I have 2015 5k iMac that I’m trying to squeeze some life out of.

Everymac.com says it has thunderbolt 2 ports.

Are there any thunderbolt 2 external hard drives (preferably solid state) that I can buy? I’ve searched and can’t find them anywhere, outside of a RAID system which is way more than what I need.

Any advice would be appreciated - thanks in advance.

No thunderbolt 2 SSD’s that I am aware of (looked everywhere back in the day). Thunderbolt 2 did not last long enough for manufacturers to get accessories out for it. They move slow to design to spend the money on R&D when technology is moving fast.

Here is what I use if you can find any left. Maybe ebay if you are lucky. Most who want this type of stuff stanch it quickly. It is thunderbolt 1, but works decent with SSDs. There are other enclosures, so you may just have to make your own.

loby said:

No thunderbolt 2 SSD’s that I am aware of (looked everywhere back in the day). Thunderbolt 2 did not last long enough for manufacturers to get accessories out for it. They move slow to design to spend the money on R&D when technology is moving fast.

Here is what I use if you can find any left. Maybe ebay if you are lucky. Most who want this type of stuff stanch it quickly. It is thunderbolt 1, but works decent with SSDs. There are other enclosures, so you may just have to make your own.

Seagate GoFlex Desk Thunderbolt Adapter (STAE122)

Upgrade your GoFlex Desk drive to increase performance. Thunderbolt technology is a revolutionary interface supporting high-resolution display and high-performance data devices through a single port. At 10Gbps, the Thunderbolt adapter is up to 20x faster than USB 2.0 and 12x faster than FireWire ...

www.amazon.com

Click to expand...

Also, thunder 3 to thunderbolt 2 adapter from Apple works for most encloursers, but will need external power since thunderbolt 2 does not provide power or not enough for conversion.

Yes, the Transcend JetDrive 855. As far as I could find, it's the only SSD enclosure with a Thunderbolt 2 interface. I had originally planned to buy one and then possibly swap out the SSD blade inside (which I believe you can do, but memory is a bit hazy). However, it's quite expensive for what you're getting, considering it's a dead-end technology.

I also have a 2015 iMac. What I did, instead, was to buy a Thunderbolt 3 hub (I chose the CalDigit TS3+ but there are quite a few good options), which I connected to my Mac with a Thunderbolt adapter. I then bought a Thunderbolt 3 enclosure and a standard SSD to put inside of it. While it's a bit more expensive than the JetDrive, the difference is that the JetDrive will just hold you back on speed and require an adapter when you upgrade your computer, whereas the Thunderbolt 3 drive will be able to operate at native speeds. If you don't have a need for more ports then the Thunderbolt hub might be a bit of a waste, but I can always use more ports - so the hub is something that will still be useful to me even when I upgrade.

Edit: Transcend makes a few variations of that drive, I believe mostly with different drive sizes installed. The one I linked to actually looks to be a Thunderbolt 1 interface (based on their speed rating), which has the same physical connector with Thunderbolt 2 and should work without difficulty. I thought they had a Thunderbolt 2 version, but can't easily find it now; might be worth a look. Either way, Thunderbolt 1 might get the job done for you, but I think it further makes the case for spending a bit more to be able to use Thunderbolt 3 (or 4) through a hub.

I bought a Trebleet Dual Slot NVMe disk dock and am booting my iMac 12,2 off NVMe via Thunderbolt 1 using a 2/3 adapter. It works fantastic. You can also get a Lacie thunderbolt drive and swap it for a SATA SSD but the read writes are not as good as the NVMe solution. You can also get an HP thunderbolt 2 dual drive and swap the raid inside for 2 SSD's, I have not tried the HP solution yet but I took mine apart and it appears the connections are SATA and should work. I picked up the Trebleet for 200$, the Lacie for 80 and the HP for 129.

Alas the Jet Drive 10Gbps is TB1. TB2 is 20Gbps.

