Great point, I actually just fully realized this this past week when I was looking for a portable drive for my MBP. I've used thunderbolt LaCie HDDs when working for other people, but I realized that the drive limitation means it generally makes more sense to go with USB 3.0 and if you really want high speed performance you have to step up to an SSD like you mentioned. On top of that, SSDs are considered more reliable over time and with drops since there are no moving parts - making them a seemingly great choice for a MBP. I was able to get a Samsung 500GB USB 3 portable SSD for $250 and am really happy with it so far - it's not even as long as my car key in size which was surprising.
unfortunately not much thunderbolt support on non apple machines. Thunderbolt is worth it for not only hhd and displays,, there are some AMAZING hardware video encoders from black magic that make quick work of 4k raw sources.
+kpopRC I agree, USB is ideal when working in environments with both PCs and Macs. There are a limited number of PCs with Thunderbolt connections, however almost every computer has some form of USB connection.
I use the Blackmagic Design Intensity Shuttle Thunderbolt to capture in ProRes from cameras. It can accept up to a 10-Bit 4:2:2 1080p signal. Useful for bypassing internal codecs but it needs to be plugged into my Mac but I got it initially for recording TV shows. Thunderbolt 3 will bring Thunderbolt to more people and is backwards compatible with adapters.
I used an external Thunderbolt SSD drive as the boot drive for my MacMini. Even though it was external, it was much faster than the internal 5400 RPM drive and gave me a great speed boost. It actually changed an unusable machine to a quite capable one.
Excellent video and explanation thank you! For me I really need SSD and Thunderbolt for music production. I am heavily daisy chained with 3 external Universal audio effects processors and an external audio interface. Most of my projects are built at 96kHz/sec and 24 bit - so these are very large files. I am currently shopping for an external SSD 5 TB and will likely go with the LaCie. Thank you again for your excellent video
Hi Thank you for the posting this video ; ) I have a problem and was wondering if you have a solution for it too 'I would be happy to transfer video and images -I have a good quantity of them regularly - from the iPhone X to a Macbook pro mid 2015 via an alternative fast transfer cable other than the normal standaard iPhoneX charging cable which does the work up to now in a very limited and rather slow pace. So, the idea is to make the transfer into the image capture application on the Mac as it is the case up to now: Please, do you think there is a good alternative cable I could use towards the USB 3 on the MacBook Pro or towards the Thunderbolt 2 f (With the normal standard charging cable from the iPhone X or with the airdrop option is not really time efficient). Glad to hear any solution. Namaste and be safe (a question from a dummy tech curious)
I have a question. I currently use an external 4tb HDD to house my massive Mac photos library (almost 200gb worth of photos), but opening the app and editing/browsing through galleries is somewhat laggy and a nuisance. I edit landscape photos and 4k video a lot, so it would be nice to be able to edit them faster. In order to improve the editing speed and loading/photo rendering speed, should I get a Thunderbolt HHD, Thunderbolt SSD, USB 2.0 HHD, or just stick with a USB 2.0 HHD like the one I have currently. Ideally, I need at least 1-2 Terabytes of storage. My initial thinking was that the problem was the USB was acting like a bottleneck and so I should get a HHD with Thunderbolt, but now I'm not so sure anymore. :P I take a LOT of pictures on my hikes. In just three years, I've accumulated over 200gb of hiking photos and videos alone. xD Not sure if this is relevant info, but my MacBook Pro is an i7, 8GB RAM, 2.3 GHz processor speed, 4 cores, has both USB 2.0 and Thunderbolt, both the integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 and the dedicated NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M graphics card.
also second question: After doing some reading through comments, it doesnt matter if I am using thunderbolt or USB 3.0 ports and cables, if the SSD itself has a max read/write of 540mb/s write and 525mb/s read, it wont matter what port i connect? Since usb is cabable of 600+mb/s and the drive tiself is limited to about 540mb/s? If that's the case, it looks like my hard drive will almost max out the USB3.0's capability, (540mb/s vs 625mb/s+ on the usb3.0 port) while I can hook up a couple drives to the thunderbolt port, like five 500mb/s SSD's chained on a single thunderbolt port totalling 2500mb/sec correct?
