Here's a few videos that could be advantageous for video editors that have access to Apple's thunderbolt interface. Until recently, there have only been a few thunderbolt external hard drives and they were quite expensive. Seagate offers thunderbolt adapter docks for it's GoFlex line of hard drives, but many have success docking other SATA drives directly. This will save you some cash in the long run, and you'll be able to expand by just using several drives. For those rockin' the new MacBook Pro (or thinking about it) with built in Flash Storage, these options could be very interesting to you since you can't expand the internal drive of your system.
The video below shows an example of a Vertex SSD Drive (found here on Amazon) docked directly to the Seagate and taking full advantage of the amazing Read and Write speed of the Thunderbolt interface.
Another video example below shows off Seagate's Desk Dock. This larger dock can interface with both full size 3.5" SATA Hard Drives and smaller 2.5" Sata Hard Drives. The downside to the larger dock is that it requires additional DC power in, while the smaller GoFlex dock is completely bus powered for travel, but can only mount 2.5" SATA drives.
Normally buying the Seagate ThunderBolt Desk Dock and SATA Hard Drive separately would be cheaper, but the GoFlex Desktop Dock with 3TB Seagate drive has dropped in price via Amazon. Should you need to replace the 3TB that comes with this kit, you can always pick up another SATA drive and continue to take advantage of Thunderbolt speeds. Check out the SeaGate ThunderBolt Desktop Dock (Click Here).
Seagate GoFlex 3 TB Drive w/ Thunderbolt Desk Dock
14 thoughts on “Seagate GoFlex ThunderBolt Adapter Docks”
Paul Abrahams
I have the Seagate GoFlex and just formatted a Scandisk Extreme 480gb to go in my BMCC. I'm on the latest iMac with ML.
Brian
I use this dock to transfer footage from Crucial M4 SSD drives that acquire footage from a Black Magic Hyperdeck HD recording device for live production use. FYI to anyone in this field, for some reason anything over 250GB drives will eject during transfer. The 256 Crucial does fine, I can drag and drop a 250GB file and it will finish. If I try to transfer a 100GB file off a 512GB crucial it fails every time.
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Seagate ThunderBolt Adapters » CheesyCam
Yak
Hi John,
I'm having a similar problem. It worked fine with Lion. Now, after upgrading to Mountain Lion, the disc won't show up .I think ML has some problems with it...
John
So, I got this. The GoFlex and the Agility 3 SSD. So far it has completely locked up my system and corrupted the disk 3 times.
Not sure if it's the GoFlex, the SSD or Mountain Lion.
Just passing that along. I'll re-reply if I figure it out.
Emm
Post author
@DaveT - I received my Seagate Thunderbolt Desk Dock, and it does come with the $50 thunderbolt cable. That's even more savings when shaved off the sale price on Amazon. Plugged it in and has been working great so far on the iMac.
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OCZ Solid State Drives – Gold Box Deals » CheesyCam
Tony
Warning! I was driving down the road and someone rear-ended me. Make sure if you drive around, don't have anyone behind you. =)
First time posting here and just wanted to warn everyone about this Seagate drive - I bought one of these drives about 2months ago and IT DIED completely after about 10 days of use. Purchased from futureshop.ca as it was really cheap - the reviews on their website stated the same, died fast etc. so I checked around online and found mixed reviews, and some pretty good. I decided to buy one anyway and would have lost ALL my footage (500+GB) if I hadn't already backed it up with another drive. Make sure you don't have anything urgent or sensitive while using, just to be safe. First time in about 12yrs a single drive has died on me.
Just a note on vertex 3 drives the 240Gb version. I have had 4 drives fail on me from 4 different batches. I have 10 SSD's from Kingston and Intel but OCZ are the only ones to do this.
That's a good point Emm. I was of course referring to the portable drives. I live out of my ThinkTank Urban Disguise so I carry a MBP Retina, iPad, and two portable 1.5TB drives every day as my only computer...home or away from home. The Desktop drives can be a much better deal; especially if you hunt the deals down like you do.
Emm
Post author
@DaveT - I need to store externally for one of my iMacs too. The 3TB external at the bottom of the article was a decent deal that takes advantage of Thunderbolts interface and the dock is expandable through swapping drives, so it was worth it for me. The smaller ones would be good to travel with if you're only on a MacBook Pro retina.
Emm: I'm slowly going this route for my MacBook Pro Retina. 256GB is fine for a single small project but I have to store everything else externally. My last external hard drive upgrade was to GoFlex drives because I was on Windows at the time and I knew I'd want Thunderbolt eventually due to my recent switching of 'sides'.
A few tips for folks like me...
Don't forget to add in the $50 cost of the cable to the $80 cost of the adapter. There's no cable included because Apple won't let them make any yet. I'm waiting for the price on the adapter to drop a little and for cheaper third party cables to become available.
