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Accessories for the Macbook Pro M1...

TheRealAir

TheRealAir

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 1, 2014
63
80
Hi,

I first posted on this forum back when I got my Macbook Air 2014 and I have had it up until now, seven fricken years. It has been a good servant though, always worked for me.

Yesterday I got a M1 Macbook Pro 13" because the price was too good to pass and hopefully I will use it for the next 5 years at least.

Now, the reason I am making this thread is that I am wondering about a couple of things regarding accessories.

I am looking for:
1. USB Hub. I need something to plugin to one or both USB-C on the computer to get regular USB A and SD-card working. What is the best to get? I need it to work 100% with the M1.

2. External SSD so I can make bootable backups using Carbon Copy Cloner, what SSD is recommended that are fast and reliable?


Lastly I want to say that this computer, M1 Macbook Pro, is the best laptop I ever owned. I have owned a few Macs and I currently also own a Lenovo ThinkPad P1 (I do Solidworks) and they do not even come close!
 
Glad to hear that you are enjoying the M1 Pro! I use the M1 Air, and, for what I do, it's the best laptop I have owned.

As for the Hub, I know that Anker has some reliable ones...a lot of my IT friends use them. https://www.anker.com/products/taxons/114/connectivity

As for the external SSD, obviously it will depend on your budget. I know of folks that use the Samsung T5 and the Samsung X5 (this one being the best, but more pricey).

Hope this helps!
 
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TheRealAir said:
2. External SSD so I can make bootable backups using Carbon Copy Cloner, what SSD is recommended that are fast and reliable?
Click to expand...
Congrats on your new M1 MBP.

Just a heads up about bootable backups. With Big Sur and M1 MacBooks, bootable external backups are not the straightforward option they used to be. Mike Bombich, maker of CCC, no longer recommends bootable backups and the default backup mode of the latest CCC is to make a backup of the Data volume only, and then use this to migrate from after an erase and install. This is also how full disk Time Machine restores work. More in this article:

https://bombich.com/blog/2021/05/19...dapting-recovery-strategies-evolving-platform

Samsung T5 is a good option.
 
macbookm1airlover said:
Glad to hear that you are enjoying the M1 Pro! I use the M1 Air, and, for what I do, it's the best laptop I have owned.

As for the Hub, I know that Anker has some reliable ones...a lot of my IT friends use them. https://www.anker.com/products/taxons/114/connectivity

As for the external SSD, obviously it will depend on your budget. I know of folks that use the Samsung T5 and the Samsung X5 (this one being the best, but more pricey).

Hope this helps!
Click to expand...
Anker, ok. Does it matter if it is Thunderbolt 3 or just USB is fine?

And yes, I heard that the Samsung SSDs are nice, I will look more into them, thank you.
Mike Boreham said:
Congrats on your new M1 MBP.

Just a heads up about bootable backups. With Big Sur and M1 MacBooks, bootable external backups are not the straightforward option they used to be. Mike Bombich, maker of CCC, no longer recommends bootable backups and the default backup mode of the latest CCC is to make a backup of the Data volume only, and then use this to migrate from after an erase and install. This is also how full disk Time Machine restores work. More in this article:

https://bombich.com/blog/2021/05/19...dapting-recovery-strategies-evolving-platform

Samsung T5 is a good option.
Click to expand...
Oh, that is great that you said this.
I am ok with it working like Time Machine, as long as it works I am fine with it.
 
I will look into the Satechi as well, thanks.
 
Last edited:
I just bought a cheap usb-c hub from Amazon that has sd-card reader, USB ports, HDMI and ethernet. It works perfectly with M1 MacBook.
 
macbookm1airlover said:
As for the external SSD, obviously it will depend on your budget. I know of folks that use the Samsung T5 and the Samsung X5 (this one being the best, but more pricey).
Click to expand...

I had an M1 MBP for a short period of time and I used it to manage and edit a 1TB RAW photo collection that I kept on a SanDisk Extreme USB 3.1, which is equivalent to a Samsung T5. It falls well short of native SSD speeds in transfer and is half the speed of the USB 3.2 X5, but the performance seemed to be just fine to me.

I presume that if you survived 7 years on a 2014 MBA, your needs are super heavy. You could probably save a bit of coin and just go with a Samsung T5 or SanDisk Extreme portable. I'm rather fond of the SanDisk Extremes because they're rugged and light.

