Tag: 1TB

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Making my own 1TB SSD Portable Drive

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I was surprised to see how much the price of SSD’s (solid state drives) have dropped in price. I decided it was time to replace my slower portable drives with faster SSD ones. One thing I also learned a while ago is that many times it’s cheaper to buy the drive and buy external case to put it in, rather than buying a drive already assembled. I already a couple of generic USB 3.0 external cases that I picked up on sale at Micro Center. So I ordered this Crucial 1TB SSD drive.

Can the external hard drive case make a difference?

inateck-enclsoure

I put the SSD in my existing generic USB 3.0 external case. I formatted the drive and and copied the data to it from my existing external drive. All was well. Then I saw an ad for another enclosure by Inateck that claimed to be “Optimized for SSD”. I have seen firmware make a difference in the past with external drive enclosures, so I figured it’s possible that this enclosure could be faster. Since the price was only a few dollars more than generic USB 3.0 enclosures (under $20), I decided to try it and compare. The first thing I noticed that I really liked was the fact that you can install the drive without any tools. The cover comes off/unlocks by sliding it forward. Just plug your drive in and slide the cover back on. Then I saw the thing that I don’t like about this enclosure. I went to plug in my existing USB 3.0 cable that I’ve used on every USB 3.0 drive I’ve ever used only to see that for whatever reason they put a USB 3.0 A connector on the drive (the same one that’s on your computer). Granted they also give you the A to A cable, but it means that I would only be able to use that cable (or one like it) every time I use this drive. I’m still scratching my head over that one.

Next I decided to try a speed test. I had already tested the drive in the old case before taking it out and here are the results.

generic-USB3-enclosure

Then I plugged in the new enclosure with the same drive and and ran the same test and here are the results.

inetech-USB3-enclosure

The Bottom Line

Going SSD is definitely the way to go if you’re looking for speed and better reliability over spinning platter drives. While the Inateck enclosure is slightly faster, I’m not sure that it’s worth it because of the weird cable needed to connect the drive.

You can get the Crucial 1TB 6Gbs SSD here.

You can get the Inateck SSD Optimized enclosure here.

You can get a standard/generic USB 3.0 enclosure here.

 

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G-Drive 1TB Thunderbolt / USB 3 Portable Drive Review

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Last month while out of town on business I had an urgent need for more storage. One of my colleagues wanted to give me some new demo material and in total it was going to take up almost 1 terabyte of space. I had no where near that much available space on my laptop drive or either of the other two external drives I had with me. There was an Apple Store nearby so I headed over to buy a drive. I had no particular drive in mind although another colleague showed me his new LaCie 1TB Thunderbolt/USB3 drive. At least I had that one in the back of my mind as a starting point. I also had no idea which drives Apple would actually have in stock. I was going to be at the mercy of whatever was on the shelves as I needed the drive that day. I got to the store and found that they did in fact have the LaCie Rugged 1TB drive, but upon a quick glance at the specs I was stopped in my tracks to see that it had only a 5,400 rpm drive inside. What a waste! After all you’re paying extra for a Thunderbolt port and the drive would be pretty much crippled by the relatively slow spinning drive. I kept looking. For a moment I was tempted by a 2TB external drive (can’t even remember the manufacturer), but again saw that it was a 5,400 rpm drive. However, the 2TB capacity did sound nice since I knew that I was going to be getting almost 1TB of files to start with.
Then I saw the G-Drive 1TB Thunderbolt/USB3 Drive and since I knew the G-Drives were usually good performers I wasn’t surprised to see that it had a 7,200rpm mechanism inside. Now my debate was a fast drive but at only 1TB or a slow drive at 2TBs. Decisions, decisions. I ended up going with two of the 1TB G-Drives. The price worked out to be only $100 more than the 2TB drive and I was getting the same total capacity, but with much better performance.

About the performance

g-drive-speedtest

I knew the drives would be fast, but I was actually a little blown away by how fast they actually were. They came with both USB 3 and Thunderbolt cables and since I have a Thunderbolt port on my MacBook Pro, I plugged it in via Thunderbolt. I was floored by how fast the data copied. I even handed one to my colleague Jason and said “here, choose a fairly large file on your computer and copy it to this drive.” As luck would have it he had a 4GB file that was handy and it copied in under a minute.
Having both a Thunderbolt Port and USB 3 port means that I have the option of connecting it to pretty much any modern computer and I’ll get good performance. Even if I have to connect it to an older computer I’ll get USB 2 speeds. I didn’t really expect to like this drive as much as I do. I was just running out to get a drive to fill an immediate need. However, it’s now my favorite portable drive.

You can get the G-Drive 1TB Thunderbolt / USB 3 Portable Drive here.

SAVE MONEY! If you don’t have a Thunderbolt port or simply don’t need the Thunderbolt connectivity then you can actually get the same drive in a USB 3 ONLY configuration for about half the price here. I’ve used the drive above connected via USB 3 and it was still plenty fast.