Sata to USB

[IrelandM]

Hi There,


I purchased an external SATA 2.5 hard drive enclosure to connect 2 external SSDs per enclosure they use SATA data and power connections. Having tried adding a Sata to USB 2.0 adaptor for this enclosure I find the M1 MacBook Pro only recognises one SSD per drive enclosure.

I used a powered ORICO 10-Port Aluminium USB 3.0 Hub with Power Adapter & Data Cable for Mac 10 x 1.5A BC 1.2 Ports for Charge with Sync and USB 3.0 but this hub does not seem to supply enough power to run the 2 drives inside the external SATA 2.5 enclosure only one drive in the enclosure is available on the Mac desktop.

Would anyone know how I could power these 2 external SSDs and have them both available for use on a 16 inch MacBook Pro M1 Max laptop.


Regards

[Darryl Ramm]

USB 2? You might as well connect this via a wet string.

SATA III is up to 6 Gbps, And USB 3.0/3.1 Gen 1 at 5Gbps is a better match. And is supported on every USB port on you Mac. There is no need to be using ancient slow USB 2.

As for what you are doing, how about providing *exact* make/model/part numbers for everything here. SSDs, enclosures, adapters. Have you read the documentation about multiple drive support?

If you suspect problems with the hub why not try just connecting stuff directly to the MacBook Pro. But why do you expect this to work at all? And it's very confusing how you describe it, an external USB dock for two SATA drives should have the USB adapter part built-in and it has to provides the SATA port multiplier smarts to support more than one SATA drive on a SATA III link.


But why are you faffing around with his stuff? If you still can just return all this. You can pick up prepackaged USB and SSD drives at good prices, like the Samsung T7, and because that one is NVMe over up to USB 3.1 Gen 2 it's faster than SATA, and likely or has better passive cooling than whatever you are doing unless there are fans in the housing you used. https://www.amazon.com/SAMSUNG-Porta...0874XWW23?th=1 or https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08RX3343D...ter_B0B6MCKBT3

Or if you want better performance look at Thunderbolt 3 drives/enclosures.

[IrelandM]

To Darryl,


I was hoping these products https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08P3HGM...roduct_details would offer me suitable portable SSD Storage.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

But I want to have quick storage for large sample libraries on the go.


Regards

[Darryl Ramm]

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.

[Top Jimmy]

If you would entertain another option, I'd recommend the OWC drive dock with USB-C connection. It's been working great for me and a Mac Studio M1 Max.

[IrelandM]

Thanks for the Replies,

Darryl and Top Jimmy looking for the best options going forward.

Regards