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Hardware Compatibility
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Topic starter
Hi there.
I'm wondering if there is a general preference between USB and Thunderbolt enclosures?
I'm using both at the moment - StarTech and Lacie TB enclosures and various US ones (Icy BOX, Sharkoon) etc.
I seem to always get errors / disk ejections/errors/ disk spinning up and down on the USB enclosures. Also, SMART seems very hit and miss on USB
Will be likely buying some new 8 or 12 bay raid enclosures soon ( looking at Mlogic MSpeed) - obviously TB enclosures are usually quite a bit more expensive.
Is there any info as to if & why USB is less reliable for external softraid volumes etc?
Thanks in advance.
Declan
Posted : 25/07/2019 7:41 am
Thunderbolt is both faster and more reliable than USB. In Mac OS in particular, there are USB issues that allow corrupted memory to be written to the protected area of a disk, damaging the volume.
USB is much slower with any RAID especially RAID 5 (40-50% slower).
I would not consider USB for anything but casual backups, not for serious data storage.
Posted : 25/07/2019 11:33 am
Topic starter
Thanks, I had been feeling the same way but good to get an expert view on this.
Declan
Posted : 29/07/2019 7:34 am
Thunderbolt is both faster and more reliable than USB. In Mac OS in particular, there are USB issues that allow corrupted memory to be written to the protected area of a disk, damaging the volume.
USB is much slower with any RAID especially RAID 5 (40-50% slower).
I would not consider USB for anything but casual backups, not for serious data storage.
Can you please advise whether this is true for the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Quad USB enclosures as well? When I initially purchased, I had thought it was TB3 (USB-C), but subsequently realized it is "TB3 compatible" as USB 3.1 GEN2 (10Gbps). Any potential difference in reliability which might guide which drives I put in my TB enclosures vs USB 3G2 enclosures?
Many thanks in advance,
-Phil
Posted : 02/01/2020 4:50 pm
Personally, I believe Thunderbolt is much superior to any USB.
The confuson is because the same connectors are used for USB (power), USB 3.1Gen2, Multiple Thunderbolt cables, etc. That is another discussion, though.
You cannot daisy chain USB enclosures as you can Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt is indeed much faster than USB. Plus, Apple's implementation of USB is not as robust as in the Wintel universe.
The USB 3.1gen 2 enclosures (Mercury Elite Quad Pro) are reasonably fast, and reliable. There is a huge demand for less expensive enclosures also. If you have the budget, go for Thunderbolt.
All drives will be equally good in such enclosures, don't worry about that. Just use the USB cable you got with the enclosure (cable quality matters with USB C) and you should be just fine!
Posted : 02/01/2020 10:44 pm
