Has the Thunderbolt adapter been benchmarked against the USB 3.0 on a Seagate 2/3/4TB Desktop External HDD?
135574
I don't think so. I bought the adapter because I had an iMac with only USB2. I suspect that on a point to point basis (i.e. no intervening hub) that it will be difficult to tell the difference between the two technologies. Certainly, I doubt it would justify the extra expense.Anon,Andrew
135575
USB 3.0 can't even come close to touching the speeds you get from Thunderbolt. On paper they look close, but in the real world, on everyday machines, Thunderbolt is king. I did my own test and I transferred 2TB in 2 hours with Thunderbolt, the same 2TB data I transferred with USB 3.0 took close to 8 hours.
1201420
Yes, but the unit is advertised at 5gb/sec. You won't even see that in the real world. I am very satisfied with mine. I use it mostly for backups and it is plenty quick with my Seagate 1tb 6gb/s drive. You should use it with a USB 3.O port for best performance. Also, If you look at the device properties you should set it set for 'Quick Removal' not 'Better performance' so you can 'hot plug/unplug' it w/o worry of data corruption. I have run CrystalDiskMark benchmark tool and the best I get is approx. 90mb/sec on sequential reads/writes. You may get better results. USB will always have some amount of 'system overhead' so you will generally get much better performance w/a dedicated(on board) SATA III controller as on your motherboard. BTW, I also watch HD movies on my unit with no issues. Hope this helps.
336059
adapter works great, but the only issue I had was when I tried another brand of hard drive not a seagate on it, it crawled at a snails pace. Switched it to even an old internal 2.5 from a macbook and it flew. It must look for a seagate firmware drive too.
1205323
I had purchased the thunderbolt version for Mac which is an adapter that comes with it. Thunderbolt to my knowledge is only Mac. But USB 3.0 will work on a PC. see the included statement in the description "Install the downloadable HFS+ driver for PC and use the drive interchangeably between Mac computers and PC's without reformatting"
1992831
The drive is good, but it is very little speed differences if you use thunderbolt or USB3 and the only USB3 connection $100 less
2044807
The only place I have used thunderbolt is the thunderbolt to HDMI adapter. The drive itself does not use thunderbolt, only FireWire 800 or USB. If you are asking if you can go thunderbolt to FireWire, I don not know, I have not tried it.
499710
I have hooked up a 8TB GTech raid and it works every time. Also other accessories like monitors/Ethernet. But remember, it's thunderbolt only.
512456
Yes, the Seagate hard drive works with either 2.0 or 3.0 . . . the transfer rate is faster with 3.0
621340
Yes. One of the built in redundancies of USB 3.0 (as it was with 2.0) is that they are backwards compatible with the previous interface. The limitation being that it can only run at the top speed of said interface. But I have used this device on Thunderbolt, USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 plugs and all work great!
199587
Thunderbolt is the newer Apple/Mac standard, and is supposed to be faster. Fewer Thunderbolt-ready devices available though. I have the firewire version of the HD, and it is a huge speed increase over USB.
1025183
Hi. The newest hardware version of the Seagate backup plus that I have is for USB 3.0. This version is only available in USB 3.0. Seagate sells an adapter separately that can support thunderbolt. I think that you then have to buy a thunderbolt to firewire 800 adapter then, finally, you would have to buy a firewire 800 cord as the adapter (made by Apple) is very short. The thunderbolt adapter for the Seagate Backup plus is 150 dollars and the adapter is 30 dollars so you are looking at a lot of money. Alternately, you could buy the previous generation of the Seagate backup plus. Search amazon.com for "Seagate Backup Plus 3 TB FireWire 800/USB 2.0 Desktop External Hard Drive for Mac STCB3000100" and you will find it. Hope this helps. Patrick
166153
The documentation states 3TB max. I am running 3TB drives with Mac, USB 3 is slow.
271411
Errr... no. It's a Thunderbolt drive. The Thunderbolt adaptor is to connect a FW device to a TB connector on the computer.
420477
I see no reason why it won't work. There are faster connection options (thunderbolt) but they are a LOT more expensive. This is an inexpensive drive with lots of storage.
275400
I'm not sure if it is the latest possible version because it does not support Thunderbolt. But I can say that it is 7200 RPM drive with both USB 3.0 and Firewire connections which seem to be the current state-of-the art. But it should provide more than adequate use for many years to come - that is the reason that I have purchased it for my system. I hasten to add that I have not received it yet and have no actual hands-on experience with this model although I do have two previous G-Technology drives and they continue to work flawlessly. I just need more storage capacity for my Timemachine files. I hope this info helps.
517981
True. But you'll be getting a tremendously noticeable faster speed simply from the thunderbolt interface cable. I was surprised at how well it performs while not in a Raid config.
1534466
Yes I swapped in a Crucial 512GB M4 SATA. Thunderbolt works fine but believe it or not the USB3 interface had faster read times!