Hello, I have a 21.5' iMac 16,2 with i5 and 8GB ram and 1tb HDD (Non fusion drive). Now, i would like to upgrade the iMac HDD to SSD and make it the boot drive instead of HDD, now im in a bit of a Dilemma, For now, i have 2 options, either pay for a service to replace the internal HDD to SSD, or buy a external SSD instead and connect it somehow to the thunderbolt 2 connection and install macOS and boot from it instead. At first I thought the external SSD would suit me better, but the problem is i'm not sure if it would be the same as an Internal SSD, so if I lets say bought an external SSD that is USB 3.1 compatible, can i connect it to thunderbolt 2 displayport connection and use it? Will i get the full performance? Or should i just go for replacing the Internal HDD to a SSD?

So it makes couple drives like e:, f:, g. Why wont my passport for mac show up when its plugged in.

External USB 3.0 SSD Drives cannot use TRIM. TRIM commands are only for SATA attached drives. In fact, any non-SATA connected external drive is not even recognized by the Mac as either Solid State or Rotational. Dec 18, 2018 - 2. Buffalo MiniStation Thunderbolt. A brilliant Thunderbolt external hard drive. Capacity: 1TB, 2TB Interface: Thunderbolt, USB 3.0.

What do you guys suggest? Which is the fastest? And is it even possible to connect USB 3.1 (Type C) to thunderbolt 2? Would a normal USB C to mini Display port work out of the box? Or go for the most expensive option to guarantee the speed? I have the exact same model and have used USB 3.0 and TB2 external SSDs as a boot drive. Yes internal is fastest and TB faster than USB but I doubt you'll notice the difference in practice (external USB 3.0 will still be a night and day difference over the mechanical HDD).

If you have warranty/applecare remaining I'd use an external SSD until that expires then fit an internal (this is what I'm doing). Jw player free install. One thing to bear in mind is that USB doesn't support TRIM (although I didn't notice any degrading in performance in the 6 or so months I used one). I have an external SSD for my bootcamp partition.

USB 3.0 enclosure for $5 and SSD itself was a SATA m.2 drive from Samsung. It feels absolutely the same as running Windows on my desktop, file transfers are maybe 10~20% slower. So unless your iMac supports NVMe drive and you buy one (that's much more expensive than SATA drives), speed won't limit you. However, there might be software factors limiting this. For example, to update my Windows 10 to a new build I HAVE to mount my external drive as a VM inside of a VMware install I keep on my MacBook. Only then it would install. So I would rather replace your HDD with a 240GB SSD (more is better but that depends on your budget), and get a case to use your old drive as external storage • • • •.