Connect a recent USB-C hard drive to a legacy 2011 macbookPro's Thunderbolt-2 port

[michelangelo]

Hello.

My old 3.5" laCie external back-up drive is dead.

Now, to back-up my 2011 macbookPro, I use a recent G-Drive Armor ATD rugged external 2.5" hard drive.

The macBookPro has a Thunderbolt 2 port, which is like a mini-display port. I used it to back-up on my older laCie external 3.5" external drive. The speed was much faster than if I used the USB port on the mac.

My new external drive having an USB-C port, I use the USB-C to USB connector and hence connect the hard drive to a USB port on the mac (rather than the Thunderbolt-2).

The transfer rate being substantially slower than those achieved with the older drive when plugged to the Thunderbolt-2 port (about 5 times slower), I would like to connect my recent G-Drive Armor ATD rugged external 2.5" hard drive to the mac's Thunderbolt-2 port.

Is there a way of doing it ? Does an adapter exist between the mac thunderbolt-2 female plug and the hard drive's female USB-C plug ?

TIA

 

[Lifeisabeach]

You need a Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQ26QIY/?tag=macforums0e4-20
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019FPJDQ2/?tag=macforums0e4-20

EDIT: to elaborate some more... check this article linked below. The hard drive will likely need to have its own power source also according to these guys.

Do USB-C to Thunderbolt 2 cables exist?

I’m purchasing a 2017 MacBook Pro and plan to use my old Mid-2011 iMac as a monitor in Target Display Mode. I’ve discovered I need a USB-C to Thunderbolt 2 connection to make this work, but I’m h...

apple.stackexchange.com

EDIT 2: I also agree with Randy. Even though it "can" be done, it's also kludgy.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

This used to get asked all the time. That thunderbolt 2 port was never meant to attach storage devices to it was for attaching external displays. That’s why there are no thunderbolt 2 external hard drives and no adapters to make modern drives work with thunderbolt two.

You can make a Kludge Using some extremely expensive adapters daisychained together to sort of kind of make it work, but I doubt it will ever be worth the cost. It will either not work at all or be unreliable.

 

[michelangelo]

This used to get asked all the time. That thunderbolt 2 port was never meant to attach storage devices to it was for attaching external displays. That’s why there are no thunderbolt 2 external hard drives and no adapters to make modern drives work with thunderbolt two.

You can make a Kludge Using some extremely expensive adapters daisychained together to sort of kind of make it work, but I doubt it will ever be worth the cost. It will either not work at all or be unreliable.

Thanks lifeisabeach, thanks Randy.

Indeed, given that the thunderbolt 2 port was never meant to attach external storage devices to it, then as lifeisabeach stated, it does not power the drive, which defeats my intent of using 2.5" drives. I tried satisfying my intent with a second kludge: (1) a connecting cable between a male thunderbolt 2 and a female HDMI and (2) a connecting cable between a male HDMI and a male USB-C plug. With the second kludge, the external 2.5" drive does not mount either.

For the avoidance of doubt, my intended move is the replacement of 15-years old 3.5" lacie drives (having thunderbolt 2 ports) attached to the macBookPro for the purpose of saving bootable clones with ccc) by 2.5" external drives, without external power supply.

I will stick to using the two USB ports on the MacBook Pro

Now, I will be able to automate the entire process, from the macBookPro only using CCC, while formerly, I needed xtension (a maOS Home automation software installed on a macOSserver) to power ON and OFF the external drives. It won't e as fast as before, bu

Thanks, again.

 

[rbpeirce]

This used to get asked all the time. That thunderbolt 2 port was never meant to attach storage devices to it was for attaching external displays. That’s why there are no thunderbolt 2 external hard drives and no adapters to make modern drives work with thunderbolt two.

You can make a Kludge Using some extremely expensive adapters daisychained together to sort of kind of make it work, but I doubt it will ever be worth the cost. It will either not work at all or be unreliable.

I am currently connecting FW400 to FW400>800, FW800>TB2, TB2>TB3 to the TB3 port on my MBP. It works, altho I can't really say how well. I'm just happy that it works at all!

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Thanks lifeisabeach, thanks Randy.

Indeed, given that the thunderbolt 2 port was never meant to attach external storage devices to it, then as lifeisabeach stated, it does not power the drive, which defeats my intent of using 2.5" drives. I tried satisfying my intent with a second kludge: (1) a connecting cable between a male thunderbolt 2 and a female HDMI and (2) a connecting cable between a male HDMI and a male USB-C plug. With the second kludge, the external 2.5" drive does not mount either.

