I've got a bonus installment of This Old iMac for you this week, because my new favorite piece of hardware arrived ahead of schedule!
Part of my grand plan to speed up my 2011 iMac is to move my Photo Library off my hard drive to free up space. Unfortunately, the only external drive I have at the moment is hooked up to the iMac's dirt slow USB 2.0 port and the read/write speed is...well, it looks like this:
iMac HDD on the left, USB 2.0 External on the right (photo by Anthony Karcz -captured with... [+]
Suffice to say, it is not fast. That's fine if you're going to make that external drive into a Time Machine (which is what its current function is). But if I tried to access my pictures from this drive and work with them? I'd go crazier than I already am.
Clearly, I need a new external drive that can take advantage of faster Thunderbolt or USB 3.0 transfer speeds. I'm looking at USB because it's a bit more versatile if I ever need the drive on a non-Mac machine; but the 2011 iMac only has USB 2.0. So I'm out of luck. Right?
Wrong.
Image courtesy of Belkin
Belkin makes a snazzy dock, the Thunderbolt 2 Express Dock HD that has exactly what you need to give an older iMac (or
It's fast, smokin' fast. I discovered that, after I plugged my old external in to the USB 3.0 port and ran another test that it was actually USB 3.0 enabled. My read/write times were greatly improved!
USB 2.0 External on the left, USB 3.0 External on the right (photo by Anthony Karcz -captured with... [+]
Somehow it's almost faster than my internal HDD. Which is exactly the kind of pep I need to handle my gargantuan Photo Library. This would be perfect, if that drive wasn't already chockfull of Time Machine backups. But don't worry, I've got a plan for that too.
In the meantime, I'm enjoying the stuffing out of the Belkin dock. The finish is a perfect match for the brushed aluminum iMac housing and it's small enough to nestle right beneath the monitor without spilling over the sides of the base. Even better? It finally gives me front-facing USB and audio ports! Anyone who's lived with an iMac can tell you how frustrating it is to have to go poking around the back of the machine for those. The front-facing audio port is actually an audio in/out port, so if you have an amplified headset for gaming, you can plug it in and start chatting away.
One caveat on those audio ports, though. The iMac will list the Belkin doc as a USB audio device in Audio settings; but it will not automatically switch over input or output when you plug in a mic or headphones. Luckily, it's a very quick fix. Press and hold the Option key, then click the Volume icon in your menu bar. Select the Belkin as appropriate (it's listed as USB audio codec on my machine), and you're good to go. You can also do this from Audio settings if you don't have the volume menu bar icon enabled.
Photo by Anthony Karcz
The Belkin Thunderbolt 2 Express Dock HD runs $299 on the Belkin website (and a little less on Amazon). I think it's well worth the upgrade for an older machine (and if you're running multiple monitors, that HDMI port is extremely handy). It's fast, good looking, and useful - everything I want my peripherals to be!
Now to fix that hard drive problem...
Disclaimer: Belkin provided a sample unit for this review. Opinions are my own.
