# Thunderbolt 3 vs USB C (for external SSD in Enclosure for Sample Libraries)



## billkill (Oct 8, 2020)

Hi there, in the process of upgrading my writing rig.

Switching to 2020 Mac Mini ...

I have a few Crucial SSD's I am going to put in an enclosure. They are solely to store my KONTAKT libraries in and was wondering if there was a noticeable or significant advantage in a thunderbolt 3 connection or USB C as the price point for different encolsures seems pretty different.

Any other suggestions most welcome,

Many thanks in advance,


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## Hendrixon (Oct 12, 2020)

I don't know how TB works, but regarding USB, the C designation just describes the physical connector and cable, it says nothing about the data.
A manufacturer can pass all sorts of data protocols in different speeds thru a USB C connector/cable.

If your computer has a USB-C, check carefully what is the data protocol and what is the speed your computer uses thru it.


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## gst98 (Oct 12, 2020)

Thunderbolt and USB-C are not comparible things. USB-C is merely a phsyical connector. What you are asking to compare is Thunderbolt 3(over USB-C) to USB 3.1 or USB 3.2 (which can come as USB-type A or type C).

The question you need to ask is what SSD are you using? SATA III? NVMe?. SATA III SSDs (500-600mb/s) do not exceed the bandwidth limit of USB3.1 (1000mb/s) so you would not need a thunderbolt 3 (4000mb/s) enclosure , but if they are NVMe (typically 2500-3000mb/s) then you obviously need a thunderbolt enclosure because a USB 3.1 enclosure would limit it. 

The problem however is that Kontakt limits data transfers at 1500mb/s if I'm correct, meaning an Kontakt only lets you use half of the potential speed of your NVMe drive. So even if you have an NVMe, you may be better just getting a USB3.1 enclosure because a 3.1 enclosure is $30, and a thunderbolt one is $130.


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## Ashermusic (Oct 12, 2020)

gst98 said:


> Thunderbolt and USB-C are not comparible things. USB-C is merely a phsyical connector. What you are asking to compare is Thunderbolt 3(over USB-C) to USB 3.1 or USB 3.2 (which can come as USB-type A or type C).
> 
> The question you need to ask is what SSD are you using? SATA III? NVMe?. SATA III SSDs (500-600mb/s) do not exceed the bandwidth limit of USB3.1 (1000mb/s) so you would not need a thunderbolt 3 (4000mb/s) enclosure , but if they are NVMe (typically 2500-3000mb/s) then you obviously need a thunderbolt enclosure because a USB 3.1 enclosure would limit it.
> 
> The problem however is that Kontakt limits data transfers at 1500mb/s if I'm correct, meaning an Kontakt only lets you use half of the potential speed of your NVMe drive. So even if you have an NVMe, you may be better just getting a USB3.1 enclosure because a 3.1 enclosure is $30, and a thunderbolt one is $130.



Great information, thanks.


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## billkill (Oct 12, 2020)

gst98 said:


> Thunderbolt and USB-C are not comparible things. USB-C is merely a phsyical connector. What you are asking to compare is Thunderbolt 3(over USB-C) to USB 3.1 or USB 3.2 (which can come as USB-type A or type C).
> 
> The question you need to ask is what SSD are you using? SATA III? NVMe?. SATA III SSDs (500-600mb/s) do not exceed the bandwidth limit of USB3.1 (1000mb/s) so you would not need a thunderbolt 3 (4000mb/s) enclosure , but if they are NVMe (typically 2500-3000mb/s) then you obviously need a thunderbolt enclosure because a USB 3.1 enclosure would limit it.
> 
> The problem however is that Kontakt limits data transfers at 1500mb/s if I'm correct, meaning an Kontakt only lets you use half of the potential speed of your NVMe drive. So even if you have an NVMe, you may be better just getting a USB3.1 enclosure because a 3.1 enclosure is $30, and a thunderbolt one is $130.


Thank you so much for this - really insightful and helpful - sincerely appreciated 

👍🏻


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## billkill (Oct 12, 2020)

Ashermusic said:


> Great information, thanks.


Jay - I think I saw you mention elsewhere some info about VEP being better at handling RAM than other DAWs ? (Pt for me)

I might be wrong and apologies if so - but if not would you be able to enlighten me?
I posted this query under the “my daw” forum...


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## BradHoyt (Oct 12, 2020)

gst98 said:


> Thunderbolt and USB-C are not comparible things. USB-C is merely a phsyical connector. What you are asking to compare is Thunderbolt 3(over USB-C) to USB 3.1 or USB 3.2 (which can come as USB-type A or type C).
> 
> The question you need to ask is what SSD are you using? SATA III? NVMe?. SATA III SSDs (500-600mb/s) do not exceed the bandwidth limit of USB3.1 (1000mb/s) so you would not need a thunderbolt 3 (4000mb/s) enclosure , but if they are NVMe (typically 2500-3000mb/s) then you obviously need a thunderbolt enclosure because a USB 3.1 enclosure would limit it.
> 
> The problem however is that Kontakt limits data transfers at 1500mb/s if I'm correct, meaning an Kontakt only lets you use half of the potential speed of your NVMe drive. So even if you have an NVMe, you may be better just getting a USB3.1 enclosure because a 3.1 enclosure is $30, and a thunderbolt one is $130.