I like to shop offline often, so I normally download a product catalog such as Amazon's which happens to be gigabytes & gigabytes long. I typically have about 100 external harddrives with me that I daisy chain in order to download the website at a more efficient pace. USB 3.0 is what I pride myself on, it has never let me down, and it won't let you down either.
I have a Drobo 5D and I started out using Thunderbolt but it wasn't a stable connection. The drive would turn off and on if I moved my laptop even an inch or 2 on my desk. I switched to the provided USB 3.0 cable and never had a problem. When I'm editing, I can't tell the difference so I'll go with the more stable connection.
Help! So I have an iMac 4k and I purchased a samsung EVO850 250GB SSD to use as my boot drive and I purchased what I thought was the right cable. I ordered a USB C/usb3.0 to sata cable for the drive and now I am wondering if that's enough? I wanted the fastest possible connection with the best read/write speeds (being a boot drive and all) and I thought thunderbolt was the right way to go. I looked up thunderbolt adapters but theyre so insanely expensive. They're more than the SSD itself... any input on the Evo850 SSD through USB 3.0/C on the imac?
Hi! Great video! I'm looking to improve the speed of my workflow (Im a photog working with massive raw files) by upgrading to the G-drive 4tb. I want to know what you recommend for the fastest connect from my iMac for this drive. Would a setup like iMac - thunderboth adapter - g-drive work best? Thanks!!
Why I didn't come across your video 3 days ago when was purchasing a hard drive. I took Thunderbolt however noticed that usb3 is even faster. Could save a lot of cash grabbing usb3 only.
Please disregard most of this video. If you were planning on buying a drive for simple storage, then USB 3.0 is all you need. If for editing, Thunderbolt will give you an advantage.
Good point you are making. This is why I haven't stepped up to a newer MacBook Pro. I have two internal SSDs and with USB3 or TB, I can transfer all the data I need while editing on the fly. Good video and right to the point. Thank you. (:
Great video! If I had the choice, I would use USB over Thunderbolt for external storage. Working in environments with both PCs and Macs, USB 2.0 or 3.0 is a more common interface. I'm curious does anyone use eSATA drives or USB to SATA docks?
+Unique Photo and Video (UniquePhotoandVideo.com) I have and they work well. But if you're going to be using them a lot I wouldn't recommend them. You don't want to expose your drives to extended use without being in a case.
Hey Caleb. I’m finally upgrading my setup for both editing performance and backup/storage. This and your video outlining your workflow setup have been most insightful. At this point I am an avid Prosumer level hybrid shooter. From my Imac I’m exploring the option of going with an SSD external through my thunderbolt 2 as my “working drive” and through a usb 3 connect something like a Synology DS218+ (4K x 2) or even a WD mycloud EX2 Ultra (4K x 2) for the storage and backup. I’ll probably back that all up in the cloud somewhere. Does that sound feasible or worth it to you?
Can you have a usb and connect to a thunderbolt? Can you use a windows surface (only haves usb) with a thunderbolt connecter to use a external graphic card?
Caleb, when using Thunderbolt ports, since they function as MiniDisplayPort as well, could you daisychain say a MiniDisplayport to DVI Adapter for a monitor off say a Thunderbolt HDD? I have an iMac with 2 TB ports, but I use both of them as MiniDisplayport's with adapters to DVI to use my super old Apple Cinema monitors. (The thick aluminum ones). If i had a thunderbolt drive connected instead to that port, do you know if I could plug the monitor into the drive and still get video to the monitor? That's been the frustrating thing with my iMac is what monitors I can use additionally with it, and without splurging on an actual Thunderbolt monitor, using the Displayport functionality and my older monitors has worked....but eats up my ports. Love the series! Been watching for a long time as I've started my career, and your videos always seem to come around the time I've been thinking about certain things like hard disks and now connections! Looking forward to more!
+The 8-Bit Duke Which brand of mini display adaptor are you using? Passive adaptors caused issues, so I switched to Active Adaptors. In theory, your suggested setup should work.
