# SSD Dock Recommendation



## Ozinga (Nov 1, 2020)

Hi,

Anybody use a dock for ssd drives? I use a laptop for a second system and do not want to use up the tb3 connections for multiple ssd drives.
Is something like this usable and I can still access each drive separately? Any performance issues?









4-Bay USB 3.0 SATA 2.5"/3.5" SSD/HDD Docking Station


Tool-free installation, plug and play, hot swappable. Transfer speeds up to 5Gbps. Supports four SSD/HDD drives, 2.5" or 3.5", at one time. Backwards compatible with USB 2.0/1.1 LED indicators.




www.sabrent.com






Thanks
Oz


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## jbuhler (Nov 5, 2020)

That one is USB3 and I'd be worried about running 4 SSDs through it with needing to stream. Better would be a tb3 dock that has a tb3 through. This would answer:


I have the tb2 version of it, and it's worked well aside from having an audible fan. It's not an unpleasant sound; it's just if noise bugs you it might be an issue.


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## Ozinga (Nov 5, 2020)

jbuhler said:


> That one is USB3 and I'd be worried about running 4 SSDs through it with needing to stream. Better would be a tb3 dock that has a tb3 through. This would answer:
> 
> 
> I have the tb2 version of it, and it's worked well aside from having an audible fan. It's not an unpleasant sound; it's just if noise bugs you it might be an issue.




Thank you for the suggestion. I will check that out. Actually I am planning to use 2ssd at the moment and just found out about this. Also OWC https://www.owcdigital.com/products/mercury-elite-pro-dual-mini 
This one is usb3 too though.


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## dcomdico (Nov 5, 2020)

I've been looking at the Mercury Dual Mini too. What kind of real-world speeds can you expect when using it with a standard USB 3 port?


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## rnieto (Nov 5, 2020)

Ozinga said:


> Thank you for the suggestion. I will check that out. Actually I am planning to use 2ssd at the moment and just found out about this. Also OWC https://www.owcdigital.com/products/mercury-elite-pro-dual-mini
> This one is usb3 too though.



I own the Thunderbay 4 Mini, it is indeed true Thunderbolt 3. I have it configured as a RAID 1, meaning that it contains 2 SSD main drives and 2 SSD mirror drives for data redundancy. I highly recommend it—it's blazing fast and I rest easy knowing that one of the drives could fail and I won't lose my data.


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## Virtuoso (Nov 5, 2020)

The USB3 dock has a bandwidth of 5Gb/s (625MB/s) which is more than a single SATA SSD, which tend to top out at around 550MB/s. Unless you're running in a RAID, the USB interface won't be much of a limiting factor.

If you were using M.2 NVMe SSDs you would need TB3 to take advantage of the much faster performance.


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## jbuhler (Nov 5, 2020)

Virtuoso said:


> The USB3 dock has a bandwidth of 5Gb/s (625MB/s) which is more than a single SATA SSD, which tend to top out at around 550MB/s. Unless you're running in a RAID, the USB interface won't be much of a limiting factor.
> 
> If you were using M.2 NVMe SSDs you would need TB3 to take advantage of the much faster performance.


I've had issues streaming multiple SSDs through the same USB3 port. One SSD for a USB3 port is fine. Two becomes an issue.

ETA: I should modify this. Two SSDs are fine when they are in a USB3 bay. I’ve had isues with more than one SSD plugged into a USB3 hub when the SSDs are in separate enclosures. Of course the problem there could be the enclosures or the hub.


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## BassClef (Nov 5, 2020)

Ozinga said:


> Thank you for the suggestion. I will check that out. Actually I am planning to use 2ssd at the moment and just found out about this. Also OWC https://www.owcdigital.com/products/mercury-elite-pro-dual-mini
> This one is usb3 too though.



I’ve been using this external enclosure for three years. It’s completely quiet with no fan... holds two 2GB drives (4GB total) and I get read speeds of 450-500 GB/s via USB3 on my 6 year old iMac. Highly recommended!


