Good Afternoon all,
So i have a 2019 imac and taken a SSD out of my old pc and would like to connect to this Imac for storage.
I already have a double caddy via usb and also 1 ssd via usb and wonder can I use the usb-c thunder port on my model for SSD?
The ssd is inside a usb 2 external case and the SSD is a kingdian s400 480gb
is it worth doing this way ? or get a fast ssd caddy?
iMac 27″, macOS 14.1
A 27" iMac has two USB-C (Thunderbolt 3) ports and 4 USB-A ports. The USB-C ports support USB transfers at up at 10 Gbps (USB 3.1 Gen 2 speed) and the USB-A ports support USB transfers at up to 5 Gbps (USB 3.0 speed).
iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2019) - Technical Specifications
It sounds like you have a SATA SSD and a USB 2 / SATA enclosure with a USB-A plug on the end of the cable which goes to the computer. If that is a USB 2 enclosure (not a USB 3 one), it will bottleneck the performance of the SSD, and you won't be able to take full advantage even of the USB-A (USB 3) ports, much less the Thunderbolt ones.
On Amazon, you can find a number of tool-free USB 3 / SATA SSD enclosures with UASP support for about $10. If you put your SSD into one of those, you could connect it to any of your USB-A ports, or to either of your USB-C (TB) ports with a USB-C to USB-A adapter (that supports USB 3 speeds). Since these enclosures generally feature USB 3.0, there wouldn't be any speed advantage to doing it one way or the other.
Since your computer has Thunderbolt 3 ports, you could attach an extremely fast Thunderbolt 3 / PCIe NVMe SSD. But that would require the purchase of a new type of SSD, and wouldn't be nearly as inexpensive as a $10 upgrade from a USB 2 enclosure to a USB 3 enclosure.
A 27" iMac has two USB-C (Thunderbolt 3) ports and 4 USB-A ports. The USB-C ports support USB transfers at up at 10 Gbps (USB 3.1 Gen 2 speed) and the USB-A ports support USB transfers at up to 5 Gbps (USB 3.0 speed).
iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2019) - Technical Specifications
It sounds like you have a SATA SSD and a USB 2 / SATA enclosure with a USB-A plug on the end of the cable which goes to the computer. If that is a USB 2 enclosure (not a USB 3 one), it will bottleneck the performance of the SSD, and you won't be able to take full advantage even of the USB-A (USB 3) ports, much less the Thunderbolt ones.
On Amazon, you can find a number of tool-free USB 3 / SATA SSD enclosures with UASP support for about $10. If you put your SSD into one of those, you could connect it to any of your USB-A ports, or to either of your USB-C (TB) ports with a USB-C to USB-A adapter (that supports USB 3 speeds). Since these enclosures generally feature USB 3.0, there wouldn't be any speed advantage to doing it one way or the other.
Since your computer has Thunderbolt 3 ports, you could attach an extremely fast Thunderbolt 3 / PCIe NVMe SSD. But that would require the purchase of a new type of SSD, and wouldn't be nearly as inexpensive as a $10 upgrade from a USB 2 enclosure to a USB 3 enclosure.
You are attempting to cobble USB 2 slowness (e.g. 480Mbps) into a fast TB3 (40Gbps) port. Use one of your USB-A ports (max 5Gbps) instead.
You took an SSD out of an old PC. Probably at best it can not perform better than 500 MB/s. You put it into a USB 2 enclosure which would throttle the connectivity to your iMac to a maximum of 480 Mbps, regardless of the cable you use.
In contrast, I purchased an external 1 or 2 TB Crucial X8 SSD which is in a USB-3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) enclosure, ships with a dedicated USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 cable, and the drive itself is rated at 1050 MB/s. It makes more sense to plug this into a TB3 port on my 2020 iMac, than the USB-A ports.
Yes. Yes a 2.5" SATA SSD will be faster in a USB 3 external enclosure or dock than in a USB 2 external enclosure or dock.
For example: I have several 2.5" SATA SSDs in the Sabrent Tool Free Enclosures that I use for Clone Backups.
connect a ssd via thunderport
