Would connecting an external SSD drive to my 2015 iMac via the Thunderbolt 2 port on the Mac, using a USB C adapter, give increased speeds compared with the current set up of USB C to USB A
Can you give us more info about the drive? Is it an SSD that you've put in an enclosure or was it built as a complete external? (It depends on the speed of the drive interface. Perhaps give the make/model of drive or of both drive and caddy).
I looked at that possibility when I set a SSD to run my iMac and all the adaptors do not allow power to the drive. The way I did it was to buy a second hand Laci drive that had a ThunderBolt 2 connector dismantle the HD from it and install the SSD in it
Hi both and thank you for your replies. The drive is a complete external Crucial X6 1TB with speeds up to 540 MBS. I am hoping that it could be faster if connected to the Thunderbolt port on the iMac via an adapter. Following Doug's post I have found an Apple adapter that might do the trick but I will wait for your sage advice before taking the £19 plunge.
Michael,
You can't reliably tell from the connector type as each USB/Thunderbolt connector type supports several speeds. You can read the interface speed from System Info and that will give you a clue as to whether there is anything to gain.
* Connect your drive and then open System Information (Apple menu, hold down the Option key and System Information... will replace About This Mac, choose it).
* In the left column, choose USB (at the bottom of the Hardware section).
* In the main pane, there is a scrolling list at the top. Click the disclosure '>' arrows and look for your drive by its device name. Click it.
* In the lower part of the pane, you should be able to see lots of info about the device, for example the Vendor Id that will show you the manufacturer. Make sure this info tallies so you have the correct device.
* You should also see a Speed entry. This is the interface's speed and we want this to be more than the device's speed. If your USB A connectors are supporting USB 3/3.1 you should see some decent numbers here; try each USB A port because they might be different (or look up the spec of your Mac to find out what you should have). Your drive is capable of 540 Mb/s which is about half a Gb/s.
If you don't have high speed USB A connectors then it will likely be worth using an adaptor.
For example, my WD My Passport SSD reports on the USB 3.1 Bus as:
Product ID: 0x264f
Vendor ID: 0x1058 (Western Digital Technologies, Inc.)
Version: 20.05
Serial Number: xxxxxxx
Speed: Up to 10 Gb/s
which is a far faster interface than the drive so all is optimised.
Problem sorted - an external Crucial 1TB SSD (tiny!) and a USB C to USB A connector rated for high speed data transmission - this latter is vital as just using an adaptee on an ordinary USB A to USB A cable showed no speed increase. Many thanks to Tony and to Doug for their help and encouragement. Got there in the end!
Michael Corgan 