Apple Photos Efficiency Question

[jaynecobb]

I have a Apple Photos Library that is about 1.5 TB. It is larger then the internal Drive on my iMac. For better or worse I have it both in the cloud and stored externally. I just feel more comfortable having it in both places. I admit I am a bit naive when it comes to how quick(or not) things can move between the external harddrive and being usable/editable on my iMac.

I am switching from my iMac to a new Mac Mini (not having anything to do with the photos). However I'd like to set up a reasonably efficient system. I don't mind putting a bit of money into it, but I'm not going to break the bank either.

So I think my questions are this.

1. I don't fully understand the difference between USB C and Thunderbolt ports. Would a difference be noticeable in the scenario I am giving.
2. As kinda a followup I'm a little confused if I can even buy an external harddrive that would use the Thunderbolt ports. (or at least maximize their potential)
3. I will have a docking station in order to use multiple monitors. It is your standard USB C. Is the difference quite noticeable in plugging the external drive directly into the Mac Mini vs the docking station.

My family uses Photos quite a bit, not professionally but we'd like to be able to pull and edit and work with it fairly efficiently so any help on this process would be great.

 

[richardallan]

Thunderbolt and USB C use the same plug. If using Thunderbolt, make sure to use an actual Thunderbolt cable. There are multiple iterations of both USB C and Thunderbolt. To get the best speed, use the latest version if possible. I have an M2 Mac Studio but before this I had an M1 Mac mini. I have all my Photos, Music and Movies on a fast external drive. I recommend any of the drives/encloures from OWC. You really should be backing up all you info to at least one other drive ideally. I have three sets of backups, one of which is always kept offsite.

I don't have a dock. Some Thunderbolt devices can be daisy chained. I have my monitor plugged in to a Display Port on one of my Thunderbolt enclosures. I wouldn't buy a dock that wasn't a recent version of Thunderbolt.

Hopefully I've answered most of your questions.

 

[cupcakes2000]

Thunderbolt is substantially faster than usbc, but you need specialised cables and drives etc, and they’re harder to come by and considerably more expensive. Unless you know you need that kind of speed (editing video on external drives for example, or if you’re planning on having some type of raid or byod enclosure) then you will probably be fine with usbc drives. There are still multiple speeds which you need to double check about once you’re perusing options.

If you’re planning to store your photos library on an external drive, do look into it. It (at least used to be) quite a complicated affair if you move it from the internal drive.

If your main interest is to edit your photos album and have it as fast as possible- it will likely be easier and may well be cheaper to purchase your new Mac with a big internal drive, but it’s depending on exactly what your objective are.

 

[Ray2]

As long as your photos reside on an external ssd, you’re fine. If not, a modest investment in a SATA external USB-C would work fine.

 

[dblissmn]

One thing that may be of interest; the Thunderbolt stuff in my experience runs cooler than USB. I think the chip set-up in Thunderbolt is simpler, though the cables certainly are not. Thunderbolt's combination of monster bandwidth and low power consumption makes for better hubs than with USB, and then you can also daisy chain monitors and certain hard drive enclosures too and that can cut down on cable clutter.

 

[ChrisA]

I have a Apple Photos Library that is about 1.5 TB. It is larger then the internal Drive on my iMac. For better or worse I have it both in the cloud and stored externally. I just feel more comfortable having it in both places. I admit I am a bit naive when it comes to how quick(or not) things can move between the external harddrive and being usable/editable on my iMac.

I am switching from my iMac to a new Mac Mini (not having anything to do with the photos). However I'd like to set up a reasonably efficient system. I don't mind putting a bit of money into it, but I'm not going to break the bank either.

So I think my questions are this.

1. I don't fully understand the difference between USB C and Thunderbolt ports. Would a difference be noticeable in the scenario I am giving.
2. As kinda a followup I'm a little confused if I can even buy an external harddrive that would use the Thunderbolt ports. (or at least maximize their potential)
3. I will have a docking station in order to use multiple monitors. It is your standard USB C. Is the difference quite noticeable in plugging the external drive directly into the Mac Mini vs the docking station.

My family uses Photos quite a bit, not professionally but we'd like to be able to pull and edit and work with it fairly efficiently so any help on this process would be great.

Seems you never got an exact answer.

The answer is "it depends". My external Thunderbolt 4 SSD drive is exactly the same speed as the internal drive on the Mac Mini (m2-Pro). I've measured it with benchmarks.

I also have a cheaper, larger, and slower mechanical spinning disk drive used for backup. It is maybe 10X slower than the internal drive and uses a USB-3.1 connection that is "only" 5Gbits/sec. but still would not be bad for photos. As it turns out, the Photos app does not stress the storage much and does not need very high performance

What confuses some people is that both TB4 and USB use the same UBB-C cable. They look the same but you have to look at the rating on the cable. They are different inside, where you can't see.

Yes, the faster external drive is so fast that even if it were 10X slower, it would still be good enough for this use.