Thunderbolt - External Hard Drives - Anything affordable yet?

[Dave]

Hi All,

 

I've been looking around to see what's currently available in external Thunderbolt hard drives.

I don't see much in the affordable category.

 

I did spot this Thunderbolt hard drive Dock which might pair well with a Solid State Drive:  

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/985459-REG/highpoint_5212_2_bay_thunderbolt_10gb_s_storage.html

 

I have a similar Vantec dock with firewire which was 1/4 the price and it's served me well.

 

Is anyone using a Firewire 800 to Thunderbolt adaptor and getting good results?  When you do use an adaptor do you get Thunderbolt speeds?

 

Thanks for your tips and keep well!

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

 

 

[studiomprd]

dave: " I don't see much in the affordable category. "

that is difficult to say, as it depends entirely on what each person considers "affordable"

 

" Is anyone using a Firewire 800 to Thunderbolt adaptor and getting good results? "

probably...

"  When you do use an adaptor do you get Thunderbolt speeds? "

yes...

into the adapter.

[Howiecreate]

If you are only connecting one drive, and you have usb 3.0, then that would be a more affordable option. One drive will not take advantage of the extra speed of a thunderbolt connection (even an sad drive), and some raid arrays are not faster than usb 3.0 either.

[johnpaul215]

Dave,

My understanding is that the costs are not so much the thunderbolt components, but the actual drives that can do thunderbolt speeds are $$$$. They should come down pretty quickly (hopefully). That's also why certain RAID setups would make sense to use Thunderbolt. Split that firehose of data between a few drives.

I'm guessing a thunderbolt to FireWire adapter keeps the benefits of FireWire in that it doesn't bog down the computer the way USB always has (if that's still an issue with USB 3). At least I hope so. That was always helpful when backing up a big drive. I didn't do that a lot, but video people would do that all day. FireWire was designed that way from the start, so I bet Thunderbolt kept that feature for pro users.

[pindrop]

Anyone tried this? LaCie d2 USB 3.0 Thunderbolt Series 3TB External Hard Drive (9000353) - $289^.99

• Universal connectivity with Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 ports
• Shocking speeds up to 170MB/s
• Fan-free aluminum heat sink design

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822154666

 

There's a 4Tb for + $100

[evolvmedia]

I was a fortunate and unfortunate early adopter of thunderbolt. I have multiple single bay and dual bay TB drives laying around. My advise is similar to what others have said and go with USB 3.0 (if your computer supports it)  UNLESS you plan getting a thunderbolt system that supports multiple drives and those drives can be RAID together. With that said, I've been committed to Seagates "GoFlex Desk" line of products because they offer hot swappable interfaces. I have multiple goflex TB docks as well as USB 3 and FW800. It helps with moving media between the various gen Macs. 

 

I just bought a second TB dock last week (link below). The price just went up from $199

 

http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Thunderbolt-Desktop-External-STCB3000400/dp/B009HPGBNY/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1386905660&sr=8-3&keywords=thunderbolt+seagate

[Jim Gilchrist]

Dave,

My understanding is that the costs are not so much the thunderbolt components, but the actual drives that can do thunderbolt speeds are $$$$. They should come down pretty quickly (hopefully). That's also why certain RAID setups would make sense to use Thunderbolt. Split that firehose of data between a few drives.

I'm guessing a thunderbolt to FireWire adapter keeps the benefits of FireWire in that it doesn't bog down the computer the way USB always has (if that's still an issue with USB 3). At least I hope so. That was always helpful when backing up a big drive. I didn't do that a lot, but video people would do that all day. FireWire was designed that way from the start, so I bet Thunderbolt kept that feature for pro users.

It's quite expensive to license Thunderbolt from the developer, Intel. I expect that's mostly where the cost differential comes from.

Best regards,

Jim

[nickreich]

I've just been trialling this

 

http://www.amazon.com/Akitio-Neutrino-Thunder-Duo-Enclosure/dp/B00D4EBIV4

 

for longer multi-day concert recording jobs where the LaCie 256GB Thunderbolt SSD drives I currently use are either too small, or I need to do random playbacks of multiple days' material. While I intend to put SSDs in there eventually, I've put a pair of 1TB 7200 RPM Hitachi drives in there at the moment, which are quite inexpensive, and it all seems to be working nicely. It does require an external PSU though - not buss-powered.