OWC did make a TB2 Dock.

Jedimindtrick said:

I have 2015 5k iMac that I’m trying to squeeze some life out of.

Everymac.com says it has thunderbolt 2 ports.

Are there any thunderbolt 2 external hard drives (preferably solid state) that I can buy? I’ve searched and can’t find them anywhere, outside of a RAID system which is way more than what I need.

Any advice would be appreciated - thanks in advance.

Just get an USB 3.0 box and a 2.5" SATA SSD.
It's cheap and popular, but still fast enough for you to feel the improvement moving from internal HDD to external SSD, thanks to the 4K random read/write speed.

There's no nVME SSD to TB2 box to help you squeeze all the speed of TB2 protocol.
A TB2 box with SATA SSD is not faster than USB 3.0 box, being capped by the SATA bus speed.

Open it up and use an NVMe adapter is the method with the lowest cost and the highest performance. (I think all 2015 27" has the proper slot, correct me if I am mistaken.)

Forget about thunderbolt.

Instead, get an external USB3 SSD, set it up, and use that instead.

Cheapest and easiest solution.

Nguyen Duc Hieu said:

There's no nVME SSD to TB2 box to help you squeeze all the speed of TB2 protocol.

LaCie Little Big Disk
Transcend JetDrive 825
Transcend JetDrive 855

use PCIe SSDs but have a Thunderbolt 1 or 2 interface.

I have 2 Buffalo Ministatios drives I bought off on ebay. I replaced the 2.5 spinning drives with SSD. The have a thunderbolt 2 and usb 3 interface. I was able to install Windows on of the drives insted of using my internal for bootcamp.

Thank you all! Really appreciate the help!

dimme said:

I have 2 Buffalo Ministatios drives I bought off on ebay. I replaced the 2.5 spinning drives with SSD. The have a thunderbolt 2 and usb 3 interface. I was able to install Windows on of the drives insted of using my internal for bootcamp.

Would this one work? I don't want to buy one if I cannot replace the spinning drives with SSD

Jedimindtrick said:

Would this one work? I don't want to buy one if I cannot replace the spinning drives with SSD

It's the responsibility of the seller to answer your question.

Jedimindtrick said:

Would this one work? I don't want to buy one if I cannot replace the spinning drives with SSD

If its the same drive, it looks pretty easy in this video.


The Lacie rugged enclosure is REALLY easy to swap to an SSD.

Jedimindtrick said:

Would this one work? I don't want to buy one if I cannot replace the spinning drives with SSD

It's the same one that I replaced a spinning drive with a SSD

OP wrote in 13 above:
"Would this one work? I don't want to buy one if I cannot replace the spinning drives with SSD"

That looks to be a platter-based drive.
By the time you spend the money for that ($70) AND buy an SSD, you're spending WAY too much for "what you're going to end up with".

I'm gonna repeat this, and then I'm done with the thread:
Get yourself a USB3 SSD, either "ready to use" (like the Samsung t5 or t7), or "build your own".
It will be as fast as thunderbolt in "real world" usage conditions.
And it will cost you less.

If it was me, I'd get an "nvme" blade SSD, and a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure.
It will work fine with USB3.
And... when the time comes for you to move up to a new Mac with faster USB speeds, the drive will perform even better.

Fishrrman said:

OP wrote in 13 above:
"Would this one work? I don't want to buy one if I cannot replace the spinning drives with SSD"

That looks to be a platter-based drive.
By the time you spend the money for that ($70) AND buy an SSD, you're spending WAY too much for "what you're going to end up with".

I'm gonna repeat this, and then I'm done with the thread:
Get yourself a USB3 SSD, either "ready to use" (like the Samsung t5 or t7), or "build your own".
It will be as fast as thunderbolt in "real world" usage conditions.
And it will cost you less.

If it was me, I'd get an "nvme" blade SSD, and a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure.
It will work fine with USB3.
And... when the time comes for you to move up to a new Mac with faster USB speeds, the drive will perform even better.