+The 8-Bit Duke Apple's $29 adaptor is passive. Apple's adapter caused kernel panics and my computer refused to wake or go into sleep mode. I'm curious if you had similar issues?
Modern hard drives are way faster than 90 MB/s, it's actually double that. And regarding Thunderbolt, it definately is not made for one drive or two, it is made for serious RAID configurations, eg. Lacie 5BIG in RAID5 goes up to 800/800MB/s, just like faster SSD, and it costs just over $1000, very cheap for what you get, essentially you get 12TB SSD.
+Behind VM (Vettas) For thunderbolt I don't believe so. Maybe if you connected a ton of super fast SSDs. Haven't tied that! But I haven't noticed slow speeds when connecting 2 or 3 devices.
Thanks a lot! Great explanation! I don't understand why everyone can't stop comparing connectors speeds, while even the best SSD hard drives are limited to about 550 mb/s... Could you be so kind and answer one of my questions? I'd like to buy Lacie drive to store my vids (I have MacBook pro with USB-c ports), but Lacie USB-C drives are way more expensive than their older USB 3.0. So will the file transfer speed be faster with USB-C if the HDD speed is limited to just over about 120 mb/s anyways? Or are there any other advantages of USB-C on HDD? Thank you in advance. I hope I don't trouble you too much with this.
Just got a Sony a7s 2, 2014 iMac and want to edit 4K and add some after effects. Do you recommend the g drive 3t from the last video or another?. FYI I love you're channel great job.
fantastic video as usual! I know I'm asking questions almost 2 years after u publish this video. But I would love to ear if u still think that usb3.0 is enough for who needs to work on an external desktop HDD? Do you think I'll be fine editing 4k videos on FCPX having the library in the external HDD? thank a lot for your time man!
I always have the problem with USB 3.0 hard drive interference with my wifi connection. Do u have the same problem while u r using ur laptop and what is ur solution for this kind of problem.
+Espience Films Depends on how fast. I have a Lacie 2Big 4 TB RAID 0 disk array (on Thunderbolt) and it easily hits 300+ MB/s... and that's with just 2 disks. With 4 disks in the same setup, you're looking at probably around 600+ MB/s. The important thing to remember is that USB 3.0 is only THEORETICALLY rated at 625 MB/s... in reality it can be quite a bit less and also uses quite a bit of one of your CPU cores to max out it's speed. Thunderbolt would have way more headroom, in practice actually hits very close to it's rated speeds, and does not slow your machine down by spiking your CPU as it has it's own special controller/processor on the logicboard/motherboard. Also of note is that Thunderbolt is also Bi-Directionally that fast... whereas USB has to switch back and forth for I/O. In other words, you can have 2.5 GB/s going in AND out of your daisy chain for a maximum of, actually, 5 GB/s total... USB cannot do this.
+dinthisane That is right. But that is gigaBITS not gigaBYTES. I converted bits to bytes in this video since most of us are familiar with gigabytes or "GB" So 5 gb/s is 0.625 GB/s.
I was JUST thinking about this topic!! The fu#! dude! Do you know anything about USB 3.0 only being able to send "packets" of data or whatever? I've read on the creative cow forums that Thunderbolt could be better because of this. Either way, these ports are about to be upgraded anyway. USB 3.1 (Gen 2) and Thunderbolt 3. USB 3.1 Gen 2 will be more than PLENTY fast for most people. Thunderbolt will always have that daisy chain advantage though; displays, other drives, whatever. My working drive and my main RAID backup are both Thunderbolt, while I have a few small 1TB USB 3.0 drives for a Time Machine backup (really would like to get an Airport for that, probably will), as well as one that holds yet another backup of compressed final edits, and a card reader is plugged in too. I need to get some true offline storage going though, as I am on thin ice not having any. I guess just some of those cheap 1TB drives would be good for those? Anything is better than nothing.
+matrodfilm Yes, USB works by packetizing data before sending the data across the cable. Each device has a USB controller which is able to decode the packets. USB functions similar to how data is sent over a network.
