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CalDigit TS4 - using ports to connect older external drives

Rivergull

Rivergull

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 1, 2009
24
1





82 yr old senior here. Please direct me to the correct forum if necessary.
I'm about to connect my new CalDigit TS4 Thunderbolt Station to my 24" Apple M1 Desktop running Sequoia. I intend to attach (for now) two older external drives, my Apple Superdrive, and a PlusTek slide scanner. However, I read the following today somewhere on MacRumors: I wouldn't buy any external SSD less than USB4 and ideally Thunderbolt 4 at this point. Not counting flash/thumb drives and the like. SO... are my external drives too old to attach to the TS4? My two external drives: 2TB G-Drive USB-C marked 12-2018 (solely for Time Machine backups); 2TB Seagate Portable Drive USB 3.0 marked 2021 for videos and photos.
 
They should work fine. I think the recommendation cited above was probably more about not buying them because there are newer technologies that will provide better performance.
 
CalMin said:
They should work fine. I think the recommendation cited above was probably more about not buying them because there are newer technologies that will provide better performance.
Click to expand...
Thank you so much, CalMin
 
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Rivergull said:





82 yr old senior here. Please direct me to the correct forum if necessary.
I'm about to connect my new CalDigit TS4 Thunderbolt Station to my 24" Apple M1 Desktop running Sequoia. I intend to attach (for now) two older external drives, my Apple Superdrive, and a PlusTek slide scanner. However, I read the following today somewhere on MacRumors: I wouldn't buy any external SSD less than USB4 and ideally Thunderbolt 4 at this point. Not counting flash/thumb drives and the like. SO... are my external drives too old to attach to the TS4? My two external drives: 2TB G-Drive USB-C marked 12-2018 (solely for Time Machine backups); 2TB Seagate Portable Drive USB 3.0 marked 2021 for videos and photos.
Click to expand...
The drives will work just fine, but Apple has a newer file system called APFS. You might want to use Disk Utility to make sure the drives are APFS formatted IF THEY ARE SSD’s. If they aren’t, you can reformat them as APFS but it will erase all data from the drive, so it should be backed up first. However, if they are traditional spinning drives, it is best to keep the older HFS+ file system.
 
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Your drives, the SuperDrive, and (I imagine) your scanner connect via USB, which is backwards compatible. I have, e.g., a 10 year old USB drive connected to my CalDigit TS3.

Said drive was a Time Machine backup, which just last week stopped being writeable. In replacing it, I bought a 4TB SSD by Crucial, the X9 Pro. It also connects by USB 3.1, not the newer USB 4 standard. Why did I pick a slower SSD interface? Because Time Machine backups are slow; the speed advantage of USB 4 (or Thunderbolt 3, 4, or 5) would be wasted.

I like SSDs for Time Machine backups — even though I have a lot of regular 3.5” hard drives lying around — because in my experience formatted as APFS the Time Machine backups are more robust. Less “we have to start over” as was the case with regular drives formatted HFS+, the old standard.
 
Rivergull said:
I'm about to connect my new CalDigit TS4 Thunderbolt Station to my 24" Apple M1 Desktop running Sequoia. I intend to attach (for now) two older external drives, my Apple Superdrive, and a PlusTek slide scanner. However, I read the following today somewhere on MacRumors: I wouldn't buy any external SSD less than USB4 and ideally Thunderbolt 4 at this point. Not counting flash/thumb drives and the like. SO... are my external drives too old to attach to the TS4? My two external drives: 2TB G-Drive USB-C marked 12-2018 (solely for Time Machine backups); 2TB Seagate Portable Drive USB 3.0 marked 2021 for videos and photos.
Click to expand...

Yes, I wrote that and can confirm I meant that for new purchases. I didn't mean to imply that one should discard existing otherwise working drives. There shouldn't be any issue connecting those drives to your CalDigit TS4.

As an example, I still use an circa 2020 USB-C drive as my primary on one computer because it works great. But I will replace it with a Thunderbolt/USB4 drive when the time comes. Similarly, I don't plan to buy any new hard drives unless an unforseen niche use comes up, but I still keep some 10+ year old hard drives around because they work fine for some things.

