iMac 2011 SSD options externally.

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 29 Jan 2012 at 14:46

Lets say you want a SSD boot drive for your iMac... Is it possible to have one that is external and I guess to benefit from the speed increase it would have to be thunderbolt driven. Are there any options for this?

QwaF · 29 Jan 2012 at 15:04

There is this:

http://www.elgato.com/elgato/int/mainmenu/products/ThunderboltSSD.html

Not ideal, as it'd be better if it was just an enclosure to fit your own SSD, but it could work.. I suppose.

dav3evans · 29 Jan 2012 at 15:35

I don't think there are any Thunderbolt SSD enclosures, and probably wont be for a while... The only thing I can think to do is if you already have an SSD buy something like the above and then swap out the drive yourself... voids the warranty but a cheaper way around it.

Could always replace the optical drive with an SSD for a boot drive and then have an external optical drive. Safer option imo just so you avoid the slim, but plausible chance that it gets knocked/disconnected while you are in the middle of something.

That Elgato unit also has just 1 TB slot, meaning it has to be at the end of the chain...very annoying if you have a display, then video I/O then the drive.. you'd have to shut down before you could do anything like disconnect your display..not convenient at all really imho.

Johnny|lucidcomposure · 29 Jan 2012 at 15:39

thats a slow SSD in that enclosure isn't it? Because isn't thunderbolt write speeds are higher than that. I would want a 500mb read/write SSD.
So to do that and buy another one I might aswel of just paid apple for installing one anyway.

artaxerxes · 2 Feb 2012 at 14:39

GoFlex Samsung Thunderbolt connector;

http://www.macworld.com/article/165...h_the_seagate_goflex_thunderbolt_adapter.html

It will do any naked laptop sized SATA drive (it is bus powered and the form factor admits only laptop SATA drives - even those not in the fancy GoFlex box.)

dav3evans · 2 Feb 2012 at 15:46

Interesting unit, ok for iMac as well as you have more than 1 TB port, and this thing doesn't. Won't be much use on a laptop as it doesn't have daisy chaining so its no good for me! Then again, $100...wouldn't expect too much.

Elric · 2 Feb 2012 at 16:44

LaCie do an External Little Big Disk Thunderbolt SSD, not cheap though.

dav3evans · 2 Feb 2012 at 16:48

About £340 for 1TB - 2 x 500GB drives striped in RAID 0.