+Unique Photo and Video (UniquePhotoandVideo.com) So would high data files end up choking (slowing down more so than they would if through a thunderbolt cable) if you were to use USB 3 for a working drive for ending video? 4K? Or, does the rendering process (while working, for preview scrubbing and rendered previews) work differently, so it doesn't really matter? Never been able to figure out the answer to that.
+Mat R USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt should be fine for compressed 1080p. I've not ventured into 4K. The task of rendering is usually limited by either the CPU or GPU. Most SSDs in enclosures are SATA 6Gb/s, so USB 3.0 would be fine. If you are working with high bit rate files, and multiple drive arrays, Thunderbolt may be beneficial. Please let me know if this helps.
44.100Hz · 16bits = 705.600bits/s (0.7056 · 10^5 each channel (MIN). 192.000Hz · 32bits = 6.144.000bits/s (6.144 · 10^6) each channel (MAX.) BW of thunderbolt = (max.) 100Gbits/s (10^11) BW of USB 3.0 = (max.) 5Gbits/s (5 · 10^9) Who need that much BW to record? Replay me if I'm wrong.
So, moral of the story is that Thunderbolt won't give a 7200rpm drive faster performance? I've been toying around the idea of getting a portable Thunderbolt drive, OR the tiny SSDs from Samsung.
+Aaron Walker No, always the slowest part of the chain is the one that counts. If you want to connect a normal hard drive to your computer (speeds of hard drives are around 80-130 MB/s) the transfer speed doesn't change even if you use the fastest cable in the world. And like Caleb said in this video, USB 3 and Thunderbold are way over the top of the maximum speeds hard drive can transfer at.
+Ramon Odenbach Unless you are using multiple drives in a RAID. If you have 4 standard hard drives in a RAID 0 configuration, thunderbolt is the ideal connection because it provides the largest pipeline. Thunderbolt is mainly used for RAID speed. I get over 750mb/sec with my setup, that's 4, 1TB western digital black drives in RAID 0.
so.... you are implying that a Mac cannot get a virus.... hahahahaha .. sorry, it's just always cracks me up to hear that from people. May I suggest you read a little before posting such nonsense. Not only CAN they be hacked, they HAVE been hacked. In fact, Apple itself last year disclosed 384 specific known vulnerabilities. Notice I said "known" Even Even Arch Linux has been hacked. IOS had a vulnerability that was so simple... all a hacker needed for you to do was to open one flash image and BAM, full access. But hey, don't take my word for it, Google is your friend. or... Just post your IP :p
Technically, Macs are less likely to get hacked or get malware. Not because they're less susceptible (you are absolutely correct in this), but hackers prefer to not waste their time on Macs since the Windows user-base is much bigger. (More people use Windows, so hacking a PC is more worth their while.)
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
Super helpful. A topic not many think about when it comes to videography and editing.
Great point, I actually just fully realized this this past week when I was looking for a portable drive for my MBP. I've used thunderbolt LaCie HDDs when working for other people, but I realized that the drive limitation means it generally makes more sense to go with USB 3.0 and if you really want high speed performance you have to step up to an SSD like you mentioned. On top of that, SSDs are considered more reliable over time and with drops since there are no moving parts - making them a seemingly great choice for a MBP. I was able to get a Samsung 500GB USB 3 portable SSD for $250 and am really happy with it so far - it's not even as long as my car key in size which was surprising.
unfortunately not much thunderbolt support on non apple machines. Thunderbolt is worth it for not only hhd and displays,, there are some AMAZING hardware video encoders from black magic that make quick work of 4k raw sources.
+kpopRC I agree, USB is ideal when working in environments with both PCs and Macs. There are a limited number of PCs with Thunderbolt connections, however almost every computer has some form of USB connection.
too bad... lots of amazing video BOBs that only use thunderbolt! i'd love a BM ultra studio.
+kpopRC Thunderbolt has potential, but cost and availability create limitations. I've read Thunderbolt 3 will merge the two connections together.
