I really need to upgrade storage of my Mac Mini M1

[Sovon Halder]

It's been 6 days and already I've got a warning "storage almost full".

My 3TB HDD sounds like a jet engine when powered on, and hangs up Finder when waking up from sleep, it's very annoying. I need a large storage device for casual use that is QUIET and will be connected to the back of the computer at all times. Nothing serious. I'll store random files, 4k movies, music, documents, maybe games etc - my typical use.

What type of storage should I buy? I'm looking at Samsung T7 2TB / 1TB but not sure if that SSD, or any SSD for that matter is an overkill. Also getting the proper ssd and an enclosure for it to get T7 level 1GBps speed seemed a bit complicated.

Please advise.

EDIT:

My ONLY goal is to make it so, that it feels like I have 1 or 2TB of storage, not just meagre 256GB. Replicating the quality/speed of internal storage till my budget permits. Replicating the quality/speed of internal storage as minimally as possible till my budget permits. I am confused between warranty, longevity, bang for buck and speed of various custom configured enclosure+nvme/sata/m.2 ssd.

 

[pldelisle]

You are still able to return it to get another model with upgraded storage. You have 14 days.

If external is the only option, then, I'd go with a mechanical drive. You don't need the performance of an SSD with that you write. A good Western Digital or Seagate external USB3 HDD will do the job. If reeeeeeally the noise is that important, then any Samsung/Crucial/Western digital SSD will also do the job. Get the one which is discounted at moment of buying.

 

[Sovon Halder]

You are still able to return it to get another model with upgraded storage. You have 14 days.

If external is the only option, then, I'd go with a mechanical drive. You don't need the performance of an SSD with that you write. A good Western Digital or Seagate external USB3 HDD will do the job. If reeeeeeally the noise is that important, then any Samsung/Crucial/Western digital SSD will also do the job. Get the one which is discounted at moment of buying.

Thank you for commenting.

In India Apple does not offer returns on purchased items. Besides I'm not sure if I can justify the huge price bumps for storage upgrade options from apple. 80000 INR for 2TB as opposed to 26000 INR for T7 to give you an example of how apple has set price here.

It's not just the noise with my HDD, it needs additional power and it falls asleep after a while. And if I disable "sleep hdd when inactive" somehow, as long as it remains on, there is this absurd mechanical noise. I'm not sure a smaller usb-c powered hdd will have this same issue though.

I read about M1 computers having some limitations in usb-c storage speed. All things considered I'm a bit confused now as to what I should do.

 

[malcky77]

Could you not look into buying yourself a NAS drive that has 2, 3, or 4 bays that you add a drive as and when you need to.....might work out more expensive initially, but will give you the option of much larger capacity drives as from your description of your usage there is NO need to get a SSD drive.
I personally have a WD EX4100, currently with 2 x 10TB drives inside that is used for Plex storage and other random files. Still have 2 spare slots available for now, but will get another 10TB drive sometime during 2021 probably.

 

[rui no onna]

If you want absolute silence, then SSD is your only choice. Mind, even a 500MB/s SSD should be significantly faster than your old 3TB HDD. Practically instant wake up, too, unlike HDD which has to spin up.

I tend to do tiered storage. Small frequently accessed files, I put on SSD (e.g. documents). Large static files such as videos and other media, I put on mechanical HDD.

I have 2.5" WD_Black and Element 4-5TB HDDs (normally pick one up when they go on sale for $100) and I don't find them excessively noisy.

My external SSDs are just 2.5" SATA3 SSDs paired with a ~$10 USB3-SATA adapter. You can get 1TB SATA SSDs for under $100 nowadays although I don't know what pricing is like in India.

 

[Sovon Halder]

Could you not look into buying yourself a NAS drive that has 2, 3, or 4 bays that you add a drive as and when you need to.....might work out more expensive initially, but will give you the option of much larger capacity drives as from your description of your usage there is NO need to get a SSD drive.
I personally have a WD EX4100, currently with 2 x 10TB drives inside that is used for Plex storage and other random files. Still have 2 spare slots available for now, but will get another 10TB drive sometime during 2021 probably.

Damn that is expensive. I can't afford that.

My only goal is to increase the usable storage by couple of terabytes so it feels like the entire system is having one single storage unit.

 

[malcky77]

That was just an example of what I have in my house.
You could also go down the large single drive NAS storage options, like the 8TB WD my cloud......that is cheaper than the 2TB SSD's....in the UK anyway.
The other benefit to a NAS drive is they do not have to be connected to your MAC & can be in another room all together.....and they won't be affected by the sleep/wake issue you mentioned.

