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I have a seagate expansion SSD connected to my MacBook Pro 13” mid 2012 build. The build has USB 2.0 port and thunderbolt port. I can connect the SSD with the provided USB 3.0 cable easily but I want to get the best possible transfer rate. Question: can I use an adapter to connect to the thunderbolt port gaining the speed it provides without compromising performance.
Sorry I don’t know of any Thunderbolt or Thunderbolt-2 adapter which would allow you to use a USB drive (USB-A connection via USB2.x or USB3.x protocols). Just for your knowledge the 2012 Unibody’s USB ports are USB3.0 as you can see here
So you have the USB-A ports which can support upto a 5.0 Gb/s connection, a 10 Gb/s Thunderbolt connection and lastly a 800 Mb/s FireWire connection (the slowest of the three) Sadly the older 10 Gb/s Thunderbolt and 20 Gb/s Thunderbolt-2 drives are hard to come by these days as most storage makers have moved on to 40 Gb/s Thunderbolt-3 and Thunderbolt-4 which uses the USB-C connection and are not compatible with the older Thunderbolt connections. I’ve been using these: Transcend StoreJet 500 Portable SSD which are still available! It allows either USB3 or Thunderbolt 1 or 2 connections. Update (02/28/2021) The differences between USB2 Vs USB3
Apple didn’t use the Blue color of the port.
