A few weeks ago I wrote an article about Seagate's thunderbolt drive adapters working with regular SATA drives of SSD drives. These Thunderbolt adapters are listed to work with their GoFlex line of portable hard drives, but here Carl Pendle from www.carlpendle.com shares a video showing that it does indeed work directly with a few other bare drives [Thanks Carl]. For more information, you can find that original article about these Seagate Thunderbolt adapters (here).
If you have to share files, or even edit from an external drive, you can't beat the speeds of Thunderbolt, but options have been very expensive. The SeaGate adapters seem to be the best bet right now allowing you to expand by just purchasing more off the shelf drives.
Seagate GoFlex 3 TB Drive w/ Thunderbolt Desk Dock
aaron
I wonder if/how you can run a drive/adapter and a non thunderbolt external monitor?
I already have issues with my FireWire dock daisy chaining drives, I could only imagine it would get worse with mixed uses on same port/cord.
Joe Hewes
Also saw this option today. It looks a bit DIY to get it opened up, but once you swap out the hdd for an ssd and close it up I think it will look a little more finished and portable than the goflex adaptor.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/6127/buffalo-ministation-thunderbolt-review-an-external-with-usb-30-and-thunderbolt/2
Pawel
Hey,
I've been using the LaCie eSATA - thunderbolt adapter with cheap HDD bays, speeds are the same, price is similiar, and you get to plug more media
Derek
I bought one of the goflex adapters (the full one, not the mini one) and it works like a dream with my 256 Sandisk Extreme SSD. The reviews on the mini one were very negative, but the full one had WAY more positives.
Also, it should be worth noting, that there wil be some new DROBOS coming out very soon with Thunderbolt, so it looks like we're on the cusp of a lot more drive options soon!