Fastest external data drive

I just built a new computer with and i7700K processor, M.2 Samsung 512 system drive and a Z270 motherboard that has both usb 3 and usb 3.1 ports.  I'm looking for the fastest possible external drive combination as I work a lot off an external.  I'm looking at 1TB SSD drives and looking for the best enclosure to use and the fastest connection for best performance.  I realize it won't be like working data from internal drive but it's what I need right now. For external drives is there a real world improvement with 3.1?  Hoping so.  Thanks for any suggestions.

If you put a Thunderbolt 3 port in the computer and then get a Thunderbolt 3 housing - that would be your fastest option. Thunderbolt 3 uses the USB-C connection.

And yo need to buy a FAST SSD to make use of all that speed. I believe the SSD is the limiting factor more than the differences between USB 3, Thunderbolt 2/3 and USB-C. That's why Raid 0 enclosed SSDs are faster than a single SSD even with a USB 3 connection.

Thanks E.J. and Tony. I hadn't really thought about Thunderbolt. Actually thought I was almost over buying the MB but this one doesn't have a Thunderbolt header. Have to look to see if there are decent cards for that. Using the board that I think both Puget Sound and Falcon use currently. I'll also now look into Raid ) SSD's but would like to see some comparisons in transfer speed. Thanks again. Jim

Like Tony said, the SSD is going to likely be slower than the interface so I think you will be just fine with your USB 3.1.

Macsales has transfer speeds with raid enclosures. The more SSDs in Raid 0, the faster you get. The specs on the SSD will matter too. I'm not sure how many drives at what speed will start impacting the transfer rate making you use something faster than usb 3.

BTW, movement to the enclosure will be limited by the speed of the source drive. So unless you are moving from RAID to RAID, assume that most movement will be based on the speed of a single SSD. If you simply working with the RAID to RAM, the movement would be limited by the RAID and the interface speed.

Ok, this will be images going from the external ssd to the internal which is a Samsung 960Pro Series 512GB PCIe directly into the motherboard. Images worked there and then saved back to the external ssd. This is because of my somewhat unique situation where I do half my work in my home office and half in my business office so I like to have my completely up to date working files with me. Every day all of those files are also backed up to internal drives in all computers so things are spread out. Hope that makes sense.

With SSD's being what they are it's also occurred to me to leave an internal sata connected cable out the back of the computer along with a power connection and avoid all the USB business altogether. I'm sure there are reasons that's not a good idea. So, other than that I'm looking at one of the Samsung pro 1TB SSD's to see how that goes and find a good external enclosure for it with at least the 3.1 connection.

Have read that most enclosures do not support trim and that can affect ssd performance down the line?

thanks for all your input guys. Greatly appreciated.

USB 3.1 is faster than SATA3 so I'd still go with that.  If you want to go with SATA, just get a little SATA card that goes in an expansion slot and plugs into an internal SATA port - basically it just extends the plug to the external part of the case.  They are cheap, you may even have some laying around.

E.J. Would that be true with the SATA6 ports on the newer boards? That method would then also need the external to be powered I suspect to will probably just search for the best external enclosure for USB3.1 with the best chipset as I understand there is a lot of difference between some of them.

SATA 6Gb/s is SATA 3 - they are the same thing.

E.J. Peiker wrote:SATA 6Gb/s is SATA 3 - they are the same thing.

Thanks E.J.  Guess I'm lucky the new built rig is running so smooth! .