Thread: Sata to USB
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Old 01-28-2023, 02:30 PM
Darryl Ramm Darryl Ramm is offline
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Default Re: Sata to USB

How much storage do you need? I pointed to 2TB and 4TB compact external SSDs. You can connect multiple of those.

I can't work out what that dock even is is or is claimed to be. Does it provide a single SATA III/6Gbps port out the back? Or two separate SATA ports? Or does it provide a USB port? At what speed? And it has no mention of anything useful like support for JBOD, RAID 0/1 etc. It's all crappy translated from Chinese stuff about talking about protecting drives from scratches as if that's useful to know. All a sign of cheap Chinese junk. I'd look at brand name products in this space, OWC, Sonnet, Sabrent, etc. I'd run far away from no-name brand stuff marketed/described as badly as this is.

Providing power for any of these SATA drives should not be an issue and with a modern mac they should all be powered from the Mac USB... but this cheap Chinese dock... who knows. If it's SATA only out the back then you have to provide separate power... but you should not be looking at any device like that.

Why do you need a USB hub? A 16" MBP has 3 x USB-C/Thunderbolt 4 ports and separate Magsafe power. What else do you need to connect? 3 ports gets you an audio interface, a USB drive, and an iLok. If out of ports I'd probably get a Thunderbolt 4 hub, much more flexible than a USB hub, and if the laptop is going to be largely used in one place or transported somewhere else then largely used in place (vs.. used on the go like when traveling.. for that I'd look at one of the tiny portable USB hubs).

With good external SSDs like I mentioned before you'll be running at interface speeds of USB 3.1 Gen 2 (aka 10 Gbps), no it won't deliver all that speed, but you are still throwing away performance if you used a USB 3.0/3.1 Gen 1 (5 Gbps) hub.
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