An external SSD that matches the speed of the internal SSD on a M4 Pro?

[dcpmark]

I'd like to get a 4TB external SSD that performs close the 6300 read/5300 write speeds being reported for the M4 Pro, either as a naked SSD drive in a separate enclosure or as a one-piece SSD drive. Is this possible, and if so, which one would you recommend?

TIA!

 

[DigiH]

It'd have to be a TB5 external SSD, AFAIK only becoming available as ready drives at the moment, but no TB5 enclosures yet, e. g.

OWC Envoy Ultra – 6,000MB/s Thunderbolt 5 Portable SSD

Brings revolutionary speeds of over 6,000MB/s while also getting the highest speeds possible for Thunderbolt 3, Thunderbolt 4, and USB4 machines.

www.owc.com

Rocket XTRM 5

● Connects at up to Thunderbolt 5 speeds (80Gbps) with transfers up to 64Gbps● Backward compatibility with Thunderbolt 3, 4, and USB4 at respective speeds of 20Gbps or 40Gbps● Fallback mode for USB at up to 20Gbps (USB 3.2 Gen 2x2) with backward compatibility at 5Gbps (Gen 1x1) and 10Gbps (Gen...

sabrent.com

…

So not really that much choice yet, and as I only have TB4 here, no experience at all which might be the best out of the lot.

 

[mugwump]

The harsh reality about these "fast" drives is that you are measuring only the initial disk cache which is high speed. After a while of long read / write the cache is filled and the drive reduces to the actual disk speed, which may be about 1200 MB / sec. Some of the caches can be 300 GB large, so most people don't realize this is happening.

The only solution that is effective here is to RAID 0 two smaller drives in separate 40gbs enclosures. People warn that it doubles the chance of it failing, but the chance is so low it goes from a 1% to a 2% chance. Anyhow everything is backed up these days.

 

[wavesm]