Thunderbolt 2 most certainly was intended for attaching external storage devices. It's the successor to Firewire and the speed of throughput for external storage absolutely was one of the things heavily touted. The original purpose of the mini-DP connector was for displays, but they adopted it for Thunderbolt and it's fine. The caveat, if that discussion I linked to earlier is correct, is simply that it can't supply power. That may have been true with Thunderbolt 1 also.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Thunderbolt 2 most certainly was intended for attaching external storage devices. It's the successor to Firewire and the speed of throughput for external storage absolutely was one of the things heavily touted.

Really? Where are all the TB2 (not TB3) external hard drives from Apple and third parties?

You can probably find some ludicrous unicorn, but it will be the exception that proves the rule.

There are (expensive) adapters to allow you to use your TB2 port to be backwards compatible with FW drives, but everyone used their Mac's built-in USB ports to attach external storage back then.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Really? Where are all the TB2 (not TB3) external hard drives from Apple and third parties?

You can probably find some ludicrous unicorn, but it will be the exception that proves the rule.

There are (expensive) adapters to allow you to use your TB2 port to be backwards compatible with FW drives, but everyone used their Mac's built-in USB ports to attach external storage back then.

I'm not getting into a back and forth on this. Thunderbolt has ALWAYS been touted for use with a variety of peripherals, including storage. Whether the industry at large adopted it is another matter. I believe the benefits were not there when used with a single drive. It's with daisy chaining and RAID enclosures where the performance benefits were appreciated. Here... just as an example... an OWC 4-bay RAID enclosure using Thunderbolt 2.

OWC 8.0TB ThunderBay 4, Four-Drive HDD With Dual Thunderbolt 2 Ports, RAID 5 Solution Model OWCTB2SRT08.0S - Newegg.com

Buy OWC 8.0TB ThunderBay 4, Four-Drive HDD With Dual Thunderbolt 2 Ports, RAID 5 Solution Model OWCTB2SRT08.0S with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

And citations from MacWorld's coverage on TB2:

What you need to know about Thunderbolt 2

Curious about Thunderbolt 2? Here's the lowdown on this fast throughout technology.

www.macworld.com

"Thunderbolt is an interconnect technology developed by Intel in cooperation with Apple. Thunderbolt combines PCI Express and DisplayPort into a single connection, allowing for a combination of up to six peripherals, like storage devices and monitors, to be daisy-chained together. You can also connect USB and FireWire peripherals via Thunderbolt, as long as you have the proper adapter. "


"Will drives using the original Thunderbolt work with Thunderbolt 2?"

"Yes. Thunderbolt 2 uses the same connectors as the original Thunderbolt, so Thunderbolt 2 devices will be backwards compatible with Thunderbolt peripherals and vice versa."

 

[pm-r]

I believe the benefits were not there when used with a single drive.

I can vouch for and agree with this statement, at least as it applies to Thunderbolt 1 speed that came with my 2011 27" iMac, and using a Buffalo 2.5" MiniStation™ and its Thunderbolt 1 connection and cable creates an updated carbon copy clone in almost the same amount of time as an external 3.5" WD Black connected via Firewire 800 takes to do the same task. At least Thunderbolt 2 was supposed to be faster, even if just using a single external Drive, but one had to purchase a newer Mac model to get that higher speed port. A bit of an expensive solution. ;-)




- Patrick
=======

 

[Randy B. Singer]

I'm not getting into a back and forth on this. Thunderbolt has ALWAYS been touted for use with a variety of peripherals, including storage. Whether the industry at large adopted it is another matter.

Correct. No one did. There are virtually no consumer-class external hard drives for it, there are virtually no adapters for using TB2 with then-current and later consumer-class hard drives.

For those looking to use their TB2 ports with a then-current or more recent hard drive, it's a dead end. Apple didn't make that easily possible, and neither did anyone else. If Apple intended for users to have been able to do so, they easily could have facilitated it, but they didn't.

The Macworld article that you cited doesn't mean anything. The Macworld folks were expecting that Apple would make TB2 a new standard for external hard drives...but Apple didn't.

Note that every Macintosh model that came with TB2 also came with either Firewire or USB ports, or both. Those were the interfaces that Apple intended for you to use to attach external hard drives. If Apple intended TB2 to be a universal attachment interface, they wouldn't have provided all those other ports, and they would have made a full slate of adapters available, which is exactly what they did with TB3/4.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Correct. No one did. There are virtually no consumer-class external hard drives for it, there are virtually no adapters for using TB2 with then-current and later consumer-class hard drives.

For those looking to use their TB2 ports with a then-current or more recent hard drive, it's a dead end. Apple didn't make that easily possible, and neither did anyone else. If Apple intended for users to have been able to do so, they easily could have facilitated it, but they didn't.

The Macworld article that you cited doesn't mean anything. The Macworld folks were expecting that Apple would make TB2 a new standard for external hard drives...but Apple didn't.

Note that every Macintosh model that came with TB2 also came with either Firewire or USB ports, or both. Those were the interfaces that Apple intended for you to use to attach external hard drives. If Apple intended TB2 to be a universal attachment interface, they wouldn't have provided all those other ports, and they would have made a full slate of adapters available, which is exactly what they did with TB3/4.

