best external hard drive for use on MacBook for use with iMovie

[brucie000]

Hello,
I am currently working on iMovie with 20 minutes videos i am editing. my MacBook keeps saying out of memory, there is about 32gb spare on the disk although the videos are no way this large.

Is there an external hard drive i can connect to the MacBook to hold the movie data as i am working on it...?

FYI - there is nothing more than the OS on the current ssd. No personal files, nothing.

I'd be grateful for any suggestions on how to over come this problem, with out having to buy a new MacBook with larger ssd.

Thank you

 

[justashooter]

Out of Memory sounds like an out a ram problem, not storage. How much ram is installed in your macbook? What does the activity monitor say about ram usage when you are working in imovie? Activity monitor is in your Applications > utilities folder.

 

[brucie000]

Hi, thanks for the reply. I am not clever with Macs, my friend does the editing for, I can see 16GB DDR3. The strangest thing we observed in utility monitor, the available memory was dropping slowly and we were not doing anything i.e. no editing, we had even disconnected from the internet incase the MacBook was downloading anything.

 

[justashooter]

Any good brand SSD would certainly help out. Get some of you data off the internal drive and put your files you're editing on it. I use Crucial MX500's, a 500gb is around $65 here in the US and a decent usb 3 (you do have USB 3 right?) case to put it in you can get for $10-15.
This is the enclosure I have bought lately. It's plastic but it is not a brittle plastic and I really like that it has a full size USB connector.

Sabrent 2.5" SATA Hard Drive USB 3.0 Enclosure - Micro Center

Get it now! Take advantage of the lightening speed of USB 3.0 to quickly transfer files up to 5 Gbps! Connect any 2.5'' Serial ATA (SATA) or SATA II Hard Drive to your computer through an available USB 3.0 port on your desktop or laptop.

www.microcenter.com

This is the Crucial SSD I use, the Samsung EVO's are great to, just a bit more expensive:

crucial mx500 : Micro Center

Micro Center - Computers and Electronics - Thousands of products to buy: desktops, laptops, monitors, build your own PC parts, upgrades, digital imaging, printing supplies, portable devices, audio equipment, software, video games, movies, tech books, plus repair service, store hours, directions...

www.microcenter.com

 

[brucie000]

Any good brand SSD would certainly help out. Get some of you data off the internal drive and put your files you're editing on it. I use Crucial MX500's, a 500gb is around $65 here in the US and a decent usb 3 (you do have USB 3 right?) case to put it in you can get for $10-15.
This is the enclosure I have bought lately. It's plastic but it is not a brittle plastic and I really like that it has a full size USB connector.

Sabrent 2.5" SATA Hard Drive USB 3.0 Enclosure - Micro Center

Get it now! Take advantage of the lightening speed of USB 3.0 to quickly transfer files up to 5 Gbps! Connect any 2.5'' Serial ATA (SATA) or SATA II Hard Drive to your computer through an available USB 3.0 port on your desktop or laptop.

www.microcenter.com

This is the Crucial SSD I use, the Samsung EVO's are great to, just a bit more expensive:

crucial mx500 : Micro Center

Micro Center - Computers and Electronics - Thousands of products to buy: desktops, laptops, monitors, build your own PC parts, upgrades, digital imaging, printing supplies, portable devices, audio equipment, software, video games, movies, tech books, plus repair service, store hours, directions...

www.microcenter.com

thank you again There is absolutely no data on the internal drive, i have everything in the cloud. My MacBook as USB 3 and thunderbolt. Would a thunderbolt external drive better?

 

[justashooter]

Then I am guessing your internal drive is 128GB? And it would be helpful to know the year and model of your computer.

 

[brucie000]

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)
3.1 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7
16 GB 1867 MHz DDR3

 

[justashooter]

With what I described above, you will get around 400mbps read and write. The SSD's list theoretical max of 500mbps. So you are not gaining much, if anything, in a thunderbolt enclosure and thunderbolt is much more expensive.
----------
These speed test were using a OWC Thunderbolt 4 Mini, 4 bay Thunderbolt 2 external enclosure, with various configurations of Crucial MX500 500gb drives

2 Crucial SSD MX500 2.5” 4 bay Enclosures (2x500gb) 1TB w/677 r/733 Thunderbolt 1 on 2012 MBP 13
3 Crucial SSD MX500 2.5” 4 bay Enclosures (3x500gb) 1.5TB w/770 r/790 Thunderbolt 1 on 2012 MBP 13
4 Crucial SSD MX500 2.5” 4 bay Enclosures (4x500gb) 2.0TB w/755 r/810 Thunderbolt 1 on 2012 MBP 13
4 Crucial SSD MX500 2.5” 4 bay Enclosures (4x500gb) 2.0TB w/984 r/1181 Thunderbolt 2 on 2015 MBP 13
----------
You could also get a M.2 NVMe SSD drive in an external enclosure but I don't believe they make a Thurderbolt 2 enclosure for them and I don't know if a Thunderbolt 3 to 2 adapter would work either. Others will have to chime in.

 

[timelessbeing]

SanDisk 1TB Extreme PRO Portable External SSD - Up to 1050MB/s - USB-C, USB 3.1 - SDSSDE80-1T00-A25

Create at the speed of life. The SanDisk Extreme PRO portable SSD leverages our lightning-fast, in-house NVMe technology to dramatically increase transfer speeds to up to 1050MB/s, letting you move files faster and edit right from the drive. Its ruggedized (1) case with up to 2-meter drop(4) prot...

www.amazon.com

 

[ght56]

Could you go to the Activity Monitor and provide us with a screen shot of the overall memory stats when you are getting the message? It should look like this:

With 16 GB of RAM and 53 GB of free space, I think it is important to figure out the cause. Could you also tell us a little about the video as well? How large is the base file you are working with? When you say you have everything in iCloud, is it being stored on your local hard drive (the 128 SSD in the computer) or iCloud?