USB 3.0 thru Thunderbolt Dock

[LordFelix]

Hi,

I have a iMac (medio 2011) with thunderbolt 1 port.
There is only USB 2.0 ports.
But I have USB 3.0 external harddrives.

I bought a Belkin thunderbolt 2 express dock, to connect the USB 3.0 harddrives thru the thunderbolt port in my iMac, to get faster transfer.

But when I test the disk speed with Blackmagic Disk speed test app, i only get around 140 MB/s.

Anybody know how that can be??

 

[mikas]

If I had to guess, it's probably because of the speed limit of the hard drives inside your external USB cases, not a thunderbolt nor USB3 limit.

 

[LordFelix]

If I had to guess, it's probably because of the speed limit of the hard drives inside your external USB cases, not a thunderbolt nor USB3 limit.

So, is there any way to optimize the transfer speed on the external harddrives?
I mean it's USB 3.0 harddrives, so they should be able to transfer a lot faster.

 

[mikas]

You could buy an external USB3 SSD, that should perform a lot better in regards of continuous transfer, and perhaps more importantly to many users, with really fast acces times and low latencies.

You could also buy/build a Thunderbolt RAID box with traditional HDDs or better yet with SSDs. They should be fast too.

I've heard some users chose to use those Samsung T3 or T5 USB3 external SSD's successfully with their iMacs. I haven't tried them. I just put a couple of normal SSD's inside my iMac, and that's enough for me now.

 

[FriendlyMackle]

So, is there any way to optimize the transfer speed on the external harddrives?
I mean it's USB 3.0 harddrives, so they should be able to transfer a lot faster.

Mikas is correct -- the limit you're seeing with the external drive is due to the HDD format, not USB3. You'll need an SSD with a USB3 connection to see higher speeds. Ditto if you want to connect a Thunderbolt drive and see TB speeds - only an SSD can do this. Which is why it is hilarious/horrible to see the many drive makers who sell external Thunderbolt drives which utilize spinning disks...nowhere near capable of reaching even 1/10th potential of the interface speeds.

 

[northernmunky]

If your HDD is a spinning disk then 140MB/s is already higher than I would have expected. Your speed is being limited by the drive, not the USB3.0 speed.