 

[pldelisle]

it feels like the entire system is having one single storage unit.

That's impossible. You cannot have partition merging with external drives.

The best you can get is an external HDD or SSD.

You could go with https://www.crucial.com/ssd/mx500/ct2000mx500ssd1 with a standard USB3 gen 2 adapter like Vantec NST-204C3-SV. Vantec makes really good enclosures and this could potentially cost less than a Samsung T7 2 TB while maintaining the same good build quality. For the same price, you could get a 6-8 TB external HDD from Western Digital .....

A NAS would be your best option, but that's clearly over your budget.

 

[mj_]

Any type of external USB storage will do the trick. Doesn't even have to be a Samsung T7, an inexpensive external USB-C case paired with an inexpensive 2.5-inch SATA-III SSD will work just as great.

 

[jerryk]

It's been 6 days and already I've got a warning "storage almost full".

My 3TB HDD sounds like a jet engine when powered on, and hangs up Finder when waking up from sleep, it's very annoying. I need a large storage device for casual use that is QUIET and will be connected to the back of the computer at all times. Nothing serious. I'll store random files, 4k movies, music, documents, maybe games etc.

What type of storage should I buy? I'm looking at Samsung T7 2TB / 1TB but not sure if that SSD, or any SSD for that matter is an overkill. Also getting the proper ssd and an enclosure for it to get T7 level 1GBps speed seemed a bit complicated.

Please advise.

T7 is a nice device, and relatively inexpensive for an SSD if you don't buy the "touch" model.

 

[Sovon Halder]

The other benefit to a NAS drive is they do not have to be connected to your MAC & can be in another room all together.....and they won't be affected by the sleep/wake issue you mentioned.

Not that I can afford, just curious, how is the speed if you use yours from another room? (not connected to your computer via a cable)

You could go with https://www.crucial.com/ssd/mx500/ct2000mx500ssd1 with a standard USB3 gen 2 adapter like Vantec NST-204C3-SV. Vantec makes really good enclosures and this could potentially cost less than a Samsung T7 2 TB while maintaining the same good build quality. For the same price, you could get a 6-8 TB external HDD from Western Digital

I can't combine the internal storage with the external ssd, I know. I meant I wanted an storage experience as seamless as possible, under the budget of course. If I were to choose 1TB storage for mac mini it would have cost me ~545USD.

The cheapest 1TB ssd I found on Amazon is Western Digital Blue 1TB Internal Solid State Drive for 121USD and ORICO 2139C3-G2 gen2 10gbps for 18USD. So combined 139$ (speed ~500mbps). But the Samsung T7 1TB is priced at 150$ (speed ~1000mbps, if I understand the speeds correctly). or WD My Passport SSD 1TB for 178$(also ~1000mbps).

 

[Sovon Halder]

My another concern was, whether it's safe, to have an ssd connected to the computer 10 hours a day 365 days a year, regardless data being written or not. Also how much of an importance should one put into the warranty - 3years or 5 years between different companies!

 

[pldelisle]

My another concern was, whether it's safe, to have an ssd connected to the computer 10 hours a day 365 days a year, regardless data being written or not. Also how much of an importance should one put into the warranty - 3years or 5 years between different companies!

SSDs nowadays have very high endurance. No worry to have here. But again, the most reliable storage you could ever get is internal storage and not relying on external USB bus and connection.

Samsung, Crucial, Intel, Western ... all good brands. I personally prefer Crucial (Micron) since it's a high quality product, American company, and 5 years warranty. I have two which are 9 years old, 24/7 usage in RAID 0 setup as main system drive in a server and it's still flawless.

 

[Sovon Halder]

I have two which are 9 years old, 24/7 usage in RAID 0 setup as main system drive in a server and it's still flawless.

You have SSDs in RAID 0? Pardon me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't that generally be considered as overkill?

 

[pldelisle]

You have SSDs in RAID 0? Pardon me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't that generally be considered as overkill?

Not at all. Why would it be overkill ? I need extremely fast transfer speed for smaller files and a way to boost these I/O speeds are by putting them in RAID 0. Been running like that for 9 years now. In sequential speeds on large files, it only represents 1 GB/s which is far from the common sequential speeds of today's drive (around 3 GB/s).

The same server has two RTX 2080, 32 GB, P8P67 WS motherboard, i7 2700K... Nothing really overkill in that. You do what you can with what you have.

