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Numbers imply that Thunderbolt is faster than USB 3.0. But, is there any external hard drive that can really reach this speed?
Ahmed Metwally
Posted 2016-08-22T08:23:59.483
Reputation: 11
Does Thunderbolt speed provide a benefit over USB 3.0 for an external hard disk?
Answers
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In this ssd benchmark the fastest SSD (2016) has a write performance of 512MB/s (read performance is a little bit higher, but not significantly)
Wikipedia shows 5GB/s as maximum throughput of an USB 3.0 port.
As you can see, this is a multiple of the maximum of what a current hard disk can support.
To answer your question: There is no external hard disk (at the moment) that would use the higher speed of thunderbolt.
An article from 2 years ago did explicit tests and found out: no difference in speed for thunderbolt vs. USB 3 regarding hard discs.
Torsten Link
Posted 2016-08-22T08:23:59.483
Reputation: 970
1
Yes, PCIe based SSD like the Samsung 950 Pro or the Intel SSD 750 can have read speeds larger 2 GB/s (Gigabyte, not Gigabit).
Here using the SSD in in enclosure connected via Thunderbold 3
gives you a dramatic perf improvement over using a SATA SSD in an USB 3.0 enclosure.
magicandre1981
Posted 2016-08-22T08:23:59.483
Reputation: 86 560
The only reason I would pay for the premium of a Thunderbolt device, is if I had several, allowing more devices to reach their maximum transfer rate compared to USB 3.. – Ramhound – 2016-08-22T12:36:39.070
PCIe based SSD read with other 2 Gigabyte/s – magicandre1981 – 2016-08-22T17:02:33.463