View Full Version : Thunderbolt adapter for Atomos caddy


Bruce Schultz
January 15th, 2013, 12:03 PM
I've been using the Seagate Thunderbolt adapter ( Amazon.com: Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter (STAE121): Car Electronics ) with all of my Atomos HD enclosures for a while now and it greatly reduces my transfer times of footage vs using the Atomos docking station with only it's USB and FW800 ports.

One thing I have noticed though is the sequence with which you need to plug in the chain to work on a MBP laptop. If you put the Atomos HD in a caddy on the adapter first then plug into the TBolt connector it won't mount, however if you first plug in the TBolt adapter then plug in the caddy with drive it will mount. Not sure why this is, but it is what it is I guess.

I'm also using the Seagate USB3 adapter ( Amazon.com: Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Upgrade Cable USB 3.0 - STAE104: Electronics ) in the same way with vastly superior transfer times than the USB 2.0 docking station.

Shaun Roemich
January 15th, 2013, 01:37 PM
Bruce, I've been looking at that solution for AGES now but I'm confused... I was under the impression you needed to use Seagate's own GoFlex drives to dock with it. Am I able to dock a regular SATA3 hard drive or SSD drive in that docking adaptor as well? Looking for a docking solution for my SSDs for my BMD HyperDeck Studio.

Bruce Schultz
January 16th, 2013, 01:07 PM
I have docked countless bare and caddied SSD and HDD drives with both of these adapters. The Atomos caddy doesn't fit as snuggly as their drives, but it makes a solid connection and works. Like I said, I've been using both the TBolt and USB 3.0 adapters to do this. Seagate also has a GoFlex docking station that provides 2 TBolt connectors for loop through.
Seagate STAE122 GoFlex Desk Thunderbolt Adapter in Hard Drives | JR.com (http://www.jr.com/seagate/pe/SAG_STAE122/)

The main problem with the GoFlex Seagate drives is that they are only 5400 RPM so transfer times tend to slow down using those to transfer to.

Shaun Roemich
January 16th, 2013, 01:12 PM
Much obliged Bruce. Seagate has certainly done a lousy job of marketing these as a solution outside of their own GoFlex application...