Best External SSD Solution?

[MisterSensitive]

Hi,

My Mac is a 2019 16" MBP with six core i9 processor, 16G RAM. I use it for music and have pretty much maxed out the 1TB Drive.

I also intend to use this for digital animation, which I'll teach myself in retirement (not soon enough!). I need an external drive solution. I want to make sure it's something that can function very well with the R/W demands of a Digital Audio Workstation as well as for digital animation. But I don't want to buy a high performance SSD that will get bottlenecked at the interface.

What type of Thunderbolt external drive is the best bang for my buck here? I'd like to get a 1TB drive with high throughput.

Thanks in advance.

 

[blazerunner]

SAMSUNG 980 PRO SSD 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe Gen 4 Gaming M.2 Internal Solid State Drive Memory Card , Maximum Speed, Thermal Control MZ-V8P1T0B/AM - Newegg.com

Buy SAMSUNG 980 PRO SSD 1TB, PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280, Speeds Up-to 7,000MB/s Best for High End Computing, Gaming, and Heavy Duty Workstations (MZV8P1T0B/AM) with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

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ORICO Thunderbolt 3 40Gbps M.2 NVME SSD Enclosure 2TB - Newegg.com

Buy ORICO 40Gbps M.2 NVME SSD Enclosure 2TB Transparent USB C SSD Case with 40Gbps C to C Cable For Mac Windows with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

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[MisterSensitive]

SAMSUNG 980 PRO SSD 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe Gen 4 Gaming M.2 Internal Solid State Drive Memory Card , Maximum Speed, Thermal Control MZ-V8P1T0B/AM - Newegg.com

Buy SAMSUNG 980 PRO SSD 1TB, PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280, Speeds Up-to 7,000MB/s Best for High End Computing, Gaming, and Heavy Duty Workstations (MZV8P1T0B/AM) with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

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ORICO Thunderbolt 3 40Gbps M.2 NVME SSD Enclosure 2TB - Newegg.com

Buy ORICO 40Gbps M.2 NVME SSD Enclosure 2TB Transparent USB C SSD Case with 40Gbps C to C Cable For Mac Windows with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

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Thanks, Blaze!

Will this get up to 40GB/sec for me?

 

[Fishrrman]

I recommend that you DON'T buy thunderbolt.
You are not going to get "40gb a second", even with tbolt3. That's a "theoretical maximum" that just doesn't play out in reality.
And your projects probably don't require anything anywhere NEAR that speed.

Tbolt3 will probably yield read speeds in the 2,000MBps range, + or -.

Instead, I'd suggest USB3.1 gen2.
That will give you reads in the 925MBps range.

My other recommendation is that you start "clearing off" older/non-active projects from the internal drive. Put them onto the external drive, and keep free space on the internal SSD for "work in progress".

Example:
Get an nvme "blade" SSD (many to choose from)
and
Get a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure for it (also many choices)

These go together with little more than "a snap".

ALSO...
Remember that if you are using an external drive (which holds files that aren't on the internal) that you also need to BACK UP the external (as well as the internal).

I'd highly recommend either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper for this job.

 

[MisterSensitive]

I recommend that you DON'T buy thunderbolt.
You are not going to get "40gb a second", even with tbolt3. That's a "theoretical maximum" that just doesn't play out in reality.
And your projects probably don't require anything anywhere NEAR that speed.

Tbolt3 will probably yield read speeds in the 2,000MBps range, + or -.

Instead, I'd suggest USB3.1 gen2.
That will give you reads in the 925MBps range.

My other recommendation is that you start "clearing off" older/non-active projects from the internal drive. Put them onto the external drive, and keep free space on the internal SSD for "work in progress".

Example:
Get an nvme "blade" SSD (many to choose from)
and
Get a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure for it (also many choices)

These go together with little more than "a snap".

ALSO...
Remember that if you are using an external drive (which holds files that aren't on the internal) that you also need to BACK UP the external (as well as the internal).

I'd highly recommend either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper for this job.

Thanks, this is helpful. The marginally slower enclosure will save me a few $$$

To clarify for music projects, I'm often reading 40+ tracks of 82KHz/24 bit audio, so I need a lot of throughput. Animation projects, I have no idea how bandwidth intensive those are. I figure "mucho."

Yes, I backup often using Time Machine and I keep my backup drive in a different building from my computer. I can get a high capacity slow drive for backups.

Sounds like I need four drives:

1) 1TB internal for active projects
2) 1TB external for other active projects
3) slow 4TB drive for archival projects
4) slow 8GB drive for backups, in disparate location.

 

[MisterSensitive]

Would this work: Amazon Link

 

[Fishrrman]

Yes.
I have an Oyen Digital enclosure for a SATA SSD. It's very well made.

 

[kentzh]

I work in video editing, and I bought a macbook pro with 1T storage, so I bought an ACASIS USB4.0 external hard disk box, but I will encounter problems when assembling it myself, the box is more hard disk, the old firmware version SN750 can read and write more than 2000MB/S, the version I purchased only has 1200MB/S write and 2700MB/S read, so if you need to use an SSD, you need to choose a hard drive.

 

[GumaRodak]

Maybe this if money is not issue

LaCie Bolt 3 2TB Professional External SSD, Dual Thunderbolt 3, 40Gb/s Transfer Rate

LaCie 2TB, Bolt 3, SSD, RAID, Thunderbolt 3, USB-C Compatible with Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt 2

www.amazon.com