaps not the most reliable. I'd never put one inside an iMac, but externally or in a Mac Pro, It's worth considering.
 
omvs said:
One solution:

Seagate GoFlex TB adapter ($99) + Thunderbolt Cable ($49) + SSD (?)
Click to expand...

Would this setup allow you to install Bootcamp?

One of the reason I did the swap was Bootcamp can only be installed on internal hard drive.
 
88 King said:
Would this setup allow you to install Bootcamp?
Click to expand...

Yes - at least with the seagate adapter. Currently I only run Win7 off the thunderbolt drive, though previously I had both OSX and Win7 booting off separate partitions.

However, the install process for getting bootcamp onto the SSD is a bit more involved... I documented it in other threads, but basically you have to first install to the internal drive (bootcamp assistant won't let you choose the TB drive), then use WinClone or something similar to move the partition.

NOTE: Win7 will not sleep with a thunderbolt peripheral attached -- apparently a driver issues Microsoft hasn't solved yet. And I haven't managed to get hibernate to be succesful - it goes to 'sleep' fine but won't correctly come back.
 
omvs said:
One solution:

Seagate GoFlex TB adapter ($99) + Thunderbolt Cable ($49) + SSD (?)

Thats what I'm running. Its a bit ugly with just a bare drive, but if you wanted you could probably remove the hard drive from a cheap goflex drive and put the SSD inside. I opted for cheap and ugly. :)


I would discourage against opening up the machine unless you're really motivated and know what the heck you're doing. I like to think I know what I'm doing, but I was worried I was going to accidentally break something when I took apart my iMac. I've seen at least a few threads here where people broke connectors... :(

Plus if you ever need to take it in for service, you'll probably need to swap the drive out -- which is why I eventually removed my SSD from inside the machine and put it in the setup above.
Click to expand...

Your getting full SSD speed as if it was internal?
 
charlieroberts said:
yes
Click to expand...

Interesting. I am not.

I get around 250MB/s writes and something like 330MB/s reads from my Sandisk Extreme attached via the GoFlex adapter. I know this isn't bad - and the Mac feels fast - but it's well short of the 500MB/s the drive is capable of.

I haven't yet taken the Mac apart and tried the SSD directly off the internal sata controller, so I don't know if the performance will be better then, but I would imagine it would... The drive is aligned properly and nothing else seems awry, so I can only assume its the GoFlex adapter that is slowing things down.
 
DeF46 said:
I don't think so, the Seagate Thunderbolt adapter review showed that it's nearer SATAII than SATAIII speeds.

When paired with the right drive, the Seagate Thunderbolt adapter does quite well, albeit not at native SATA speeds.

Source:
http://www.storagereview.com/thunderbolt_storage_with_any_hard_drive_or_ssd
Click to expand...

Chippy99 said:
Interesting. I am not.

I get around 250MB/s writes and something like 330MB/s reads from my Sandisk Extreme attached via the GoFlex adapter. I know this isn't bad - and the Mac feels fast - but it's well short of the 500MB/s the drive is capable of.

I haven't yet taken the Mac apart and tried the SSD directly off the internal sata controller, so I don't know if the performance will be better then, but I would imagine it would... The drive is aligned properly and nothing else seems awry, so I can only assume its the GoFlex adapter that is slowing things down.
Click to expand...


Sorry my SSD is Sata II so I shouldn't have just said that. hehe
 
omvs said:
Yes - at least with the seagate adapter. Currently I only run Win7 off the thunderbolt drive, though previously I had both OSX and Win7 booting off separate partitions.

However, the install process for getting bootcamp onto the SSD is a bit more involved... I documented it in other threads, but basically you have to first install to the internal drive (bootcamp assistant won't let you choose the TB drive), then use WinClone or something similar to move the partition.

NOTE: Win7 will not sleep with a thunderbolt peripheral attached -- apparently a driver issues Microsoft hasn't solved yet. And I haven't managed to get hibernate to be succesful - it goes to 'sleep' fine but won't correctly come back.
Click to expand...

I don't have any TB device, but TB shouldn't be transparent to the system? In that case wouldn't the Win 7 installer just see the TB HDD as an internal HDD? If it does, the Bootcamp Assistant can be ignored and just select the extrenal TB HDD as a startup disk. Is this viable?
 
I'm surprised nobody's started making a Thunderbolt housing yet that you can just drop a bare drive in. Hopefully this will happen down the road.
 
Intel is killing thunderbolt, developers are avoiding it. At the same time, there are some who are investing in it, but the products are slow to market. I have a sinking feeling Thunderbolt will be failure unless Intel changes its attitude. I think OWC will be the first to offer us what we are looking for. Aside from ONNTO, out of Taiwan. Google them.
 
itsamacthing said:
Intel is killing thunderbolt, developers are avoiding it. At the same time, there are some who are investing in it, but the products are slow to market. I have a sinking feeling Thunderbolt will be failure unless Intel changes its attitude. I think OWC will be the first to offer us what we are looking for. Aside from ONNTO, out of Taiwan. Google them.
Click to expand...

Looks like nice stuff! Wish it was sold in the US....can't find it anywhere.
 
Is there a particular reason you need Thunderbolt external SSD? A USB3 is as fast as Thunderbolt when it comes to single-drive SSD's and much cheaper. However, it can use up to 12% of your CPU so if you're CPU power-user, Thunderbolt is the way to go. Otherwise, go USB3.
 
Tanax said:
Is there a particular reason you need Thunderbolt external SSD? A USB3 is as fast as Thunderbolt when it comes to single-drive SSD's and much cheaper. However, it can use up to 12% of your CPU so if you're CPU power-user, Thunderbolt is the way to go. Otherwise, go USB3.
Click to expand...

My computer doesn't have USB 3
 
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