In the context of new SSD purchases, I recommend spending the extra $100-$200 over a USB3.x model for a Thunderbolt/USB4 model for someone buying a new primary drive that they plan to keep for the next 5+ years especially if they move a lot of data around. I would not buy for example a USB 3.x 20Gbit (aka "USB 3.2Gen2x2") drive as the poster in that other thread was thinking about doing.

CalDigit makes quality products and your new TS4 should work fine for your purposes. Actually as a dock it aligns with what I recommended as far as new purchases -- it supports Thunderbolt/USB4 so it should meet your needs for many years. The two Thunderbolt/USB4 ports at the bottom on the back will support future Thunderbolt/USB4 drives if/when you decide to add/replace a drive.

I do note from CalDigit's website, "Devices such as the Apple SuperDrive are recommended by Apple to be directly connected to a laptop as they require extra power. CalDigit has developed a driver for the SuperDrive so that it can be directly connected to the TS4." So if you have any trouble connecting that SuperDrive through your TS4, you'll want to try installing CalDigit's driver on your Mac.

Otherwise it should all just work. But if you have any problems of course feel free to post back here and I am sure you'll find many people happy to help.
 
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It's me again! Happy Spring! I finally connected my CalDigit TS4 to my M1 iMac. The only device I connected to the TS4 so far is my Plustek Scanner ...directly into a USB-3 Thunderbolt port on the TS4. BUT...

- My external G-Drive (used since 2022 for Time Machine) is still attached to a non-Thunderbolt USB-C port on back of my iMac; light is flashing as it should.
- My external Seagate USB-3 (mfr'd 2021 but barely used) is still attached to a Thunderbolt port on the back of my iMac (via a USB-3 to USB-C dongle). No light flashing.

ISSUE: Not sure how to safely move those drives to the TS4 (if that's what's best for them); AND my Seagate drive (containing .mp4 and .mov videos) isn't listed on Finder anymore (aargh), just the G-Drive. Any idea how to get it back?
 
Rivergull said:
It's me again! Happy Spring! I finally connected my CalDigit TS4 to my M1 iMac. The only device I connected to the TS4 so far is my Plustek Scanner ...directly into a USB-3 Thunderbolt port on the TS4. BUT...

- My external G-Drive (used since 2022 for Time Machine) is still attached to a non-Thunderbolt USB-C port on back of my iMac; light is flashing as it should.
- My external Seagate USB-3 (mfr'd 2021 but barely used) is still attached to a Thunderbolt port on the back of my iMac (via a USB-3 to USB-C dongle). No light flashing.

ISSUE: Not sure how to safely move those drives to the TS4 (if that's what's best for them); AND my Seagate drive (containing .mp4 and .mov videos) isn't listed on Finder anymore (aargh), just the G-Drive. Any idea how to get it back?
Click to expand...

Hi Rivergull,

I see two issues here:
1) Why did your Seagate drive disappear from Finger, etc
2) What's the optimal way to connect your various devices to your iMac/CalDigit TS4 setup

Let's start with 1) as that seems concerning. Few questions:
-Does your G-drive contain backups of the Seagate drive's contents?
-When did your Seagate drive stop appearing in Finder? Was this before or after you connected the TS4 or make some other changes? Did you get a message about it disconnecting? Or did it just not show up one day after you rebooted?
-While plugged in and the computer on, can you hear any noise from it or feel it vibrating?
-For the connection to the computer, are you using the supplied cable (which appears to be a USB 3.0 Micro B to USB-A) plus a USB-A-to-USB-C dongle?
 
The advice not to buy drives with older connectors is valid. I would not buy one. The new ones are better and don't cost any more. But you are not buying one, you already have it. It will work fine.

The USB-C 3.0 drive is reasonably fast for storing photos. But some day you will need to replace it. When that day comes you can buy a larger SSD with TB5 and it will be dramatically and noticeably faster. But you can wait until you need it.
 
"Not sure how to safely move those drives to the TS4 (if that's what's best for them)"

Power down, everything off.

Just unplug the drive from the port to which it's connected (now), and "move it over" to the dock.

There's nothing more to it.

When the power is ON, THEN you need to be more careful.
Always "dismount" a drive before unplugging it.

You can dismount drives a couple of ways:
1. "grab" its icon with the pointer and drag it to the trash, let it disappear
or
2. Control-click on it (or right-click on it, same thing), and choose "Eject" from the contextual menu that appears, let it disappear.
 
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