I use the Blackmagic Design Intensity Shuttle Thunderbolt to capture in ProRes from cameras. It can accept up to a 10-Bit 4:2:2 1080p signal. Useful for bypassing internal codecs but it needs to be plugged into my Mac but I got it initially for recording TV shows. Thunderbolt 3 will bring Thunderbolt to more people and is backwards compatible with adapters.
Finally. After all my research and general bumbling this video gives it to me exactly how and what I needed to know. Thank you.
I used an external Thunderbolt SSD drive as the boot drive for my MacMini. Even though it was external, it was much faster than the internal 5400 RPM drive and gave me a great speed boost. It actually changed an unusable machine to a quite capable one.
Excellent video and explanation thank you! For me I really need SSD and Thunderbolt for music production. I am heavily daisy chained with 3 external Universal audio effects processors and an external audio interface. Most of my projects are built at 96kHz/sec and 24 bit - so these are very large files. I am currently shopping for an external SSD 5 TB and will likely go with the LaCie. Thank you again for your excellent video
Hi Thank you for the posting this video ; ) I have a problem and was wondering if you have a solution for it too 'I would be happy to transfer video and images -I have a good quantity of them regularly - from the iPhone X to a Macbook pro mid 2015 via an alternative fast transfer cable other than the normal standaard iPhoneX charging cable which does the work up to now in a very limited and rather slow pace. So, the idea is to make the transfer into the image capture application on the Mac as it is the case up to now: Please, do you think there is a good alternative cable I could use towards the USB 3 on the MacBook Pro or towards the Thunderbolt 2 f (With the normal standard charging cable from the iPhone X or with the airdrop option is not really time efficient). Glad to hear any solution. Namaste and be safe (a question from a dummy tech curious)
Caleb...this piece came at the perfect time! Thanks man. Super useful!
+Joel Mieske No problem!
While connecting double external monitors to Mac Air, is using Thunderbolt 2 a better choice vs USB 3 ?
I have a question. I currently use an external 4tb HDD to house my massive Mac photos library (almost 200gb worth of photos), but opening the app and editing/browsing through galleries is somewhat laggy and a nuisance. I edit landscape photos and 4k video a lot, so it would be nice to be able to edit them faster.
In order to improve the editing speed and loading/photo rendering speed, should I get a Thunderbolt HHD, Thunderbolt SSD, USB 2.0 HHD, or just stick with a USB 2.0 HHD like the one I have currently. Ideally, I need at least 1-2 Terabytes of storage. My initial thinking was that the problem was the USB was acting like a bottleneck and so I should get a HHD with Thunderbolt, but now I'm not so sure anymore. :P
I take a LOT of pictures on my hikes. In just three years, I've accumulated over 200gb of hiking photos and videos alone. xD
Not sure if this is relevant info, but my MacBook Pro is an i7, 8GB RAM, 2.3 GHz processor speed, 4 cores, has both USB 2.0 and Thunderbolt, both the integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 and the dedicated NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M graphics card.
also second question:
After doing some reading through comments, it doesnt matter if I am using thunderbolt or USB 3.0 ports and cables, if the SSD itself has a max read/write of 540mb/s write and 525mb/s read, it wont matter what port i connect? Since usb is cabable of 600+mb/s and the drive tiself is limited to about 540mb/s?
If that's the case, it looks like my hard drive will almost max out the USB3.0's capability, (540mb/s vs 625mb/s+ on the usb3.0 port) while I can hook up a couple drives to the thunderbolt port, like five 500mb/s SSD's chained on a single thunderbolt port totalling 2500mb/sec
correct?
I like to shop offline often, so I normally download a product catalog such as Amazon's which happens to be gigabytes & gigabytes long. I typically have about 100 external harddrives with me that I daisy chain in order to download the website at a more efficient pace. USB 3.0 is what I pride myself on, it has never let me down, and it won't let you down either.
haha, never heard that before
I have a Drobo 5D and I started out using Thunderbolt but it wasn't a stable connection. The drive would turn off and on if I moved my laptop even an inch or 2 on my desk. I switched to the provided USB 3.0 cable and never had a problem. When I'm editing, I can't tell the difference so I'll go with the more stable connection.
