Best enclosure for a Sata iii SSD with new USB 3.1/gen2

[Adam2]

Recently, I’ve upgraded my MBP which used to have USB 3.0 connectors to a new one with USB 3.1. I have a couple of sata iii SSD’s which are in USB 3.0 enclosures. The question is whether it is worth it to buy new enclosures with USB 3.1 specs or just buy some usb to usb c dongles? Sata iii tips out at 6 Gb/s vs USB 3.1 10 Gb/s vs. USB 3.0 5 GB/sec. has anyone noticed speed improvements in USB 3.1 enclosures vs. 3.0 utilizing sata iii drives and if so, which ones.

 

[bmoag]

The USB 2 spec is 480 mb/second which may technically be slower than the ideal read/write speed of the SSD. Ideal is not the real world. The USB 3 spec is 5gbs second which is I believe exponentially greater, did not do the actual math, than the read/write speed of any storage device.

I do not see any perceptible difference when using my SSDs in a USB 3 enclosure on a Windows machine that has USB 2 and USB 3 ports. My Apples are USB 3 and quite spiffy with SSDs in a USB 3 enclosure.

As such if operating within spec there should be no perceptible difference between using a converter or a dedicated drive enclosure so your call. If you find a study showing micro-second differences and that is perceptible to you then go for it by all means.

 

[JPAlbert]

You don't need "dongles".

I would just buy some USB-a to USB-c cables, and be done with it.
The drives should continue to run fine.

 

[Tom_N]

The USB 2 spec is 480 mb/second which may technically be slower than the ideal read/write speed of the SSD. Ideal is not the real world. The USB 3 spec is 5gbs second which is I believe exponentially greater, did not do the actual math, than the read/write speed of any storage device.

I believe he's asking whether he can get a decent speed up by moving existing USB 3.0 SSDs to new USB 3.0 Gen 2 enclosures. The best he that he could hope to do here is to replace a 5 Gbps USB 3.0 bottleneck with a 6 Gbps SATA one. Unless he is already noticing significant human-perceptible delays that are attributable to his SSDs, it's not clear that he would notice the difference.

As for USB 3 being "exponentially greater" than the read/write speed of any storage device, have you considered NVMe ones?. Samsung claims that their 970 EVO PCI-e SSD has read speeds up to 3500 MBps (28 Gbps). Apple makes a similar claim for 2018 rMBPs – read speeds up to 3.2 GBps (25.6 Gbps). In an external drive, those speeds would be beyond USB 3.0 territory, and more appropriate for Thunderbolt 3 (40 Gbps).

 

[Adam2]

The USB 2 spec is 480 mb/second which may technically be slower than the ideal read/write speed of the SSD. Ideal is not the real world. The USB 3 spec is 5gbs second which is I believe exponentially greater, did not do the actual math, than the read/write speed of any storage device.

I believe he's asking whether he can get a decent speed up by moving existing USB 3.0 SSDs to new USB 3.0 Gen 2 enclosures. The best he that he could hope to do here is to replace a 5 Gbps USB 3.0 bottleneck with a 6 Gbps SATA one. Unless he is already noticing significant human-perceptible delays that are attributable to his SSDs, it's not clear that he would notice the difference.

As for USB 3 being "exponentially greater" than the read/write speed of any storage device, have you considered NVMe ones?. Samsung claims that their 970 EVO PCI-e SSD has read speeds up to 3500 MBps (28 Gbps). Apple makes a similar claim for 2018 rMBPs – read speeds up to 3.2 GBps (25.6 Gbps). In an external drive, those speeds would be beyond USB 3.0 territory, and more appropriate for Thunderbolt 3 (40 Gbps).

Yes, I have considered the NVMe drives though I have a collection of sata iii which I want to continue using. I guess the answer is that switching to new hubs is probably not worth it with the existing drives.

 

[Tom_N]

The USB 3 spec is 5gbs second which is I believe exponentially greater, did not do the actual math, than the read/write speed of any storage device.

As for USB 3 being "exponentially greater" than the read/write speed of any storage device, have you [bmoag] considered NVMe ones?

Yes, I have considered the NVMe drives though I have a collection of sata iii which I want to continue using. I guess the answer is that switching to new hubs is probably not worth it with the existing drives.

I wasn't suggesting that you switch to NVMe drives … just commenting on bmoag's claim about USB 3's speed. That question was directed at him.