External SSD drive for iMac

[SigFriedChicken]

Anyone have a recommendation for a 512/500GB external SSD drive to record to on an iMac? Should I get a thunderbolt version?

I have a little Toshiba 5400 USB-powered drive that seems to be faltering. I ended up having to move my projects onto the internal, system, drive, which I understand is not ideal.

[john1192]

Originally Posted by SigFriedChicken

Anyone have a recommendation for a 512/500GB external SSD drive to record to on an iMac? Should I get a thunderbolt version?

I have a little Toshiba 5400 USB-powered drive that seems to be faltering. I ended up having to move my projects onto the internal, system, drive, which I understand is not ideal.

yes TB .. G-Raid .. maybe ..

[Cutlerbri]

I just bought a Samsung T5. 500 gb SSD. The size of a credit card. Bus-powered so no AC cord. Super fast. As quiet as a child's prayer. It's about $150.00

[feliponk]

The samsung USB 3 T3 SSD are really good.

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-T3-Po...sd+external+t3

[SigFriedChicken]

Thanks, I ended up going with a "G-Technology 1TB G-DRIVE mobile SSD R-Series Storage."

[john1192]

Originally Posted by SigFriedChicken

Thanks, I ended up going with a "G-Technology 1TB G-DRIVE mobile SSD R-Series Storage."

cool !!!

[wwittman]

those are USB drives though... it should be said that Thunderbolt SSD drives are more like $350 and up

[Darryl Ramm]

A 5400 rpm HDD will be pathetic performance. But what exact model iMac... does it have USB 2? 3? 3.1 Gen 2? Thunderbolt 2? 3? And what exact internal drive does the iMac have.... if it's a recent iMac generation with PCIe SSD drive then the very best thing you can do is record to that internal drive.... Completely the opposite of what you are thinking in the internal post.... if it has a slow HDD or Fusion drive then sure you do not want to record to that. Upgrading the size of that PCIe SSD drive if needed may be an option.

For external drives there are two very good choices in the market:

Samsung T5 USB 3.1 Gen 2 with internal SATA SSD. Will run close to max on USB 3/USB 3.1 Gen 1 since you are close to hitting SATA limits. Given you have a craptastic 5400 RPM HDD this will be multiple times faster. I would buy the T5 not the T3 even if I only had USB 3.0 (I own multiple of both drives).

If you have Thunderbolt 2 or 3 and are willing to pay for high-end performance then *the* external drive to get is the Sonnet Fusion (stupid name, nothing to do with Apple Fusion drives) http://www.sonnettech.com/Product/fu...lashdrive.html

Anybody trying to sell you a SATA SSD in a Thunderbolt interface is saying they think their customers are morons. Don't be a moron and buy their crap.

[SigFriedChicken]

It's getting a bit confusing since it seems that the latest version of Thunderbolt (Thunderbolt 3) uses USB-C connectors. But so does USB 3.1. There aren't many pure Thunderbolt 2 external SSD drives. And for good reason, apparently.

The the top sustained transfer rate for even the fastest SSD drives is around 500MB/s, which much less than even "old" USB 3.0 can support. USB 3.0 can support 10x that throughput. USB 3.1 and Thunderbolt can support much more, but it seems to be overkill when the bottleneck is the drive itself.

[SigFriedChicken]

That Sonnet drive is impressive. 2600MB/s? Is that really megaBYTES, so 20800 Mb/s?