Help! So I have an iMac 4k and I purchased a samsung EVO850 250GB SSD to use as my boot drive and I purchased what I thought was the right cable. I ordered a USB C/usb3.0 to sata cable for the drive and now I am wondering if that's enough? I wanted the fastest possible connection with the best read/write speeds (being a boot drive and all) and I thought thunderbolt was the right way to go.
I looked up thunderbolt adapters but theyre so insanely expensive. They're more than the SSD itself...
any input on the Evo850 SSD through USB 3.0/C on the imac?
Hi! Great video! I'm looking to improve the speed of my workflow (Im a photog working with massive raw files) by upgrading to the G-drive 4tb. I want to know what you recommend for the fastest connect from my iMac for this drive. Would a setup like iMac - thunderboth adapter - g-drive work best? Thanks!!
Why I didn't come across your video 3 days ago when was purchasing a hard drive. I took Thunderbolt however noticed that usb3 is even faster. Could save a lot of cash grabbing usb3 only.
Maxone Studios thunderbolt is faster... did you even watch the video?
Please disregard most of this video. If you were planning on buying a drive for simple storage, then USB 3.0 is all you need. If for editing, Thunderbolt will give you an advantage.
Good point you are making. This is why I haven't stepped up to a newer MacBook Pro. I have two internal SSDs and with USB3 or TB, I can transfer all the data I need while editing on the fly. Good video and right to the point. Thank you. (:
Great info! Thanks! I'll look into a tb dock for my USB 2, 3.
Great video! If I had the choice, I would use USB over Thunderbolt for external storage. Working in environments with both PCs and Macs, USB 2.0 or 3.0 is a more common interface. I'm curious does anyone use eSATA drives or USB to SATA docks?
+Unique Photo and Video (UniquePhotoandVideo.com) I have and they work well. But if you're going to be using them a lot I wouldn't recommend them. You don't want to expose your drives to extended use without being in a case.
Hey Caleb. I’m finally upgrading my setup for both editing performance and backup/storage. This and your video outlining your workflow setup have been most insightful. At this point I am an avid Prosumer level hybrid shooter. From my Imac I’m exploring the option of going with an SSD external through my thunderbolt 2 as my “working drive” and through a usb 3 connect something like a Synology DS218+ (4K x 2) or even a WD mycloud EX2 Ultra (4K x 2) for the storage and backup. I’ll probably back that all up in the cloud somewhere. Does that sound feasible or worth it to you?
Can I hook an external portable SSD drive to my Thunderbolt 2 port for faster video editing? I have a 2012 macbook pro!
Can you have a usb and connect to a thunderbolt? Can you use a windows surface (only haves usb) with a thunderbolt connecter to use a external graphic card?
Caleb, when using Thunderbolt ports, since they function as MiniDisplayPort as well, could you daisychain say a MiniDisplayport to DVI Adapter for a monitor off say a Thunderbolt HDD? I have an iMac with 2 TB ports, but I use both of them as MiniDisplayport's with adapters to DVI to use my super old Apple Cinema monitors. (The thick aluminum ones). If i had a thunderbolt drive connected instead to that port, do you know if I could plug the monitor into the drive and still get video to the monitor? That's been the frustrating thing with my iMac is what monitors I can use additionally with it, and without splurging on an actual Thunderbolt monitor, using the Displayport functionality and my older monitors has worked....but eats up my ports. Love the series! Been watching for a long time as I've started my career, and your videos always seem to come around the time I've been thinking about certain things like hard disks and now connections! Looking forward to more!
+The 8-Bit Duke Yes, you SHOULD (haven't tested) be able to do this as long as you have the monitors at the end of each daisy chain.
+The 8-Bit Duke Should be possible. Haven't tried it myself.
+The 8-Bit Duke Which brand of mini display adaptor are you using? Passive adaptors caused issues, so I switched to Active Adaptors. In theory, your suggested setup should work.
I'm not sure about that stuff, but I own a bunch of the adaptors; namely I use the official MiniDP To DVI adaptor from Apple.
+The 8-Bit Duke Apple's $29 adaptor is passive. Apple's adapter caused kernel panics and my computer refused to wake or go into sleep mode. I'm curious if you had similar issues?