Click to expand...

Thank you I really appreciate the advice! I’ve got the M1 MacBook Pro and M1 16gb ram iPad Pro, I use those as my mains. But I’m clinging on to this 2015 iMac because it’s the only Apple computer I’ve ever bought where I custom ordered it with the better processor and graphics card, and also it’s the only intel Mac I have left, which may come in handy one day.
I’m going to take your advice and get the Samsung.

Fishrrman said:

OP wrote in 13 above:
"Would this one work? I don't want to buy one if I cannot replace the spinning drives with SSD"

That looks to be a platter-based drive.
By the time you spend the money for that ($70) AND buy an SSD, you're spending WAY too much for "what you're going to end up with".

I'm gonna repeat this, and then I'm done with the thread:
Get yourself a USB3 SSD, either "ready to use" (like the Samsung t5 or t7), or "build your own".
It will be as fast as thunderbolt in "real world" usage conditions.
And it will cost you less.

If it was me, I'd get an "nvme" blade SSD, and a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure.
It will work fine with USB3.
And... when the time comes for you to move up to a new Mac with faster USB speeds, the drive will perform even better.

Click to expand...

Resurrecting this older thread. I'm looking for a reliable and Fast Boot Drive for a Late 2015 iMac. Would a Samsung T7 (Marketed as a portable Drive) be a reliable and safe Boot drive for me? Contemplating this, vs just buying a 2020 27" iMac.

Grubster said:

Resurrecting this older thread. I'm looking for a reliable and Fast Boot Drive for a Late 2015 iMac. Would a Samsung T7 (Marketed as a portable Drive) be a reliable and safe Boot drive for me? Contemplating this, vs just buying a 2020 27" iMac.

If that mac has TB2 you would need and adapter and a powered boot device. My X5 doesn't mount on a TB2 connection for example. I use a NVMe enclosure on my 2013 iMac with a TB adapter and it works great but it has its own power supply.

Jack Neill said:

If that mac has TB2 you would need and adapter and a powered boot device. My X5 doesn't mount on a TB2 connection for example. I use a NVMe enclosure on my 2013 iMac with a TB adapter and it works great but it has its own power supply.

Which NVMe enclosure are you using?

dimme said:

Which NVMe enclosure are you using?

Its a Trebleet Dual Slot. I have 2 1TB's in it and on my 2013 with TB1 I am getting about 800's R/W's and its been working perfectly. It also has a USB C port so having that is pretty useful

Jack Neill said:

If that mac has TB2 you would need and adapter and a powered boot device. My X5 doesn't mount on a TB2 connection for example. I use a NVMe enclosure on my 2013 iMac with a TB adapter and it works great but it has its own power supply.

No, I’m talking about using USB drives as was mentioned above. Sounds like it’s not cost effective to spend on older tech today and people were saying a Samsung t7 usb Ssd drive would be nice.

Grubster said:

No, I’m talking about using USB drives as was mentioned above. Sounds like it’s not cost effective to spend on older tech today and people were saying a Samsung t7 usb Ssd drive would be nice.

USB 3.0 drives would work fine to boot macOS too.

Grubster:
"I'm looking for a reliable and Fast Boot Drive for a Late 2015 iMac. Would a Samsung T7 (Marketed as a portable Drive) be a reliable and safe Boot drive for me? Contemplating this, vs just buying a 2020 27" iMac."

The 2020 iMac (which has an internal SSD) would be MUCH faster.

But... if you don't want to go that route, the t7 would be a pretty good drive for the 2015 iMac.
BE AWARE that even though the t5 is rated for USB3.1 gen2 speeds, you'll only get USB3 speeds when connecting it to a 2015. Expect to see read speeds around 420MBps.

Also BE AWARE that you should completely erase the t7 when you get it, before you do anything else with it. This gets rid of any Samsung "proprietary software" on the drive.