USB 3 vs Thunderbolt?

[Mike Smith]

https://www.itpro.co.uk/storage/22740/usb-vs-thunderbolt-which-is-better

https://www.alphr.com/features/382882/which-external-hard-drive-usb-3-or-thunderbolt

[Michael Dominic]

Thanks, I’ve read these, but I was hoping to peoples real world experiences.

[Shane Ross]

Thunderbolt is faster than USB 3. And the Thunderbolt drives tend to be made for higher end needs. They typically include fast drives that meet the demands of video editing. Some USB3 drives are cheaper because they have slower drives. BUT, if you look at comparable drives that are USB3 vs Thunderbolt (G-Tech has some that are both), they are similiarly priced.

The drives are cheaper for a reason. And you can’t really to cheap when you need drives to store video media on.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Michael Dominic]

Thank you. That’s very helpful.

I was looking at this drive but I just wonder why it’s so cheap? I also realize that my older Mac doesn’t have USB 3. I bought a new machine today that does so I’m wondering if I should return the second thunderbolt Drive (second link) that I bought and get that USB 3.

WD 8TB My Book Duo Desktop RAID External Hard Drive – USB 3.0 – WDBLWE0080JCH-NESN https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KU686D2/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_ZGIQwb0HQXG9M

G-Technology G-DRIVE with Thunderbolt High-Performance Storage Solution 3TB (Thunderbolt, USB 3.0) (0G03124) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HQXUG2Q/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_hJIQwbHDCH40P

[Tim Jones]

Something to remember –

Regardless of how fast Thunderbolt is versus USB 3, if you have a single disk in both, you’ll see less than 100MB/sec MAX throughput. The only time that you will see improvements (and where Thunderbolt beats USB-3 hands down) is in multiple drive solutions.

I have two 4 drive, 7200RPM Seagate Constellation 4TB unit loaded chassis (16TB each) – one Thunderbolt and one USB-3. Both are configure with Apple’s software RAID 0 (striping) for speed. I’ll let Black Magic Disk Speed Test provide the differences.

USB-3:

Thunderbolt:

Same physical drives, same software RAID 0 format, quite different performance.

However, SSD numbers start to balance things out in the single drive scenario. Here’s a USB-3 example of a SamSung EVO Pro 850 on a USB-3 connection. Note that it exceeds the performance of the 4 spinning drive stripe on Thunderbolt:

The moral of the tale – multiple, striped drives are always faster than a single drive – more spindles = more speed – and SSD trumps HDD in every situation.

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Michael Dominic]

So are you saying that there is no advantage having this single drive thunderbolt HD?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HQXUG2Q/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_hJIQwbHDCH40P

[Michael Dominic]

This is another option.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0084UYD1U?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_1&smid=A3SPLR0MSOYZ8O

[Tim Jones]

That’s 2 drives, so it will be closer to 200MB/sec. Again, more spindles, more performance for both interfaces (up to the 400MB/sec max of USB-3)

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Tim Jones]

Correct – a single drive will never really get you where you need to go performance-wise. Both interfaces are equal in that situation.

Tim
—
Tim Jones
CTO – TOLIS Group, Inc.
https://www.tolisgroup.com
BRU … because it’s the RESTORE that matters!

[Shane Ross]

You can get a USB3 G-Tech drive and a Thunderbolt G-Tech drive…both will perform about the same as they are both by G-tech and both made for editing video. MYBOOK..that’s for home backup, NAS…not really up the the demands of video editing. Thus why it’s so cheap.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def