Anyone here booting Mini from external drive? Thunderbolt 1 or 3?

[Osamede]

Anyone here booting Mac Mini 2018 from an external drive?

Is a SATA SSD over Thunderbolt 1 connector fast enough, or do I need to use an M.2 PCIe over Thunderbolt 3?

 

[IngerMan]

I have, I use a T3 connection to a USB-C enclosure with Crucial MX500. Speeds of this disk setup are 500mb/s. It’s my CCC backup. It runs a little slower on startup but for normal use I did not notice any issues. I even played a Tomb raider game and did not notice any lag. There are faster setups out there but mine is mainly backups and being able to change startup disk.

If you are looking at running from a external often I would either purchase the Crucial X8 or Samsung T7 and be done with it. It comes with the cables and all you need.

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SAMSUNG T7 Portable SSD, 1TB External Solid State Drive, Speeds Up to 1,050MB/s, USB 3.2 Gen 2, Reliable Storage for Gaming, Students, Professionals, MU-PC1T0H/AM, Blue

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[Fishrrman]

OP:

Important question:
What YEAR is the Mini you have?

 

[Osamede]

OP:

Important question:
What YEAR is the Mini you have?

2018 base model with 128 gb Internal SSD & 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports.

 

[wardie]

You can leverage TB3 so why not go like a Samsung X5 1TB if you can stretch to it? Or 512GB (but is higher price/GB). WIll be near to internal drive speeds. Other makes are available.

 

[Fishrrman]

For a 2018 with thunderbolt3 and USBc...

USB3 SSD -- read speeds around 420-430MBps.

USB3.1 gen2 SSD -- read speeds around 950MBps

Thunderbolt3 -- read speeds around 2,000MBps or even higher.
BUT... tbolt3 is priced higher and the drives may run on the hot side.

If it was me, I'd boot and run from the internal SSD.
It's already very fast.
I'd keep the OS, apps, and basic accounts on the internal drive.

I'd get an external SSD and keep the "large libraries" (such as music, movies and pics) on the external. They'll run just fine that way.

 

[Osamede]

I'd get an external SSD and keep the "large libraries" (such as music, movies and pics) on the external. They'll run just fine that way.

Thanks. How does one do this ?

 

[Erehy Dobon]

For the past year, I have periodically booted Catalina on my Mac mini 2018 from an external SSD just to review Apple's latest OS revisions. Within less than an hour, I have always returned to booting Mojave off the internal SSD.

The drive I have been using is a USB-C drive, not Thunderbolt specific.

Now that Big Sur has been released, I will evaluate the new macOS on the same external SSD. My guess is that I will not upgrade my internal boot SSD until sometime in late Q1 2021 or Q2 2021.

I will always keep a Mojave boot drive on an external SSD during the lifetime of my ownership of this Mac mini 2018.

 

[teohyc]

USB3.1 gen 2 external SSD is more worth the money compared to TB3 external unless you really have specific needs for TB3 speeds.

Why would you want to boot from an external in the first place?

I run my OS on external because if the Mac dies, I can plug the external into another Mac and continue to work without downtime.

 

[wardie]

Thanks. How does one do this ?

Most apps have a separate areas where they keep the content library and index files from the app and its config. You can move these and re-point the app to the new location. It kind of depends on the app though, you’ll need to Google for whatever you use and figure it out.