I have had a Thunderbolt enabled Macbook Air for almost a year now and it was killing me that no affordable Thunderbolt accessories existed yet. I did one last desperate search on the internet and low and behold I found something that is actually cheap and makes the Thunderbolt port super useful. I hadn’t run across it before because Seagate markets this item as only working with their “GoFlex” 2.5″ SATA spinning drives.
It is called the “GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter” and sells for $90 – $99. After a little research on the Macrumors forums I found that not only did it work with almost any spinning 2.5″ drive it also works with some SATA SSD drives. I immediately ordered the adapter along with a Mushkin Chronos 240gb SSD drive and sure enough it works flawlessly. The Thunderbolt port even powers the SSD so no external power is required. I suddenly went from the slow as molasses 30 MB/s USB 2.0 to a blazing 370 MB/s over Thunderbolt! $99 for a 12 x speed jump sounds like a good deal to me!
It then occurred to me, hmm, RED mags are SSD drives, wouldn’t it be amazing if I could somehow get these two to work together? The RED Station SSD reader has eSATA out so it seemed plausible. I just needed to go from the male SATA data port on the GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter to the male eSATA port on the RED Station. Fortunately Amazon carries just such a cable, so I payed an ungodly amount and had it overnighted.
I had to make a couple modifications to the cable up with a needle nose pliers in order to get the SATA end to fit, but otherwise everything looked good to go. I plugged the other end into the eSATA port on the red station then held my breath as I plugged the thunderbolt cable into my MacBook Air. Boom! The RED mag instantly mounted. I loaded up the Blackmagic Disk Speed test and got a blazing 200 MB/s read speed!
This is a huge deal. Up until now unless you had a SATA port on your computer you were limited to 30 Mb/s for USB and about 75 MB/s for FireWire 800 for RED mag offloads. Instead of an offload taking 2 hours over Firewire 800 it will now only take 45 minutes!
Ideally the first part in this chain would be a Thunderbolt raid with the Thunderbolt adapter and RED Station daisy chained at the end. I have definitely got some more testing to do!
pros
2 x eSATA ports + 2 x Thunderbolt ports
cons
Needs it’s own power, big, 2 x the price
The LaCie Thunderbolt eSATA Hub is currently the only other existing option for connecting eSATA through a Thunderbolt port. If you need to attach more than one eSATA drive and an extra Thunderbolt port this is probably a better option. It does always need it’s own power, though.
Hello I would like to know one thing: how come you did not enter the RED SSD 1.8-inch directly into the Seagate adapter?
The red SSD has a custom chip and proprietary connector actually. It only fits in the RED Station reader.
So the RED SSD 1,8-inch can not be inserted directly in the Seagate adapter?
Correct.
Thank you very much, it was important to me to know this thing. Bye!
I have another question, sorry: and the 2,5-inch RED SSD can be read with the Seagate adaptator?
There is no RED 2.5 inch SSD at this time. They do make the 2.5 inch RED station SSD reader but that is for holding 2.5 inch drives to transfer footage to from the 1.8 inch SSD drives.
Is This? http://www.red.com/store/products/red-station-redmag-25
Yeah, you can put regular 2.4″ spinning or SSD SATA drives in there and transfer footage from the RED SSD drive.
So I can used this device with all types of SATA SSD
All types of 2.5″ SATA SSD.
Justin, cool trick.
Just to clarify though, 100Mb/s and 100MB/s are completely different.
Mb stands for Megabit, while MB stands for MegaBYTE, which I think is what you are referring to.
100Mb/s is rather slow
Ah doh! Forgot I hadn’t changed that here. Thanks for pointing it out!
Thanks for the awesome DIY, Justin. Just wanted to know one last thing before I go out and by the adapter: is the esata enclosure hot pluggable into the thunderbolt adapter and be recognized by the MBAir? Just wondering since some esata raid arrays is not hotpluggable depending on the esata controller.
If yes, does it matter where the hot plugging occurs (in other words, do i plug/unplug at the thunderboltport-thunderbolt cable interface, or at the seagate adapter-male sata interface.
My pleasure! I was able to hotswap the Thunderbolt cable using both the SSD and RED Sation SSD reader no problem.
I’m wondering what the “some SATA SSD drives” limitation is. Thanks.
This thread on Macrumors discusses which SSD drives work and which ones have problems. It seems like some of the large ones have issues: http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=14734670&postcount=228
Has anyone tried sticking a standard size sata drive on this adapter? I know it’d be rather bulky; just curious as the connectors are the same as the 2.5 drives
I’ll have to actually try it but just eying it it looks like 3.5″ drives are too thick to fit in this one. There is a 3.5″ inch GoFlex as well and it has a pass-through thunderbolt part. http://www.frys.com/product/7016681?source=googleps&gclid=CIrf3IGtk7ICFYhxQgodS3gAZw I use them in combination actually.
