Thunderbolt 1/2 support for the USB3.1 gen2 NVMe enclosure

I have a question/suggestion for Thunderbolt support for this enclosure.

It reads in the product description: “Capable of read and write speeds of over 900 MBps, depending on the SSD used, and when connected to a Thunderbolt 3 or USB 3.1 Gen 2 port.”

This gives an indication that the device supports Thunderbolt 3. BUT, it would be good to mention that the enclosure is not an actual Thunderbolt 3 device.

This has meaning example when trying to use the native Apple Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adapter. This will not work for this enclosure as is not a TB3 device.

Is it possible to upgrade the exclosure firmware to make it fully TB3 (and older TB2/1) compatible ? This would be really beneficial for users that use example older MAC computers that don’t have a TB3/USB3.1 port, but have TB2. Compared to USB-A (3.0) port, the TB2 gives double the bandwidth for the connectivity for this enclosure. This would be usable when using high-end NVMe SSDs (Example the Samsung EVO -series).

Thanks, Marko.

Thank you for your comment.

There are a lot of challenges when it comes to providing information that is both accurate and not contradictory, without getting overly wordy with regards to compatibility of a device like the USBC-NVME.

This is particularly difficult because Thunderbolt 3 operates over USB Type-C ports. and other devices like a laptop that could take advantage of this enclosure may label their USB Type-C ports as simply a ‘Thunderbolt 3’ port. A consumer may not necessarily understand that USB Type-C and Thunderbolt 3 can be one in the same, particularly with how new both technologies still are.

This issue is similar to how many consumers did not realize that a Thunderbolt 1 or Thunderbolt 2 port was really a Mini DisplayPort connection with another data signal piggybacking on the port type. Therefor not realizing that a Mini DisplayPort adapter or cable would work with the port unless the marketing material explicitly stated it was compatible with a Thunderbolt port.

Context is very important.

For example, the title of the page you’re quoting is ‘Plugable USB 3.1 Gen 2 Tool-Free NVME Enclosure’. It makes no mention of Thunderbolt in the actual name of the device. If we wanted to specify it was Thunderbolt 3, we may instead call it the ‘Plugable Thunderbolt 3 Tool-Free NVME Enclosure’, and since such a device would operate strictly on Thunderbolt protocols, we would not claim support for USB connections, which is the case with our TBT3-NVME480 external SSD.

Because we know that a USB Type-C port supporting Thunderbolt 3 is also capable of supporting USB 3.1 Gen 2 signals, we call out that a port under either name is capable of the maximum performance of this device.

If we were to state it another way, such as ‘Capable of read and write speeds of over 900 MBps, depending on the SSD used, and when connected to a Thunderbolt 3 or USB 3.1 Gen 2 port. (Note: this is not a Thunderbolt 3 device)’, that would lead to other forms of confusion resulting from mixed messaging about whether or not it would actually work in a Thunderbolt 3 port.

Users looking to bridge Thunderbolt 3 back to an earlier version of Thunderbolt is by far the exception in terms of what people try to do with this device. Especially since there are no adapters that allow a Thunderbolt 3 device to connect to a Thunderbolt 2 host, there are only adapters that provide the ability to connect older Thunderbolt devices to a newer Thunderbolt 3 host. Edit: Apple offers a bi-directional Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter. They do however stress that it does not work with non-Thunderbolt 3 USB Type-C connections. However, customer confusion about the exact capabilities of this adapter contributes heavily to a poor user review score for the adapter.

I hope this helps to provide more detail regarding the decision making process behind our choice of wording. Our intent is absolutely not to deceive anyone, it is merely to help less technical users find devices that work best with each other.

Thanks for the reply.

First off for the comment:” Users looking to bridge Thunderbolt 3 back to an earlier version of Thunderbolt is by far the exception in terms of what people try to do with this device. Especially since there are no adapters that allow a Thunderbolt 3 device to connect to a Thunderbolt 2 host, there are only adapters that provide the ability to connect older Thunderbolt devices to a newer Thunderbolt 3 host.

This might be incorrect. The Apple TB3-TB2 adapter is stated to work both ways, and also it is stated that TB3 is backward combatible to TB2/1 with decreased speed. But, the external device must be a TB device, not only support to connect to a TB3 port.

Thus coming to the last question that was not answered: Will this enclosure be possible to have a (future) firmware update be fully TB combatible ?

Marko.

Thanks for the follow up.

I have updated my prior post to reflect the additional complexity of the bi-directional Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 2 adapter.

With regards to a firmware update resulting in the data being signaled over Thunderbolt 3 rather than USB protocols, this is not possible. Thunderbolt data communication requires hardware that is not present on the USBC-NVME.

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