Charging Essentials - Mac Accessories

Find cables, charging docks and battery cases for Mac. Charge and sync up your Mac. Buy online with fast, free shipping

www.apple.com

"Thunderbolt technology supports fast data transfers with two independent channels of 10Gb/s each. And Thunderbolt 2 technology can bond the two channels for a superfast 20Gb/s. Use this cable to connect Thunderbolt-enabled devices to the Thunderbolt or Thunderbolt 2 port on your Mac."

Power & Cables - Mac Accessories

Find cables, charging docks and battery cases for Mac. Charge and sync up your Mac. Buy online with fast, free shipping

www.apple.com

"Easily connect your Thunderbolt-equipped Mac to a FireWire device with the Apple Thunderbolt to FireWire Adapter. Small and compact, it connects to the Thunderbolt port on your Mac computer, giving you a FireWire 800 port that supplies up to 7W for bus-powered peripherals like hard drives and audio devices."

 

[Randy B. Singer]

So you found a cable to attach TB2 peripherals to TB2 ports. And this proves what?

Is it for attaching all of the TB2 consumer-class external hard drives that don't exist to Mac's with TB2 ports?

And how does this help the original poster in this thread? He needs a TB2 to USB-C adapter.

Let me save you some time. If you do a Google search you will find references to TB2 to USB-C adapters, maybe even a photo or two. But they have never seemed to exist in the wild. My guess is that a couple of companies considered offering one, and then decided that the product either wouldn't work well, or that there was little demand for such a product, or both.

Users have created kludges by stacking multiple adapters. I wouldn't want to trust my data to such a kludge; not to mention how expensive those kludges are.

This is a topic that has come up over and over and over again on just about every Macintosh discussion list over the years. TB2 was simply never meant to be an attachment method for consumer-class external hard drives.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

So you found a cable to attach TB2 peripherals to TB2 ports. And this proves what?

Is it for attaching all of the TB2 consumer-class external hard drives that don't exist to Mac's with TB2 ports?

And how does this help the original poster in this thread? He needs a TB2 to USB-C adapter.

Let me save you some time. If you do a Google search you will find references to TB2 to USB-C adapters, maybe even a photo or two. But they have never seemed to exist in the wild. My guess is that a couple of companies considered offering one, and then decided that the product either wouldn't work well, or that there was little demand for such a product, or both.

Users have created kludges by stacking multiple adapters. I wouldn't want to trust my data to such a kludge; not to mention how expensive those kludges are.

This is a topic that has come up over and over and over again on just about every Macintosh discussion list over the years. TB2 was simply never meant to be an attachment method for consumer-class external hard drives.

Randy.... please. Just stop. You are being argumentative and quite frankly are dead wrong. I already pointed out that Thunderbolt 2 was impractical for consumer-class drives, but Apple clearly intended the port for use with storage, even if daisy chaining or RAID were the only practical way to take advantage of TB2's bandwidth, because they literally made and still make the cables for it. And the OP had a TB2 external drive, so single-drive TB2 devices were made, but I would wager primarily by companies like LaCie that cater to a certain demographic. I also already agreed that using a series of adapters to make it work isn't a good idea. A single one purpose-built for this should be fine though, and Apple makes one. My original post has product links and the comment pulled from another discussion that the drive will need its own power source. That last tidbit may well be what has been missing from the discussions you refer to that come up time and time again. So please... just stop. You aren't being helpful here.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Randy.... please. Just stop. You are being argumentative and quite frankly are dead wrong.

I'm happy to stop, but I'm not wrong. When you can show me examples of TB2 external consumer-class hard drives for the Mac, or the adapters that Apple made to use common non-legacy external consumer-class hard drives attach to TB2 ports, I'll be happy to say that you are correct. But you can't, because they don't exist.

You aren't being helpful here.

Very much the contrary. YOU are being misleading to the OP, and the opposite of being helpful yourself. The OP has a USB-C external hard drive that he wants to mate to his Mac's TB2 interface. I correctly pointed out that it can't easily be done, and it really shouldn't be done, because the TB2 interface was never implemented by Apple, or adapted for such use by anyone else, to be used for consumer-class external hard drives other than legacy ones.

Once again, this topic has been discussed ad nauseam countless times on lots of other Macintosh discussion lists over a bunch of years. No matter how badly you want to go around saying that TB2 is a viable interface for modern consumer-class external hard drives...it isn't. The support isn't there, and it never was.

 

[Jimmysb]

@Randy B. Singer and @Lifeisabeach please settle down, for any newcomer this infighting does not show the forum in a good light, lets just agree to differ, and accept your differing views.

 

[IWT]

Well said, Jim B. Preserve absolute calm.

Ian