All of my local retailers sell the adapter but not the cable...and have not done a very good job explaining how that makes any sense if they want to sell any. I'm hoping that poor sales may drive to them showing up in the clearance bin before anybody wises up to it.
Also of note. The 1.5 TB USB3.0 drive plus the Thunderbolt adapter, plus the Apple Thunderbolt cable costs about the same as the 1TB 'Mac' hard drive (about $299 in these parts) which comes with just the Thunderbolt adapter...and to my knowledge still doesn't come with a cable thanks to Apple's restrictions
I've also noticed that the GoFlex USB3.0 drives are about twice as fast as the Western Digital USB3.0 hard drives I'm upgrading from (up to 60MB/sec vs rarely over 30MB/sec).
Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter (STAE121)
Paul Abrahams
I have the Seagate GoFlex and just formatted a Scandisk Extreme 480gb to go in my BMCC. I'm on the latest iMac with ML.
Brian
I use this dock to transfer footage from Crucial M4 SSD drives that acquire footage from a Black Magic Hyperdeck HD recording device for live production use. FYI to anyone in this field, for some reason anything over 250GB drives will eject during transfer. The 256 Crucial does fine, I can drag and drop a 250GB file and it will finish. If I try to transfer a 100GB file off a 512GB crucial it fails every time.
Pingback:
Seagate ThunderBolt Adapters » CheesyCam
Yak
Hi John,
I'm having a similar problem. It worked fine with Lion. Now, after upgrading to Mountain Lion, the disc won't show up .I think ML has some problems with it...
John
So, I got this. The GoFlex and the Agility 3 SSD. So far it has completely locked up my system and corrupted the disk 3 times.
Not sure if it's the GoFlex, the SSD or Mountain Lion.
Just passing that along. I'll re-reply if I figure it out.
Emm
Post author@DaveT - I received my Seagate Thunderbolt Desk Dock, and it does come with the $50 thunderbolt cable. That's even more savings when shaved off the sale price on Amazon. Plugged it in and has been working great so far on the iMac.
Pingback:
OCZ Solid State Drives – Gold Box Deals » CheesyCam
Tony
Warning! I was driving down the road and someone rear-ended me. Make sure if you drive around, don't have anyone behind you. =)
Metabolics
First time posting here and just wanted to warn everyone about this Seagate drive - I bought one of these drives about 2months ago and IT DIED completely after about 10 days of use. Purchased from futureshop.ca as it was really cheap - the reviews on their website stated the same, died fast etc. so I checked around online and found mixed reviews, and some pretty good. I decided to buy one anyway and would have lost ALL my footage (500+GB) if I hadn't already backed it up with another drive. Make sure you don't have anything urgent or sensitive while using, just to be safe. First time in about 12yrs a single drive has died on me.
Ram
This could be the perfect solution for the Black Magic Camera. At least I hope it will be.
Lee
Just a note on vertex 3 drives the 240Gb version. I have had 4 drives fail on me from 4 different batches. I have 10 SSD's from Kingston and Intel but OCZ are the only ones to do this.
DaveT
That's a good point Emm. I was of course referring to the portable drives. I live out of my ThinkTank Urban Disguise so I carry a MBP Retina, iPad, and two portable 1.5TB drives every day as my only computer...home or away from home. The Desktop drives can be a much better deal; especially if you hunt the deals down like you do.
Emm
Post author@DaveT - I need to store externally for one of my iMacs too. The 3TB external at the bottom of the article was a decent deal that takes advantage of Thunderbolts interface and the dock is expandable through swapping drives, so it was worth it for me. The smaller ones would be good to travel with if you're only on a MacBook Pro retina.
DaveT
Emm: I'm slowly going this route for my MacBook Pro Retina. 256GB is fine for a single small project but I have to store everything else externally. My last external hard drive upgrade was to GoFlex drives because I was on Windows at the time and I knew I'd want Thunderbolt eventually due to my recent switching of 'sides'.
A few tips for folks like me...
Don't forget to add in the $50 cost of the cable to the $80 cost of the adapter. There's no cable included because Apple won't let them make any yet. I'm waiting for the price on the adapter to drop a little and for cheaper third party cables to become available.
All of my local retailers sell the adapter but not the cable...and have not done a very good job explaining how that makes any sense if they want to sell any. I'm hoping that poor sales may drive to them showing up in the clearance bin before anybody wises up to it.
Also of note. The 1.5 TB USB3.0 drive plus the Thunderbolt adapter, plus the Apple Thunderbolt cable costs about the same as the 1TB 'Mac' hard drive (about $299 in these parts) which comes with just the Thunderbolt adapter...and to my knowledge still doesn't come with a cable thanks to Apple's restrictions
I've also noticed that the GoFlex USB3.0 drives are about twice as fast as the Western Digital USB3.0 hard drives I'm upgrading from (up to 60MB/sec vs rarely over 30MB/sec).