Enclosure for External Drives

[marrand]

Rick,
Are you still in the advice business?
If so, please help me with this problem.
Years ago, I bought two Burly Enclosures from you (2006-2007), each two bays; one firewiere, the other eSata.
I keep my old fashioned SATA 1TB drives in those enclosures and connect them to my MacPro 5,1 via FW or eSata.
And they work great.

I plan to buy a new MacPro, the cylinder type. So, here is the problem
How do I connect these 1TB hard drives, full of wonderful personal stuff, to the new cylinder?
Do they make a new Burly with USB 3 or Thunderbold connectivity?
And, can I use the old drives in their invidual trays - just insert them into the new Burly?
marrand

[marrand]

Ok Rick,
After posting the above, I watched your little video about NT2 drive USB3.1 enclosure.
Do you still sell it? Will it work with an old 1TB Barracuda 7200.12?
From your video it seems it will; but just had to ask to be sure.

And the currect Burlys and the drive trays.......what do I do with them? Junk them?

But here is another very important question: If I try an SSD inside this NT2 with macOS installed, will I be able to boot from thie external setup?
marrand

[ricks]

Well, the state of things is it is getting harder, or even impossible, to find components that can modify existing or build new enclosures. That market has plain disappeared and the manufacturers who so happily made up lots of boards and components are getting few and far between. I would first probably recommend that your older Burlys be updated to USB3 with one USB3.1 board per drive from Addonics. You'll need a USB3.1 hub if you don't have enough USB ports on your Mac.

Next, I have exactly one NT2 left, and there will be no more. Nice little box, I have one running on my desk 24/7. It be good for those small older drives or new large drives.

OWC bought up Akitio, so that source is drying up as well.


Rick

[marrand]

Rick,
Thanks for advice. The Akitio NT2 you sent me works like a charm. Today it has one bootable SSD (sierra10.12) and an old 1TB spinning drive (storage of stuff). The set up is the same as you showed in your movie clip.

Now I know you can connect an external Firewire drive to Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) port in the MacPro equipped with such ports.
1. Connect Thunderbolt 2/Firewire800 adapter to Thunderbolt2/Thunderbolt3 (USB-C) adapter,
2. USB-C end goes into computer.
3. FW800 end goes into your old external drive via FW800 cable.

Sounds simple As far as I know, they do not yet make Thunderbolt 3 to Firewire800 adapters.

But here is my main queston. What about the reverse?? Take the same adapter combo mentioned above, plug the USB-C end into Akitio NT2 which has the two drives inside (spinner and SSD). Then plug the other end into FW800 extension cable, and plug that into FW800 port on the older MacPro (5,1) which I have.

All connections can be made. But will they work? If they do, won’t I get the FW800 transfer rates? The slowest in this chain?

In another words, instead of adapting an older external drive to a new computer, can I adapt a newer external setup tp an old computer?

(PS: the new tower MacPro to be issued looks awesome; so does the price)
marrand

[ricks]

Unfortunately, I believe the Thunderbolt2 to FW800 adapter is from a Thunderbolt (PCIe protocols), not USB protocols. Trying to run in reverse would require something that is Thunderbolt capable. The NT2 is USB3, not Thunderbolt. Big difference in this case.

The one problem with Thunderbolt3 using USB3 TypeC cabling is that they are not the same thing. Yes, a Thunderbolt computer also has USB3.1 within the Thunderbolt connection. But many devices that are Thunderbolt3 require a Thunderbolt connection to run. Thunderbolt IS PCIe, which is why most any PCI device can be run on a Thunderbolt connection. Only USB devices can be run a USB3.1 TypeC connection though.