I work on a macbook pro and need more space. I want to know if thunderbolt hard drives are really that faster and better at managing aperture libraries than a cheap 2.0 USB HD.Please share your experience if you have one. How much fast are they in real life? and last question. Does having multiple libraries or shooting small jpegs make aperture run smoother?
First, if you are working RAW images from external drives, of course Thunderbolt is obviously going to much more efficient at transferring data.
Secondly, USB2 is becoming old technology with the advent of USB 3 and Thunderbolt …
Thirdly. take a look at this recently announced dock that could be perfect for Thunderbolt capable Macbook pros which offers an HDMI port for an external Monitor, 3 USB 3 ports, Ethernet port as well as audio in and out … all possible using a single Thunderbolt cable connected to the laptop …
Matrox Dock
Additionally, LaCie is offering a Thunderbolt to eSATA hub that should be much more efficient than USB 2 externals …
LaCie Hub
Faster & Better ?
Ext Thunderbolt 2 disk raid 0 is potentially massively faster than your internal drive unless you upgrade it to SSD - but that won’t save your space problem.
Thunderbolt vs eSata is generally quoted as 10 GBs vs 3 GBs USB 2.0 is roughly 1/12th of the speed of Thunderbolt.
http://www.apple.com/thunderbolt/
I have an old 500GB LaCie that has FW 800 & USB 2.0 - IMO the USB 2.0 connection isn’t useable and the FW 800 barely so …
My Tuppence
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Andrew Mumford