Seagate's GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapters

17 Comments

View All Comments

• zorxd - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link

  Expensive.
  Doesn't support any drive (must be goflex, WTF???)
  Probably still limited by the speed of the SATA bus since the drive will be SATA internally.

• jontech - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link

  SO now that Apple got the ball rolling, lets see those PC's start pumping out the Thunderbolt to move the prices down.
  
  After having deploying 2 Promise Pegasus 12TB arrays, I became a convert.
  
  Let USB handle the mice and keyboards and webcams

• r3loaded - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link

  At $100/$190, the only thunderbolt this will cause is the one hitting the wallet. All this for an interface with no tangible improvement over USB 3.0 for an external hard drive that's limited by the drive's speed.
  
  I'm sure Mac owners will lap it up though as it's their only option as mandated by Apple.

• ddarko - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - link

  If you have a computer with Thunderbolt, USB 2.0 or Firewire, there mostly certainly is a "tangible improvement" with being able to use the Thunderbolt port. And if or when Seagate introduces an SSD drive with that's compatible with the Goflex adapters, the Thunderbolt adapter would easily provide the fastest pathway.
  
  As for your Apple comment, it's not only inaccurate on its face - you can use USB 2.0 or Firewire on any Apple computer - but also irrelevant to this article. Always amazes me that some folks use even the most tangible stories as an opportunity to bash Apple.

• BobM54 - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - link

  If you were'nt so emotional you would have read what he stated correctly "All this for an interface with no tangible improvement over USB 3.0 "
  
  But you Apple Fanbozs really can't help yourself can you? Some day maybe you can get off the plantation.

• Prakesh Indeep - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - link

  Oh, please. As if your and r3's comments weren't emotion-laden. You might want to try to say things that don't apply even more to yourselves than to the object of your derision. You know, the "speck in your brother's eye, log in your own eye" thing.
  
  There's nothing wrong with being a fan as long as one doesn't get carried away to the point of no longer being rational. In this case, r3 made a valid point about Apple artificially limiting its customers' choices, for no apparent good reason. Is that somehow a good thing for Apple users? The "no support from Intel" reason given by Steve Jobs was clearly baloney: it's not hurting other manufacturers of computers and peripherals. There is plenty of inferior USB 3.0 product out there, and the acceptance rate reflects it, but one would think Apple would be able to develop superior designs.
  
  @ddarko: what is the "most certain tangible improvement" that arises in the scenario that r3 postulated--which is different than the one you posed--using a Thunderbolt port rather than a USB 3.0 port? Isn't the inherent disk speed a limiting factor in that scenario, as r3 says? Even if Thunderbolt's throughput is greater, most users may not transfer two or three figures of GB often enough to feel that it justifies spending more for the interface than they spent on the hard drive itself.
  
  You're right about GoFlex having a standard SATA interface, and people need to understand that. I have several USB 3.0 GoFlex adapters left over after buying FIreWire versions, and they work just fine for connecting bare SATA drives. There's no reason they couldn't be used--including in their Thunderbolt iteration, presumably--to connect SSDs (along with 2.5"-3.5" adapters as required, of course).

• ddarko - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - link

  The tangible improvement is that the scenario he has poses doesn't exist in the real world since almost all computers with Thunderbolts out there are Apple, which don't have USB 3.0. This product is chiefly for those users who will only have access to USB 2.0 or Firewire. That will change as non-Apple computers start to introduce Thunderbolt
  
  It is a bit rich that on the one hand, he implicitly takes a swipe at Apple for not having USB 3.0, but on the other, dismisses a solution that offers those users a faster pathway. For Apple computers that don't have USB 3.0 but do have Thunderbolt - which is 100% of all Apple computers with Thunderbolt - this Seagate adapter will get you faster speeds right now.

• ddarko - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - link

  I would add, it's undeniable the Thunderbolt adapter's price is high but it's cheaper to buy the adapter plus a Goflex hard drive than buying a drive with a built-in Thunderbolt port. And there is added flexibility because you can use that Goflex hard drive with other computers that don't have Thunderbolt ports by swapping adapters.
  
  I dismissed r3loaded's comment because it is oblivious to the reality of the market for this product. Folks who will consider this product don't have a choice to use USB 3.0 over Thunderbolt - the only alternatives they can turn to are USB 2.0 or Firewire. When Apple rolls out USB 3.0 with the Ivy Bridge chipsets, obviously, the calculation will be different. But this adapter is for the present Sandy Bridge-based computers with only USB 2.0 as an alternative to Thunderbolt.

• jontech - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - link

  I like it on the Plantation, I'm getting 10gb on my Raid Array
  
  and TB comes on even the cheapest of Mac's. You can barely get USB 3.0 on nicer laptops!
  
  My HP 8460p has ONE! and its not even labeled different from the other ones.

• ddarko - Tuesday, January 10, 2012 - link

  Thanks for proving and illustrating my point. Your post is like the punchline to a joke.