 

[malcky77]

Not that I can afford, just curious, how is the speed if you use yours from another room? (not connected to your computer via a cable)

My NAS drive is connected via gigabit ethernet to a 24 port gigabit switch in my home network...and the NAS, the switch, along with a bunch of other networking stuff (2 x Rpi 4, Philips Hue bridge, Tado heating bridge, Ubiquiti cloud key)....these are all in the attic of my house...access via a loft hatch in a bedroom and climb a set of ladders to get to them.
They are fit and forget things to be honest....once set up, I very rarely need to go up there. lol. Will need to go up when I want to install the next 10TB disk though.

As for speeds....the NAS is connected to the switch via gigabit ethernet, and so is my 2018 Mac Mini (that Mac mini is in my living room) and I have never done any kind of speed tests on the NAS (never needed to), but for giggles I just copied a 25GB film from the NAS drive to my 2018 Mac Mini and it took 3 minutes 25 seconds.....to which I have NO clue if that is fast or not???? as this is not how I use my NAS....I opened word or excel files saved on the NAS drive and they opened in the blink of an eye, so quick enough for me anyway.

 

[pldelisle]

My NAS drive is connected via gigabit ethernet to a 24 port gigabit switch in my home network...and the NAS, the switch, along with a bunch of other networking stuff (2 x Rpi 4, Philips Hue bridge, Tado heating bridge, Ubiquiti cloud key)....these are all in the attic of my house...access via a loft hatch in a bedroom and climb a set of ladders to get to them.
They are fit and forget things to be honest....once set up, I very rarely need to go up there. lol. Will need to go up when I want to install the next 10TB disk though.

As for speeds....the NAS is connected to the switch via gigabit ethernet, and so is my 2018 Mac Mini (that Mac mini is in my living room) and I have never done any kind of speed tests on the NAS (never needed to), but for giggles I just copied a 25GB film from the NAS drive to my 2018 Mac Mini and it took 3 minutes 25 seconds.....to which I have NO clue if that is fast or not???? as this is not how I use my NAS....I opened word or excel files saved on the NAS drive and they opened in the blink of an eye, so quick enough for me anyway.

1Gbps is 125 MB/s max (more likely 115 MB/s using TCP). A USB3 gen 2 can can go up to 10 gbps, so 1250 MB/s. That’s a huge difference.

 

[malcky77]

That is a huge difference.....but what is the use case that the OP actually needs? I got the impression it was simply storage of general files and media stuff to watch whenever.....that type of usage does NOT need 1250MB/s.

 

[OSB]

125MB/s is also the effective maximum speed for single-link 1Gbps ethernet - you won't get anything faster between your Mac and the NAS without moving to 10Gbps and/or aggregating links on both, regardless of how fast the drives on your NAS can serve up or lay down data.

 

[pshufd]

I'd see if you can hang a HDD off your router as a NAS. My NAS is my Windows Desktop with 2TB SSD but I could just grab an old system and hook it up to a WD Elements drive to accomplish the same result. I have an 8 TB WD Elements or MyBook Drive for Time Machine backup and two smaller drives for Time Machine for triple redundancy. I find performance for streaming video to be fine over GB Ethernet or WiFi N.

 

[OSB]

I find performance for streaming video to be fine over GB Ethernet or WiFi N.

For sure. I think most 4K blu-rays are like ~75Mb/s? and the maximum is 144Mb/s. And most people aren't streaming full-fat 4k rips around their house anyhow.

 

[pldelisle]

That is a huge difference.....but what is the use case that the OP actually needs? I got the impression it was simply storage of general files and media stuff to watch whenever.....that type of usage does NOT need 1250MB/s.

But considering he is on a tight budget, a NAS is simply not possible IMO.

 

[pshufd]

But considering he is on a tight budget, a NAS is simply not possible IMO.

I have a 2010 AirPort Extreme and it has a USB 2.0 port. A bit on the slow side but I could just hand a cheap HDD off of it. Other routers may have a USB port for a shared printer or HDD. Or you could just take an old Windows machine and hang a HDD off of it. You might be able to do something with a Raspberry Pi.

 

[malcky77]

The OP said he was looking at a Samsung T7 2TB in the 1st post, which in the UK is £272......a 8TB WD My Cloud NAS is currently £200 on Amazon.
Based on the 1st post description of typical usage....the NAS would more than meet the needs.

 

[lightfire]

How about a simple M.2 NVME 1 or 2 TB drive in a USB-C enclosure? OR a TB enclosure? I have an inexpensive Intel 1TB NVME in a simple enclosure - about a little over $!00. Tried a 2TB Samsung and it worked well.