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## Ozinga (Nov 5, 2020)

rnieto said:


> I own the Thunderbay 4 Mini, it is indeed true Thunderbolt 3. I have it configured as a RAID 1, meaning that it contains 2 SSD main drives and 2 SSD mirror drives for data redundancy. I highly recommend it—it's blazing fast and I rest easy knowing that one of the drives could fail and I won't lose my data.



Thank You! Good idea indeed for protection.



BassClef said:


> I’ve been using this external enclosure for three years. It’s completely quiet with no fan... holds two 2GB drives (4GB total) and I get read speeds of 450-500 GB/s via USB3 on my 6 year old iMac. Highly recommended!



Thank you! That is good to know.


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## synthnut1 (Nov 6, 2020)

As far as speed goes, the numbers are not optimal...I’m going with a dock that has USB3ver2 outputs which are 10 mb/s....I’m plugging my dock into a thunderbolt3 port on my imac....The Mercury elite pro dual mini is USB3ver2 also (10 mb/s) and controls raid setups OR you can use it as “ind” mode for 2 independent drives....The dock doesn’t have a thunderbolt thru port however...USB3ver2 (10mb/s) controlling sata3 SSD’s is plenty fast for samples and I’m not paying the additional cost to set up a thunderbolt network..one ssd drive will be 2 tb for samples, and a 1 tb ssd drive for vocals...the ssd in the computer will run all the applications (DAW,kontakt, etc)

btw....The mercury elite pro dual mini is not buss powered...it comes with a power supply


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## BassClef (Nov 6, 2020)

Agreed... Even with the SATAIII speed limit of 600MB/s (I get around 450-500) I feel the cost of going to external M.2 NVMe SSDs would not be overkill for loading samples into a DAW, Logic in my case.


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## synthnut1 (Nov 6, 2020)

BC...Your call....the real benefit to NVME would be going in straight thunderbolt 3, and in my case, I need the ports allotted on my dock...It gives me multiple 10 mb/s ports, and an additional ethernet port for my Metric Halo ULN2 3d interface..YMMV..


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## khollister (Nov 25, 2020)

Interesting anecdote about USB and SSD's. I needed some more space for VSL pianos and decided to order a Samsung T7 (NVME in a USB 3.1/gen 2 enclosure) instead of replacing and existing 860 EVO SATA SSD in my Akitio TB3 cage. Using the Blackmagic utility to test sustained throughput showed the T7 running at 950 MBs vs the 860 at 550 or so. However, the VSL Synchron player calculates streaming speed for each library linked and I noticed the libraries on the T7 were reporting slower speeds than those on the TB3 connected SATA drives. I confirmed this by using the exact same library on both drives.

Since the NVME drive in the T7 would be considerably faster than the SATA drive in both sustained and random access, I can only conclude there is a bottleneck/latency in either the USB controller in the T7 or in the USB protocol itself. Both the TB3 box and the T7 were connected directly to the TB# ports on my iMac Pro.


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## synthnut1 (Nov 26, 2020)

I read (but can’t confirm) that there’s a bottleneck in kontakt also to contend with...I’ve also read that a lot of people downgraded to the T5 because of heat and other issues using the T7 drive....?....I’ll be running usb 3 ver 2 ....sata III Ssd’s....hopefully it will suit my needs


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## berto (Dec 31, 2020)

BassClef said:


> I’ve been using this external enclosure for three years. It’s completely quiet with no fan... holds two 2GB drives (4GB total) and I get read speeds of 450-500 GB/s via USB3 on my 6 year old iMac. Highly recommended!


what drives would you use with that one? thanks


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## BassClef (Dec 31, 2020)

berto said:


> what drives would you use with that one? thanks


I currently I have Samsung EVO drives in that enclosure, but of course any SATAIII internal 3.5 inch drive would work fine.


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## synthnut1 (Dec 31, 2020)

BassClef,
I’m running Samsung EVO 2tb, and an EVO 1tb, individually in mine....I’m getting great numbers with mine also....No hiccups !!
I love the fact that it runs at 10 mb/sec


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## JohnG (Dec 31, 2020)

Using OWC Thunderbay here on Pro Tools iMac. "Runs good."


