Can you connect external storage via Ethernet?

[Silly John Fatty]

Is it possible to connect an external hard drive (or enclosure) directly to the Ethernet port of a new Mac Mini for example?

 

[Longplays]

Network-attached storage (NAS)

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Network-attached storage (NAS)

Amazing, much appreciated!

 

[xraydoc]

Amazing, much appreciated!

Be aware they won't be blazingly fast, so you might not want to use it as a 4K video editing target, but will work for file storage and backups.

 

[Longplays]

Be aware they won't be blazingly fast, so you might not want to use it as a 4K video editing target, but will work for file storage and backups.

To add... Apple allows for 10GbE Ethernet on their current Macs and there is also NAS with 10GbE Ethernet. You will only saturate it with the proper HDD & SSD setup.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Be aware they won't be blazingly fast, so you might not want to use it as a 4K video editing target, but will work for file storage and backups.

To add... Apple allows for 10GbE Ethernet on their current Macs and there is also NAS with 10GbE Ethernet. You will only saturate it with the proper HDD & SSD setup.

Thanks guys, I'm aware it's not super fast even with the 10 Gbit Mac Mini Ethernet option. But it's good to know it can be used that way. The option may be worth the extra cost if you're using all your Thunderbolt 4 etc. bandwidth. I never even considered I could use this port for local storage.

 

[Longplays]

Thanks guys, I'm aware it's not super fast even with the 10 Gbit Mac Mini Ethernet option. But it's good to know it can be used that way. The option may be worth the extra cost if you're using all your Thunderbolt 4 etc. bandwidth. I never even considered I could use this port for local storage.

Its worth the extra cost if you can charge others for it.

If not then 1GbE is good enough as cheap fiber plans rarely goes beyond 1Gbps now.