The GetDPI Photography Forum

Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!

Thunderbolt Drive Enclosures?

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
After patching my Mac Pro together for the last year or so, the power supply bit the dust and I opted to switch to a new Macbook Pro as an interim "desktop" until the new Mac Pros are introduced. It's a spiffy thing and with the RAM and SSD, at least as fast as my early 2008 Mac Pro tower.

Everything transferred nicely via Migration Assistant from my previous startup disk attached to a USB Drive Dock. The only thing left to do is to find some way to attach the 4 drives previously stashed in the Mac Pro.

Does anyone have experience with thunderbolt-able drive enclosures? Any recommendations? Belkin makes an expansion dock for thunderbolt but I've read some poor reviews. I'd appreciate hearing how you might have handled the transition to Thunderbolt.

Thanks!
Tim
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
If your drives are FW interface, the TB-FW adapter works well. I chain to USB and FW drives through the Thunderbolt Display.

If you want higher performance, you need to go to things like the LaCie TB-eSATA interface and enclosures with eSATA ports.

G
 

TRSmith

Subscriber Member
I have one external FW drive that I can connect with your suggestion of the TB-FW connector. But the others are internal e-sata drives. Looks like I'll need to come up with another approach until the TB stuff gets a bit less pricey. No simple solutions as yet.

Thanks!
Tim
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
I have one external FW drive that I can connect with your suggestion of the TB-FW connector. But the others are internal e-sata drives. Looks like I'll need to come up with another approach until the TB stuff gets a bit less pricey. No simple solutions as yet.
TB is high performance stuff and the prices for good quality interfaces that exploits the capabilities are still high.

That said, two OWC enclosures with eSATA interfaces run about $100 each, and the LaCie box is $20, so you can potentially chain two of your internals that way for max performance @$400, then add the TB-FW adapter to the TB pass through for any further FW enclosures. If you need that level of performance, the price isn't too bad.

I find FW800 works just fine for my present needs, tho, so I have four 2T drives chained that way. I use the same USB3+FW800+eSATA enclosures that I can switch to the TB-eSATA hub in the future if my data needs become more demanding.
 

gazwas

Active member
I'm using a Drobo 5D which is good (but not overly fast) or the Lacie 5 Big Thunderbolts are great. I'm using a 5 Big NAS Pro for backup and its great.
 
Top