TB3-Huge SSD as system drive on iMac?

[drrich2]

Hi:

Ordered one of the new iMacs yesterday; one of the features I was waiting for in the next generation was Thunderbolt 3/USB-C. A big reason was storage; I like big discs and I cannot lie...

But i wasn't paying for an enormous SSD in today's dollars. So I ordered a 3 terabyte fusion drive and called it good.

This system is to replace an old 2008 Mac Pro as a 'home PC.' It's my impression Macs seem to hold up performance-wise better than PCs over the long haul; yeah, the Pro's DVD drive doesn't burn DVD's anymore, one USB port doesn't charge things, had one of my hard discs fail (don't know if that was an Apple product issue or not), and it lags a bit...but it's still decent.

Point is, I'd like the new system to last a long time. So, if 3 or 4 years from now SSDs have come down to the point where it's practical to buy a 3 or 4 terabyte SSD in a TB3 enclosure, let's stay I hook it up, use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my internal drive, move it to the new external SSD, and assign that to be my main system disc or whatever-you-call-it.

Is that likely to work well? Any thoughts on how such a setup compares with buying an iMac with a huge internal SSD to begin with?

Thanks in advance.

Richard.

 

[trsblader]

It will work just fine. Speed comparison will depend on which drive you end up with (they are all similar but not identical speed wise) and then which generation iMac ssd you compare it to as they seem to be getting quicker each generation as well. We used to do this at work on a 2015 27" refurb that only had a fusion drive but we ran it through USB 3.0 instead. There really wasn't a noticeable decrease in speed for what we were doing and I can't say at any point did we feel held back by the drive. The USB 3 option still blew the fusion drive performance out of the water for us.

 

[xgman]

Yes it will work but it would not be as fast as an internal ssd. I'd get an internal ssd and a TB2 enclosure or TB3 enclosure when they are mac compatible and load whatever drives you need for storage.