Modern hard drives are way faster than 90 MB/s, it's actually double that. And regarding Thunderbolt, it definately is not made for one drive or two, it is made for serious RAID configurations, eg. Lacie 5BIG in RAID5 goes up to 800/800MB/s, just like faster SSD, and it costs just over $1000, very cheap for what you get, essentially you get 12TB SSD.
great video, question, when you daisy chain does it slow down the speed for each device? much like USB
+Behind VM (Vettas) For thunderbolt I don't believe so. Maybe if you connected a ton of super fast SSDs. Haven't tied that! But I haven't noticed slow speeds when connecting 2 or 3 devices.
Thanks a lot! Great explanation! I don't understand why everyone can't stop comparing connectors speeds, while even the best SSD hard drives are limited to about 550 mb/s... Could you be so kind and answer one of my questions? I'd like to buy Lacie drive to store my vids (I have MacBook pro with USB-c ports), but Lacie USB-C drives are way more expensive than their older USB 3.0. So will the file transfer speed be faster with USB-C if the HDD speed is limited to just over about 120 mb/s anyways? Or are there any other advantages of USB-C on HDD? Thank you in advance. I hope I don't trouble you too much with this.
hi, does anyone have any usb converting adapter suggestions for thunderbolt 1 hdd??
what about latency? it's more important than bandwidth in audio interfaces for instance...
Both would be fine but looking at Universal Audio, Avid, RME, Apogee, etc...there's probably a good reason why they all have gone with Thunderbolt.
My question is, how can I get my Hardrive into my thunderbolt? Where can I get a micro USB to thunderbolt 2 adapter? I just need use of my port
Just got a Sony a7s 2, 2014 iMac and want to edit 4K and add some after effects. Do you recommend the g drive 3t from the last video or another?. FYI I love you're channel great job.
JASHEL MUSICA my a99 was stolen in SFO. dude, protect that thing
is there s thunderbolt 2 drive whits 16 Gbits speed?
Great info! Answered my question and a lot more.
fantastic video as usual! I know I'm asking questions almost 2 years after u publish this video. But I would love to ear if u still think that usb3.0 is enough for who needs to work on an external desktop HDD? Do you think I'll be fine editing 4k videos on FCPX having the library in the external HDD? thank a lot for your time man!
I'd like to know the answer for that too!!
USB 3.0 is only enough if the budget only allows just that. Thunderbolt will help you in almost all editing situations over USB of any type.
Is there a way to go from thunderbolt to usb
I always have the problem with USB 3.0 hard drive interference with my wifi connection. Do u have the same problem while u r using ur laptop and what is ur solution for this kind of problem.
Now what about a 4 HDD RAID?
+Espience Films Depends on how fast. I have a Lacie 2Big 4 TB RAID 0 disk array (on Thunderbolt) and it easily hits 300+ MB/s... and that's with just 2 disks. With 4 disks in the same setup, you're looking at probably around 600+ MB/s. The important thing to remember is that USB 3.0 is only THEORETICALLY rated at 625 MB/s... in reality it can be quite a bit less and also uses quite a bit of one of your CPU cores to max out it's speed. Thunderbolt would have way more headroom, in practice actually hits very close to it's rated speeds, and does not slow your machine down by spiking your CPU as it has it's own special controller/processor on the logicboard/motherboard. Also of note is that Thunderbolt is also Bi-Directionally that fast... whereas USB has to switch back and forth for I/O. In other words, you can have 2.5 GB/s going in AND out of your daisy chain for a maximum of, actually, 5 GB/s total... USB cannot do this.
aren't the faster ones at around 10000 rpm ??
I googled usb 3.0 speed. it says 5 gb/s...im confused...please explain
+dinthisane That is right. But that is gigaBITS not gigaBYTES. I converted bits to bytes in this video since most of us are familiar with gigabytes or "GB"
So 5 gb/s is 0.625 GB/s.
Ho ho... Very interesting Caleb !!!
Thanks,
Phil (France)
Very Helpful! Thank you
Great info! thank you.
