** EDIT TO ADD: I think the Vantec NexStar eSATA to USB 3.0 Adapter is garbage. It gives me all kinds of disconnect and disk write errors when used with my G-Drive. I'd stay far away from this one if I were you! I'll try to remember to update this post when I find something that doesn't completely suck as bad as the Vantec.
Anyone have suggestions for another brand of eSATA to USB 3.0 adapter? I'm leaning towards the one sold by NewerTech.
Otherwise everything on this list has been working great—though the Uspeed hub has me concerned in the long-term because it gets pretty hot. I put it in one of those elevated Rubbermaid drawer type things that uses a metal mesh and it seems to stay cooler in there as it transfers the heat to the metal and has good ventilation. When we finally move I'm going to build an Ikea hacker type desk so I'll probably build a little compartment for it all (along with drive racks) with a small fan to keep it cool.
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My Retina MacBook Pro is coming Wednesday and all my accessories are coming tomorrow. Here is what I bought:
- Transcend USB 3.0 Multi Card Reader
- eSATA Vantec NexStar eSATA to USB 3.0 Adapter
- Uspeed USB 3.0 7 port Hub with USB 3.0 Cable and Power Adapter
- iMic regular USB audio device
I haven't bought a flash drive yet, but I'm waiting on the newly announced SanDisk Extreme series to become widely available. They read 190MB/s, look nice, and seem to have decent price points.
Here is my "dock" solution:
Runs using the 7-port USB 3.0 hub and adapters. As you know, it handles 5Gbits/s. That is plenty fast to handle a couple hard drives, card reader, and a 2.0 hub for printer, Wacom, etc. My setup...
- Port 1: Card Reader for my large CF cards [480–960Mbps]
- Port 2: GoFlex USB 3.0 1TB portable drive [~720Mbps]
- Port 3: G-Drive 2TB using eSATA to 3.0 adapter (used FW port before) [~960Mbps] (EDIT: this adapter is crap. Looking for something better. Suggestions?)
- Port 4: WD 2TB legacy 2.0 drive (backs up G-Drive using CCC, might buy 3.0 enclosure later) [480Mbps max]
- Port 5: Empty for future expansion / charging iPad
- Port 6: Empty for future expansion / charging iPhone
- Port 7: USB 2.0 4-port hub for printer, Wacom, iMic usb audio controller, color calibration, etc [480Mbps max]
So I'll have only two cords going to my system: Power and USB 3.0. The single port should be able to handle all of those devices ok, and I'll never use them all at once, or probably even half of them at once. Even so it only totals up to about 3.6Gbps max right now. And if there is a bottleneck, I can always plug one of my 3.0 drives into the other 3.0 port on my machine. When I get my SanDisk Extreme I'll probably plug it into the extra port when I need to transfer files. And since I have the audio controller over USB now, I don't have to mess with plugging in my Bose desktop speaker system. And I'll only occasionally plug in my 26" monitor when I need to test non-retina websites. It's getting kind of old anyway and starting to look and act funny—plus it's not retina!
This is basically a poor man's Thunderbolt dock. But I don't need TB speed right now for my spinny drives. In a few years once SSD RAID arrays are cheaper I might need more bandwidth than 5Gbps, but by then TB docks should be cheaper.
I'll be sure to update you guys on my new accessories and how the dock solution is working out once the new system comes on Wednesday.
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