I haven't heard about this Native Instruments imposed bottleneck. Bummer... I wonder what their reasoning is.


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## Ashermusic (Oct 12, 2020)

billkill said:


> Jay - I think I saw you mention elsewhere some info about VEP being better at handling RAM than other DAWs ? (Pt for me)
> 
> I might be wrong and apologies if so - but if not would you be able to enlighten me?
> I posted this query under the “my daw” forum...



no, never said that, only that it spreads the load throughout the cores better than any DAW.


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## gst98 (Oct 12, 2020)

This is a very thorough write-up and testing that I stumbled on to if anyone is interested. A lot of detail in here. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wL8XYGgd_O9fomMrK1EpSnZJeQwhVOAn91e82byj8s4/edit


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## ennbr (Oct 12, 2020)

A surprise I had with TB3 was cable length will impact the speed of the connection if I recall anything over 3ft and the 40Gbps speed is cut in half


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## billkill (Oct 12, 2020)

Ashermusic said:


> no, never said that, only that it spreads the load throughout the cores better than any DAW.


thanks Jay - so in your experience it is far superior than using kontakt instances within Pro Tools ?

i am on the verge of buying the 2020 mac. mini : 

3.2GHz 6‑core 8th‑generation Intel Core i7 (Turbo Boost up to 4.6GHz)


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## billkill (Oct 12, 2020)

gst98 said:


> This is a very thorough write-up and testing that I stumbled on to if anyone is interested. A lot of detail in here. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wL8XYGgd_O9fomMrK1EpSnZJeQwhVOAn91e82byj8s4/edit


this is fantastic - I think shooting for SATA is the best option at present in which case


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## Hendrixon (Oct 13, 2020)

gst98 said:


> The problem however is that Kontakt limits data transfers at 1500mb/s if I'm correct, meaning an Kontakt only lets you use half of the potential speed of your NVMe drive.



Do you have something to back this up?


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## gst98 (Oct 13, 2020)

Hendrixon said:


> Do you have something to back this up?



I can't find it, it was somewhere on the NI forum a while back, but like I said I don't know for sure. Some of the result would tend to disagree with that anyway. But what is confirmed is the inital load of patch is not effected by NVMe, only the sample reading is. So if you're tired of project opening times NVMe has no effect.


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## Hendrixon (Oct 13, 2020)

Yea there is no logic in hard code limiting load times. I assume someone tested loading times and on his system it simply bottleneck there.
True, the instrument load phase has nothing to do with sample loading, its all cpu/memory bound.

Btw in Reaper I can save track templates, this snapshots a track the way it is configured, all plugins, all their setting, how kontakt is configured + what samples are loaded... everything.
I just did a quick test now, using a piano lib with all mics enabled totaling at 1.72GB.
Nothing scientific, lots of stuff is loaded (browser, I'm connected to the internet so background services are probably doing things etc... a work day load).
Also my system is pretty old tech by today's standards (pcie 2.0, all data lanes are thru the chipset etc etc) so it makes it easy to feel improvements as 50% faster makes 30 sec into 15 sec, which is significant, compared to say 8 sec into 4 sec 

First, loading an empty kontakt is less then a second (around 0.75). this of course depends a lot on how many libraries you have, so its just a relative anchor point bench mark on my system with my list of libraries.
Loading the piano, just the software side, takes about 15.5 seconds.
loading the samples takes about 13 seconds (nvme 3.0 but on 2.0 pcie and thru an old... old chipset).
The interesting bit is that if I load a "track template" with kontakt and the piano in a purged state, it cuts the load time to about 2.75 seconds, which breaks down to 0.75 of a second for kontakt and 2 seconds for the piano software side.

This alone attributes to a non scientific improvement in instrument software side load time of 87.5%

In Reaper I can also set a plugin or vi to an "offline" state, not sure how to explain this state, its not a bypass, its like a TV on standby? its shut down but its there, ready and waiting
You can load a track template or a whole project, with 100 kontakt instances, all setup the way you want them... and they add nothing to the load time.
Bringing each to an Online state, turns them ON to what ever state and config they were when entering Offline state (like purged or not etc).

Anyway, food for thought


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## SlHarder (Oct 13, 2020)

ennbr said:


> cable length will impact the speed of the connection


The longer the cable the more "noise" from its environment. Many data transfer protocols have huge error correction overheads built into them, sometimes 90% of the bandwidth is error correction to be sure every "bit" is "the right bit". 

It got me to thinking about analog audio, today many digital fx try to recreate the sloppy loosey goosie goodness of analog, back then "noise" was a feature not a bug.