If you go with the faster speeds of a Samsung X5, be aware that they may throttle with sustained loads and drop to 50% or less of max speeds.
 
smirking said:
I had an M1 MBP for a short period of time and I used it to manage and edit a 1TB RAW photo collection that I kept on a SanDisk Extreme USB 3.1, which is equivalent to a Samsung T5. It falls well short of native SSD speeds in transfer and is half the speed of the USB 3.2 X5, but the performance seemed to be just fine to me.

I presume that if you survived 7 years on a 2014 MBA, your needs are super heavy. You could probably save a bit of coin and just go with a Samsung T5 or SanDisk Extreme portable. I'm rather fond of the SanDisk Extremes because they're rugged and light.

If you go with the faster speeds of a Samsung X5, be aware that they may throttle with sustained loads and drop to 50% or less of max speeds.
Click to expand...
My needs are not super heavy but I want some speed regardless ^_^.
I finally found a good deal for a LaCie Rugged SSD 500GB so I bought that.
lacie-rugged-ssd-size.jpg
 
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smirking said:
If you go with the faster speeds of a Samsung X5, be aware that they may throttle with sustained loads and drop to 50% or less of max speeds.
Click to expand...

Perhaps a bit of an overkill addition for some (not me) but I’m using a 1TB X5 as my Boot and main drive for my Mini M1.

You’re dead right, ordinarily it will throttle quite a bit with sustained loads, but there is a workaround for that.

I’ve attached a Raspberry Pi Heatsink and Fan to the part of the X5 which generates most heat and powered it from one of the USB ports, so that when the Mac powers on, so does the fan.

It’s also raised off of the desk on a wee stand, to further improve airflow all around it.

It’s been doing an amazing job of keeping the heat down and in the few months I’ve been using it, I’ve yet to encounter any of the throttling I did before I attached the cooler.

Simple, obvious, but very effective wee addition.

DBC29795-C827-461F-9E06-716911A9BF64.jpeg
 
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TrueBlou said:
Perhaps a bit of an overkill addition for some (not me) but I’m using a 1TB X5 as my Boot and main drive for my Mini M1.

You’re dead right, ordinarily it will throttle quite a bit with sustained loads, but there is a workaround for that.

I’ve attached a Raspberry Pi Heatsink and Fan to the part of the X5 which generates most heat and powered it from one of the USB ports, so that when the Mac powers on, so does the fan.

It’s also raised off of the desk on a wee stand, to further improve airflow all around it.

It’s been doing an amazing job of keeping the heat down and in the few months I’ve been using it, I’ve yet to encounter any of the throttling I did before I attached the cooler.

Simple, obvious, but very effective wee addition.

View attachment 1826349
Click to expand...

Do you use Carbon Copy Cloner to make the boot drive or how do you do it?
 
TheRealAir said:
Do you use Carbon Copy Cloner to make the boot drive or how do you do it?
Click to expand...

Nope, just the good old-fashioned way. Formatted the drive as APFS first, then just selected it as the install drive from the macOS Installer you download from Apple.

Works a treat, I’m led to believe that it’s easier because it’s a TB3 drive, but y’know, that could be iffy information. It works flawlessly for me anyway
 
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darngooddesign said:
Make sure you research this, I remember there was a long thread discussing how convoluted it is to make a bootable backup now.
Click to expand...

Yup, I remember reading them a while back, but honestly I didn’t see what then fuss was about, perhaps the TB3 did make a difference. But the install went flawlessly, just as it always did before the M1 systems, and it’s been running perfectly 24/7 for months now.
 
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TrueBlou said:
Yup, I remember reading them a while back, but honestly I didn’t see what then fuss was about, perhaps the TB3 did make a difference. But the install went flawlessly, just as it always did before the M1 systems, and it’s been running perfectly 24/7 for months now.
Click to expand...
So you run entierly through your external drive all the time, correct? What if I want to run it through my internal drive but want to make a clone copy after each day, how do I go about doing that?
 
I have both an Anker and Novoo USB-C Hub Hubs. They both work. I have had my Novoo USB-C Hub the longest though and I have had no issues with it. I have also heard good things about Samsung for SSD. It will ultimately come down to your budget and your preferences.
 
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