Me and a friend was looking for a portable, bus-powered Thunderbolt hard drive. Came close to getting the Buffalo Ministation Thunderbolt external had drive 1TB. But the problem isn't with the connector, it's the bottleneck.

What bottleneck you ask? Consider this. My current USB3.0 Seagate GoFlex USB3.0 external bus-powered hard drive measures 80MB/s transfer speed when transferring data to my MBP RD. The data transfer rate of this Buffalo Ministation Thunderbolt external drive is 100MB/s. The bottleneck here is not the connection (USB3 vs Thunderbolt), but the hard drive inside it. They are using slow moving platter hard drive that gives out crappy transfer rate, and not representative of what Thunderbolt can do.

Thunderbolt is capable of much better transfer speed. LaCie Little Big Disk 240GGB SSD (externally powered) can measure up to 350MB/s transfer speed. Pegasus R4/R6 up to 500-700MB/s. The only problem is, these devices are externally powered, not bus powered. All bus-powered Thunderbolt devices are using slow platter HDD that bottlenecks the transfer speed. It's like having a huge empty highway to slam the gad pedal down accelerating as fast as you want to, but restricted by the traffic police of speeds you can drive in there at 40 km/h.

In the end, until there are solid state drives externally bus-driven Thunderbolt devices, it is not worth it. Go for USB3, they are comparable in speed.

This post has been edited by stringfellow: Jul 2 2012, 05:46 PM

Thanks for the informative reply.
I think that's what I'm looking for.

SSD 500GB cost around 2k , heaven include the casing price... >.<

You want to utilize Thunderbolt, you gotta cough up the dough. Otherwise USB3 is cheaper at half the bandwidth. The same argument applies when you use USB3 enclosures with slow hard drives. You get crappy transfer speeds as well.

The only way to get fast transfer speeds from slow hard drives is to RAID them. And that surely isn't portable/transportable or bus-powered either.

does the apple shop in taylors do customization? from the way you put it, the 16GB ram upgrade seems like a bargain if the shop offers that.

i think they oso just do online purchase, which u can tell them the customization and they do it for u. then wait 2 week - 3 week shipping time..

im not too sure, even if they have, it will take 1-2 weeks longer than Apple Online Store

sad to hear that.. so u canceled from taylor already ?

Just ordered a 16GB rMBP. Looking forward to receiving it in the coming weeks!

Yeaps they do have customization (through online store? not sure) but took about one month plus "delays" for mine to arrive.

waseh 1 month ?? why dont just buy online store ?

exactly! they told me 1-2 weeks..after calling and calling, they said coming the next week...next week came, then they said the following week. Regretted but oh well, whats past is past

i too understand that feeling cos DHL also like that ..zz
btw, i think for further discussing about the delivery and online store, we should continue here https://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...&#entry52688605
or else later we will kena f**k haha

hehe, after 3 days using rmbp, very like the performance ^^ everything i open is just almost like instant pop up haha. but i have mac crash two time already today ==' duno isit cause by mac live messenger or by google chrome canary lol!

I find it ironic that you claim to have work flow experiences in VM and Photoshop in the other thread, yet you can't even diagnose your crashes in your MBP RD. One part you're portraying your need for 16GB of RAM like you're dealing with heavy professional workload yet you can't even determine if your "Mac live messenger or Google Chrome Canary" is crashing your Mac? Very fishy and conflicting. I don't wanna call you out but your statements here are already betraying you.

This post has been edited by stringfellow: Jul 2 2012, 06:01 PM

I find it ironic that you claim to have work flow experiences in VM and Photoshop in the other thread, yet you can't even diagnose your crashes in your MBP RD. One part you're portraying your need for 16GB of RAM like you're dealing with heavy professional workload yet you can't even determine if your "Mac live messenger or Google Chrome Canary" is crashing your Mac? Very fishy and conflicting. I don't wanna call you out but your statements here are already betraying you.

EDIT: Called you out TWICE. More visibility I guess?

This post has been edited by stringfellow: Jul 2 2012, 06:01 PM

from previous post i read that we have 8Gb for MBA, but can't find it from website?

you have to select the model then on the next page you will be able to make CTO order.
which has the 8GB option

thanks!

because i not expert to solving these crash, first time using mac.. and not sure what to do.
what make u so concern ? do you know what job i am doing?
you can just post a reply to help or u may ignore too if u think u not sure what is happen also...
btw, 16gb ram is reli like dealing heavy professional workload ? lol

This post has been edited by FishnChipx: Jul 2 2012, 06:06 PM