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## Hendrixon (Oct 14, 2020)

gst98 said:


> This is a very thorough write-up and testing that I stumbled on to if anyone is interested. A lot of detail in here. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wL8XYGgd_O9fomMrK1EpSnZJeQwhVOAn91e82byj8s4/edit



Who is the author of this document? anyone from vi-c?
I read it carefully now, very thorough work, explains a lot what's going on
He/she should at least receive a thank you.

The bottom line is that all the loading process in kontakt is single threaded and IOPS (Input/output operations per second) bound... drive and bus bandwidth are not really a factor even in the sample loading stage.

More simple?
A Ryzen 3800X will probably load the same project from the same drive a bit faster then a Threadripper 3990X


* The document didn't test DFD.


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## mauriziodececco (Oct 20, 2020)

Chekout the OWC Thunberbolt 3 nvme enclosure; it is a lot cheaper than the other (around 80$) and offert good performance (but not up to the full nvme bandwidth). It is new kind of compromise. Unfortunately, it is just in preorder, so it will be difficult to find people that actually tried it.


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## gsilbers (Oct 20, 2020)

billkill said:


> Hi there, in the process of upgrading my writing rig.
> 
> Switching to 2020 Mac Mini ...
> 
> ...



.The short answer is no real aplicable difference on those crucial ssd. get usb c. itll work fine. dont overthink it. i had the same questions a while back and thats the absolute best answer. 
ive never lied to you before right? lol just kidding... 

I have a micron 5210 8tb drive on a usb c and works great w my mac mini.

other than that, if you run into issues then go with the other suggestions but nvme will start to get a lot more expensive which might or not might not be more or less than you need. go 1st with the ssd with usb c which is the most cost effective option and for ssd with sata3 then the 10gbs is about the right case. imo, it might be more about your situation and needs. 
and if you run into issues go up to nvme and thunderbolt. 
but try out the usbc 10gbs first and see how it goes. but i come from an older mac pro 2012 so for me that mac mini and usbc is great. i also use medium size templates so no 1000 tracks or anyting like that. 
I know some guys here have some very cool templates so nmve would work great.


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## Technostica (Oct 20, 2020)

gsilbers said:


> get usb c. itll work fine.
> other than that, if you run into issues then go with the other suggestions but nvme will start to get a lot more expensive which might or not might not be more or less than you need. go 1st with the ssd with usb c which is the most cost effective option and for ssd with sata3 then the 10gbs is about the right case. imo, it might be more about your situation and needs.
> 
> and if you run into issues go up to nvme and thunderbolt.
> ...



1. USB Type-C is a connector type and doesn't define performance.
2. Some drives using Type-C connectors use PCIe drives internally so are faster than those using SATA drives.
3. SATA drives don't benefit much from 10Gbs USB 3.1 Gen 2 but PCIe drives do.
4. Read reviews and look at the specs which are often given more clearly in reviews.


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## wayne_rowley (Oct 20, 2020)

I connect two SATA SSDs to my 2018 Mini using USB-C. Speeds are plenty fast enough for sample loading and Kontakt - I have no issues!

If I had more than two drives though I'd probably go for a TB3 enclosure, just to ensure enough bandwidth across the multiple drives.


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## gsilbers (Oct 20, 2020)

wayne_rowley said:


> I connect two SATA SSDs to my 2018 Mini using USB-C. Speeds are plenty fast enough for sample loading and Kontakt - I have no issues!
> 
> If I had more than two drives though I'd probably go for a TB3 enclosure, just to ensure enough bandwidth across the multiple drives.



yep. exactly.


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## gsilbers (Oct 20, 2020)

Technostica said:


> 1. USB Type-C is a connector type and doesn't define performance.
> 2. Some drives using Type-C connectors use PCIe drives internally so are faster than those using SATA drives.
> 3. SATA drives don't benefit much from 10Gbs USB 3.1 Gen 2 but PCIe drives do.
> 4. Read reviews and look at the specs which are often given more clearly in reviews.



specs shpecs... what does the op need? thats the key. for sample loading/steaming usbc ssd is more than great on a mac mini. at least for me.









Research/stats on TB, USB 3.2, USB 3.1, USB 3.0 for Kontakt streaming?


Does anyone know of well-done research on various Thunderbolt, USB 3.2, USB 3.1, and USB 3.0 external drive options for Kontakt streaming? It's easy...




www.native-instruments.com






bur for those more into nitty gritty specs and tehcnical details:









Kontakt Patch Load Performance


Kontakt Patch Loads: NVMe vs SATA SSD (Windows) tl;dr I compared a 1TB Samsung 960 PRO NVMe with a 2TB Samsung 850 EVO SATA SSD and measured patch load times of a multi consisting of all section patches from Cinematic Studio Strings. The goal was to answer the question: will the added performanc...




docs.google.com





at the end of the day we just consumers making music...


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## chimuelo (Oct 24, 2020)

Then there’s this nifty enclosure.









Thunderbolt3 M.2 NVMe SSD 4Bay アルミケース


M.2 NVMe SSDが4枚搭載可能！ Thunderbolt3接続の外付けケース




www.century.co.jp


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