I was JUST thinking about this topic!! The fu#! dude!
Do you know anything about USB 3.0 only being able to send "packets" of data or whatever? I've read on the creative cow forums that Thunderbolt could be better because of this.
Either way, these ports are about to be upgraded anyway. USB 3.1 (Gen 2) and Thunderbolt 3. USB 3.1 Gen 2 will be more than PLENTY fast for most people. Thunderbolt will always have that daisy chain advantage though; displays, other drives, whatever. My working drive and my main RAID backup are both Thunderbolt, while I have a few small 1TB USB 3.0 drives for a Time Machine backup (really would like to get an Airport for that, probably will), as well as one that holds yet another backup of compressed final edits, and a card reader is plugged in too.
I need to get some true offline storage going though, as I am on thin ice not having any. I guess just some of those cheap 1TB drives would be good for those? Anything is better than nothing.
+matrodfilm Yes, USB works by packetizing data before sending the data across the cable. Each device has a USB controller which is able to decode the packets. USB functions similar to how data is sent over a network.
+Unique Photo and Video (UniquePhotoandVideo.com) So would high data files end up choking (slowing down more so than they would if through a thunderbolt cable) if you were to use USB 3 for a working drive for ending video? 4K? Or, does the rendering process (while working, for preview scrubbing and rendered previews) work differently, so it doesn't really matter?
Never been able to figure out the answer to that.
In regards to external solid-state.
+Mat R USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt should be fine for compressed 1080p. I've not ventured into 4K. The task of rendering is usually limited by either the CPU or GPU. Most SSDs in enclosures are SATA 6Gb/s, so USB 3.0 would be fine. If you are working with high bit rate files, and multiple drive arrays, Thunderbolt may be beneficial. Please let me know if this helps.
44.100Hz · 16bits = 705.600bits/s (0.7056 · 10^5 each channel (MIN).
192.000Hz · 32bits = 6.144.000bits/s (6.144 · 10^6) each channel (MAX.)
BW of thunderbolt = (max.) 100Gbits/s (10^11)
BW of USB 3.0 = (max.) 5Gbits/s (5 · 10^9)
Who need that much BW to record?
Replay me if I'm wrong.
Good information
So, moral of the story is that Thunderbolt won't give a 7200rpm drive faster performance? I've been toying around the idea of getting a portable Thunderbolt drive, OR the tiny SSDs from Samsung.
+Aaron Walker No, always the slowest part of the chain is the one that counts. If you want to connect a normal hard drive to your computer (speeds of hard drives are around 80-130 MB/s) the transfer speed doesn't change even if you use the fastest cable in the world.
And like Caleb said in this video, USB 3 and Thunderbold are way over the top of the maximum speeds hard drive can transfer at.
+Ramon Odenbach Unless you are using multiple drives in a RAID. If you have 4 standard hard drives in a RAID 0 configuration, thunderbolt is the ideal connection because it provides the largest pipeline. Thunderbolt is mainly used for RAID speed. I get over 750mb/sec with my setup, that's 4, 1TB western digital black drives in RAID 0.
0:54 Thats a little lower lol
Give m By link
If you got a mac use thunderbolt....if you use a pc.....just hope you don't download any trojans or viruses while you're surfing the net.
so.... you are implying that a Mac cannot get a virus.... hahahahaha .. sorry, it's just always cracks me up to hear that from people. May I suggest you read a little before posting such nonsense. Not only CAN they be hacked, they HAVE been hacked. In fact, Apple itself last year disclosed 384 specific known vulnerabilities. Notice I said "known" Even Even Arch Linux has been hacked. IOS had a vulnerability that was so simple... all a hacker needed for you to do was to open one flash image and BAM, full access. But hey, don't take my word for it, Google is your friend. or... Just post your IP :p
Technically, Macs are less likely to get hacked or get malware. Not because they're less susceptible (you are absolutely correct in this), but hackers prefer to not waste their time on Macs since the Windows user-base is much bigger. (More people use Windows, so hacking a PC is more worth their while.)
Plz
Quite Justified.
You look tired…
Irrelevant