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SSD thunderbolt adapter/cage.

ilegal31

ilegal31

macrumors member
Original poster
Aug 8, 2014
90
0
Hello,

I have an SSD that I want to connect to my mac pro using the thunderbolt port "To be used as an external hard drive", can anyone please provide information about the best device to use?, enclosures or adapters?.


Thanks in advance for the help.
 
yup. not yet a thing. USB 3.0 is your most reasonable option. gee, I wonder where all the nMP fanboys are on this one? you could mount the SSD in an enclosure with an eSATA port. and then get a thunderbolt to eSATA adapter.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/774176-REG/Sabrent_ECS_STU35K_USB_2_0_and_eSATA.html
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1133175-REG/sonnet_tb_usb3sata_usb_3_0_esata.html/prm/alsVwDtl
eSATA wont pass power, might be able to power through the USB 2 port or else you'll need an external brick.
(I am not endorsing wither of these products as I have no direct experience with them, just presenting as an example)

as a cost comparison, to USB 3 at it's most basic,
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1171126-REG/startech_usb3s2sat3cb_usb_3_0_to_2_5.html
 
Stay away from USB3 if you want performance/reliability. USB is just a wild west.

You can find a list of most available products here. They all work well.

https://thunderbolttechnology.net/products

I use a 4 bay OWC thunderbay. It holds up to four SSDs. The mini is sized for 2.5 inch drives like SSDs. The larger one is sized for 3.5 inch drives, so you will need a 3.5 to 2.5 adapter to install your SSD.
 
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I bought the SonnetEcho Express SEL Thunderbolt 2 Chassis to mount a PCI-E M.2 adapter card with an Apple/Samsung SSUBX (SM951) 1TB SSD in. Works well. It's not as fast as if it were in a regular PCI slot but still over 1.2GB/s.
 
Last edited:
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austinpike said:
To think these were being clearanced for $50 at one point... :(
Click to expand...

Wish I'd bought mine then.

Especially since Thunderbolt is overkill for most data transfer situations. I've got some Samsung SSDs which are rated at 540 MB/s. That's less than USB 3.

So unless the SSD is rated faster than USB 3, there's no reason to go with Thunderbolt. He doesn't say which MacPro he has, but if SATA, then his internal transfer speeds won't likely surpass USB 3 either. Thunderbolt only would be useful then if he has a PCIe interface and SSDs rated faster than 625 MB/s. Otherwise it's not worth the effort or expense.

I unfortunately paid a premium for something I didn't fully understand at the time.
 
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Mac 128 said:
Wish I'd bought mine then.

Especially since Thunderbolt is overkill for most data transfer situations. I've got some Samsung SSDs which are rated at 540 MB/s. That's less than USB 3.

So unless the SSD is rated faster than USB 3, there's no reason to go with Thunderbolt. He doesn't say which MacPro he has, but if SATA, then his internal transfer speeds won't likely surpass USB 3 either. Thunderbolt only would be useful then if he has a PCIe interface and SSDs rated faster than 625 MB/s. Otherwise it's not worth the effort or expense.

I unfortunately paid a premium for something I didn't fully understand at the time.
Click to expand...

You don't understand SATA, SSDs, latency, and protocols if you believe this. Its so easy to look at published bulk data rates and jump to that conclusion. USB3 is a wild west full of too quick to market not fully tested incompatible stuff, and a few good efforts. USB storage protocols layers are a bandaid at best and has been proven to be troublesome and slow in the real world for anything other than perhaps backup destinations or portable storage. Running your OS off a USB device day to day is a disaster waiting to happen. Those of us that need a mobile boot device have several to use as backups.

My Mac has been so much happier now that I disconnected all the USB storage devices and went 100% TB. Now for perhaps the consumer with low storage performance demands, you could say USB may be adequate, certainly not better. Life is full of compromise, however.
 
ColdCase said:
You don't understand SATA, SSDs, latency, and protocols if you believe this. Its so easy to look at published bulk data rates and jump to that conclusion. USB3 is a wild west full of too quick to market not fully tested incompatible stuff, and a few good efforts. USB storage protocols layers are a bandaid at best and has been proven to be troublesome and slow in the real world for anything other than perhaps backup destinations or portable storage. Running your OS off a USB device day to day is a disaster waiting to happen. Those of us that need a mobile boot device have several to use as backups.

My Mac has been so much happier now that I disconnected all the USB storage devices and went 100% TB. Now for perhaps the consumer with low storage performance demands, you could say USB may be adequate, certainly not better. Life is full of compromise, however.
Click to expand...

All I know is what my real world data transfer rates report back to me, and the speeds I achieve via USB3 and Thunderbolt are the same on my MBP. Since the OP didn't mention using his SSD as an external boot device, I took it to mean he was interested mainly in a backup drive or portable storage. But thanks for the info.
 
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