Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt Adaptor is very slow on new MBP

blackr41n wrote:

i tried to copy single 13GB files, the speed on my new MBP is only 16MB/s and on windows 7 pararells dekstop is 60MB/s, how could MAC OS IS VERY SLOWWWWWWWW????

Since you aren't getting any help on the Seagate Forum either, a question. Are you saying that your GoFlex drive is being recognized by the Parallels Windows 7 installation using the Thunderbolt adapter and when you copy a file to it from Windows, it goes at 60 MB/sec? If so, did you install any of Seagate's software on the MBP and/or the Windows installation? And also, is the 1TB drive formatted for Windows or the Mac?

Is this the drive you have? Is there any reason that you're keeping the drive formatted for Windows? What exactly are you trying to use the drive for? If I were you, I'd format it for Mac OSX Journaled - Parallels will still be able to read it.

Clinton

That's your problem - you need an app to support NTFS and Mac transfers: it's not a native format for Macs. I Googled "ntfs for mac" and my first hit was http://www.paragon-software.com/home/ntfs-mac/.

You might want to Google it yourself if you want to find other solutions.

Good luck,

Clinton

And you're still having problems with speed? You should be getting some faster speeds but note that the transfer rate may be higher than platter-based HD's can handle. I don't know if that is the case with your Seagate drive or not. I find it unusual that you're getting such low transfer speeds, though. I don't have a Thunderbolt equipped drive to test the read/write speeds. Maybe someone who does will chime in. You might even want to start a new thread called something like "Transfer rates using Thunderbolt HD's."

Sorry I couldn't be of further help. Glad you had the good sense to get something like Paragon. I'm wondering if their Mac HFS+ to NTFS might work better? I'd also contact them for some support - maybe they've run across something similar.

Regards,

Clinton

clintonfrombirmingham wrote:

...You should be getting some faster speeds but note that the transfer rate may be higher than platter-based HD's can handle...I don't have a Thunderbolt equipped drive to test the read/write speeds. Maybe someone who does will chime in...

I don't have a Thunderbolt equipped drive because I don't have Thunderbolt but I have had a few Seagate GoFlex USB 3.0 drives plugged into a USB 3.0 PCIe card on my Mac Pro and they were capable of 120 MB/sec writes. The drives themselves are Barracuda XT's which tend to be very fast; I think newer drives in the GoFlex enclosures may be Green drives which are slower. But they'd still be way faster than what the OP is getting.

Question: since Paragon ntfs is in the communication chain between Mac OS X and the GoFlex, could that be slowing the Mac transfers down with its additional overhead, whereas Windows is talking directly to the drive natively?

FatMac\>MacPro wrote:

Question: since Paragon ntfs is in the communication chain between Mac OS X and the GoFlex, could that be slowing the Mac transfers down with its additional overhead, whereas Windows is talking directly to the drive natively?

I don't know - I think it would be a good idea for the OP to contact Paragon, though, and see if that might be the case.

Clinton

Just in case someone else comes across this… The reason you're seeing slow speeds with a thunderbolt adapter is that you have formatted your disk with NTFS. Macintosh computers cannot recognize this format natively but you can use NTFS for Mac (http://www.paragon-software.com) which will allow you to use the disc with both platforms. I did this and found no benefits whatsoever. It is MUCH better to dedicate a USB 2 or USB 3 external drive for windows use only. I formatted a 1.5 TB drive with NTFS then installed the NTFS for Mac software. The drive worked fine HOWEVER, when you do a search with the Mac to find a file or something it cannot search the NTFS drive. So basically, anything you place on the NTFS drive from your Macintosh you will be unable to find when searching. That's a big deal! The other limitation I found was using the drive on my new Seagate thunderbolt adapter. Unless you're booted natively in to Windows on your Macintosh, Windows cannot see the drive. Secondly and very important of course, it's very very slow. It took forever to copy the information I had stored on the drive to other drives… Reformat and use the drive as a Mac external. The data transfer is ridiculously slow and reformatting the drive from NTFS back to Mac OS extended journaled also took a very long time.

To summarize, formatting a drive with NTFS so that you can use it for both Windows and Mac sounds like a great idea but in reality it's not so great unless you're okay with slow speeds and the inability to search the drive with the Mac.

That is slightly incorrect. OS X can READ NTFS formatted drive as well as it can read FAT 32, exFAT and OS X, HFS+, formatted drives. It can't Write to that format.

Oops.... anyway more to the point, Mac OS can read and write to NTFS formatted drives with the software I mentioned but it's slow and Mac OS cannot search the disk.