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brettdavis4
Contributor
Contributor
‎04-01-2013 08:35 AM

USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt Hard Drive?

I just recently purchased a macbook pro retina.  I need to get an external hard drive to run VMs on.  Which one should I buy?

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2 Replies
MacsRule
Hot Shot
Hot Shot
‎04-01-2013 09:24 AM

brettdavis4 wrote:

I just recently purchased a macbook pro retina.  I need to get an external hard drive to run VMs on.  Which one should I buy?

I don't know about compatibility with Fusion and external VM's but USB 3.0 drives are both more common and cheaper than Thunderbolt HD's and either interface can go a lot faster than any rotational drive is capable of. On the other hand, I've seen many comments on the Apple Communities about problems with Apple's USB 3.0 implementation reliably operating at USB 3.0 rather than 2.0.

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ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion
‎04-01-2013 02:05 PM

Thunderbolt is faster, but USB 3 is cheaper.  If you have a spinning disk, they are about the same.

Keep in mind this is to host the VM - Fusion will not virtualize a Thunderbolt drive.

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