Need a good quiet external drive for 2015 iMac....

[gpspad]

I am considering an external drive for a 2015 iMac w/ Thunderbolt ports. The iMac would only have a 512GB SSD so looking for about 4-6GB of space.

I have an old G-tech 4GB G-Drive with a Thunderbolt 1 connection; but the light is super annoying and I find it really loud.

It would be used to work with files, photos, and very limited editing of home video projects. Even with two USB-3 hubs, I have kind of ran out of connections and would like to take advantage of the thunderbolt two ports I have.


Any suggestions on a quiet, semi affordable desktop thunderbolt drive?

Would i be better off getting a Thunderbolt 2 drive or a thunderbolt 3 drive and just use an adapter to connect it to the iMac?

 

[chrfr]

If you're shopping for just a single hard drive, there's no speed advantage to getting Thunderbolt over USB 3.0.

 

[gpspad]

Is that Thunderbolt 1, 2, or 3 compared to USB3?

I believe the G-Drive 4GB is only a thunderbolt 1 drive, although it has USB 3 and thunderbolt ports.

Also the main reason I am thinking of a Thunderbolt enclosure is because all my USB ports are filled and I already have a powered USB3 hub on the side and an unpowered one in the back for a label printer, scanner, and printer.

So I'd like to use the thunderbolt ports I am not using....

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

TB2 at 20Gb/ps is faster than USB3. Here is some discussion on this :-


https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/external-ssd-for-thunderbolt-2-mac.2102183/Thunderbolt 2

 

[chrfr]

TB2 at 20Gb/ps is faster than USB3. Here is some discussion on this :-


https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/external-ssd-for-thunderbolt-2-mac.2102183/Thunderbolt 2

Of course the Thunderbolt protocols are faster than USB 3, but a hard disk doesn’t have speeds that are anywhere close to the maximum that USB 3.0 offers. SSDs are a different situation, but the OP isn’t looking for a 4-6TB SSD.
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Is that Thunderbolt 1, 2, or 3 compared to USB3?

It doesn’t matter. A regular hard disk (not an SSD) reads and writes at less than 200MB/second. USB 3.0 is 5 Gigabits per second, which translates into about 625 MB/second. No hard disk comes anywhere close to that speed. Anything faster than 5Gb is wasted.
You could get a USB hub and a USB disk for less than any Thunderbolt disk. Just put the slower devices into the hubs and disks into the computer itself.

 

[8CoreWhore]

If you get a ethernet ported one, you can put it in a closet, or across the room. That way you can get a great drive with a fan and not hear it.