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## jbuhler (Dec 31, 2020)

JohnG said:


> Using OWC Thunderbay here on Pro Tools iMac. "Runs good."


The only issue with the Thunderbay is that its fan is thunderous. You can get a quiet replacement fan for the big one that costs about $15 and does wonders. And since the mini doesn’t have the power supply inside the unit, you can just disconnect the fan if you are using it only to house SSDs. (The fan on the mini is also much quieter.)

ETA: I have one of each daisy chained together, so with 8 SSDs. So far no issues aside from the fan noise. Long TB3 cables can be hard to find so you can’t count on being able to have the units that far from the computer they are connected to.


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## Wunderhorn (Dec 31, 2020)

To disperse any concerns or misconceptions - For our use, which is primarily to stream samples you do not need active cooling neither do you need a full-fledged enclosure. SSDs get hot when you do hours of video rendering, but not from streaming bits and bobs of sample data.
You can get away with cheap solutions as long as it has fast connectivity which mostly depends on what your computer has to offer. A simple Drive Dock for example, will work just fine. I have done it in many variations. The money you save can go towards a new sound library (much more fun anyway).


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## JohnG (Dec 31, 2020)

jbuhler said:


> The only issue with the Thunderbay is that its fan is thunderous. You can get a quiet replacement fan for the big one that costs about $15 and does wonders. And since the mini doesn’t have the power supply inside the unit, you can just disconnect the fan if you are using it only to house SSDs. (The fan on the mini is also much quieter.)


lol -- "thunderous" is bad.

Mine is pretty quiet, with one SSD and two HDDs I use for backup and video. So maybe mine's quiet bc only a few drives?

Mine's definitely not silent, but not thunderous either.

Still, I just bought what the guy recommended when I replaced my PT computer so don't count on my research. 

Cheers,

John


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## berto (Dec 31, 2020)

Wunderhorn said:


> To disperse any concerns or misconceptions - For our use, which is primarily to stream samples you do not need active cooling neither do you need a full-fledged enclosure. SSDs get hot when you do hours of video rendering, but not from streaming bits and bobs of sample data.
> You can get away with cheap solutions as long as it has fast connectivity which mostly depends on what your computer has to offer. A simple Drive Dock for example, will work just fine. I have done it in many variations. The money you save can go towards a new sound library (much more fun anyway).


Nice to know. So what would be a nice ssd/hdd rack enclosure you would recommend? A cheaper solution than black magic that also would host sata drives


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## Wunderhorn (Dec 31, 2020)

berto said:


> Nice to know. So what would be a nice ssd/hdd rack enclosure you would recommend? A cheaper solution than black magic that also would host sata drives


It depends on what kind of SSD you intend to use - NVMe or SATA? And of course what connectivity you are looking at (TB3 or USB 3.x?)


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## ptram (Dec 31, 2020)

Is a powerful (and noisy) forced ventilation really needed with SSDs? Wouldn't passive cooling (via contact with a metal surface and proper ventilation grids) enough?

Paolo


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## Wunderhorn (Dec 31, 2020)

ptram said:


> Is a powerful (and noisy) forced ventilation really needed with SSDs? Wouldn't passive cooling (via contact with a metal surface and proper ventilation grids) enough?
> 
> Paolo


No, you don't need active cooling - see my post #20 of this thread.


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## ptram (Dec 31, 2020)

I use an Orico four-drive duplicator bay on my Mac. It seems to be solidly built, and has proven reliable. Only USB3, but apparently as fast as I need.

Paolo


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## berto (Jan 1, 2021)

Wunderhorn said:


> It depends on what kind of SSD you intend to use - NVMe or SATA? And of course what connectivity you are looking at (TB3 or USB 3.x?)


i guess it depends on their differences? is NVMe like a PCIe card, so is it not easily swappable like SATA, correct?


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## FrozenIcicle (Jan 1, 2021)

If one was to go down the dock route but also have a portable ssd for current samples needed for the project, is there a way to tell kontakt to search the portable ssd instead of the dock?

im just imagining it messing with my template if i decide to switch back and forth


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