Ok, looks like it is a power issue. I actually have been using a Voyager sata adapter (NewerTech Voyager – http://eshop.macsales.com/search/newer+Technology+Voyager)
Actually looking at the casing on this unit which accepts sata drives either size so nicely…. wondering if I could use the housing to make a nice fitting adapter with the go flex for sata drives.
[...] timo: Thunderbolt DIY Dock [...]
Hey man, awesome write up!
Whats the best way to get highspeeds to something like this: http://ain.mediasonic.ca/store/product_info.php?cPath=71&products_id=150 ?
I got a mac mini (2011) with thunderbolt, looking for the cheapest solution to hook up a few hd’s (2.5 sata) that I removed from a few of the external hd’s I had kicking around. I use to have a mac pro, but sold it and got the mini, so I need someway to hook them all up, but USB is pretty slow like you said.. got anything that might do the trick? The link I sent supports eSata, I just dont know how to get from that to thunderbolt without that $200 lacie adapter..
thanks bro!
Hi. Thanks for this post, it’s good to read about somebody’s personal hands-on trial and experiences using this. I almost bought one of these but in the emergency I was dealing with it made more sense to pick up a 500meg lacie rugged.
I am considering either this Go Flex adapter but there is also a desktop version (unfortunately powered) however it does have a second Thunderbolt port which would mean it’s possible to daisychain, so my monitor port will still be accessible.
The other option as you mentioned is the LaCie hub at a similar of price to the Seagate desktop adapter which has 2 x thunderbolt and 2 x esata.
I’d really like a hub that gives all connectivity options such as Firewire + USB 2 & 3 + eSata + Thunderbolt thru but it looks like I’d have to have a bailout package to afford that any time soon.
It is a bummer that anything Tunderbolt is so expensive after all this time though, I really hope this doesn’t remain the case for much longer.
Thanks again for the useful info
Great idea! So did you just use a standard SATA to eSATA cable between the Seagate adapter and the RED Station?
I used the cheapest I could find: http://www.amazon.com/SATA-Male-eSATA-Cable-Inches/dp/B002P6W8E8 You just have to shave off the sides with an exacto knife to get it to fit in the GoFlex SATA port.
Awesome thanks very much!
Anyone know where to get one of these cables in the UK?
Cheers,
Andrew
Hey guys, the 2.5″ goflex will not power a 3.5″ drive. However the 3.5″ goflex will power both 3.5″ and 2.5″ drives. Keep in mind the 3.5″ goflex requires external power. I used these when I worked for Apple, they are pretty awesome especially if you work in IT. Doing data transfers and drive tests go so much faster than using standard USB/Firewire docks. Definitely worth the investment.
Anyone know if you can daisy chain with this device?
Just a quick note – the esata hub from Lacie will work ONLY with single mechanism drives and will not work with GRAID or dual mechanism drives. I tried it and was informed by Lacie it would not work and returned the device.
What about port multiplication with the seagate solution? I have a five drive DAS I’d like to run this with.
Does the esata connection exist on the desktop version?
Hi
This looks excellent, thanks. I am about to buy a new imac and I have some lacie and g-drives that I want to connect.
Can I ask, with this set-up, can I connect the following three drives individually to my new computer: lacie d2 quadra 750GB via esata, lacie d2 quadra RAID – 2 x 1TB via esata, G-RAID 2x2TB via esata.
I ask because he original write-up does not discuss using regular ext-HDs, and especially, using RAID arrays.
If it is true that RAIDs are not supported by the Lacie adaptor then I have nowhere to go!
thanks loads
Dave
I have used RAIDs no problem! Checkout this video I just put together: https://vimeo.com/58467321
Yeah, they are exactly the same! Here’s a photo: http://camerarentalz.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/20130203-140153.jpg
Hello,
I have a OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MEQX2KIT0GBO/) 12 TB RAID. Would the GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter allow me to adapt the to esata port on my RAID to the Thunderbolt port on my Imac? If so would I need anything extra besides an esata cable and a thunderbolt cable? Thanks!!
It should, I have been able to connect every eSATA device I have tried. Yeah, all you need is the GoFlex and the eSATA to SATA cable linked in the post.
Just ordered the newer STAE128 version and the linked amazon esata cable. Hoping this will give my newertech voyager SATA dock thunderbolt speeds through its esata port… http://www.newertech.com/products/voyagerq.php
I’m hoping that since this is thunderbolt then you can boot from the external. Is that true?
Hey there Darren…
Did you get that setup to work? I have the same dock and was hoping since it’s powered it would give it the juice it needs to fire up!
Cheers!