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External SSD advice please. Im driving myself mad.

T

Tequilablue_

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 23, 2025
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First time poster. Hope somebody can help. Watched too many reviews and googling that I’m just confused now.

There is ANY possibility that Apple quietly upgraded the plain M4 chip in the Mac Mini to include support for USB 3.2 Gen 2x2? Can’t find a concrete answer anywhere.

Im basically looking for a decent, fast external SSD 1TB (Maybe 2T, haven’t decided yet) to store lots of sample libraries and sounds for music production. Ideally would like speeds around 2000mb/s (Not even sure this is possible without a enclosure which i don’t want)

Is the Crucial X9 2TB USB.32 Portable External SSD okay for the Mac mini M4?

If not, any recommendations for a fast USB or thunderbolt 4 or external hard drive with reasonable speed that I mentioned for my budget around £150-£160 would greatly be appreciated!
 
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Tequilablue_ said:
First time poster. Hope somebody can help. Watched too many reviews and googling that I’m just confused now.

There is ANY possibility that Apple quietly upgraded the plain M4 chip in the Mac Mini to include support for USB 3.2 Gen 2x2? Can’t find a concrete answer anywhere.
Click to expand...

I would assume not. The future is USB4+ and Thunderbolt 4 ( ~ USB4 with tighter tolerances). I wouldn't buy any external SSD less than USB4 and ideally Thunderbolt 4 at this point. Not counting flash/thumb drives and the like.

Tequilablue_ said:
Im basically looking for a decent, fast external SSD 1TB (Maybe 2T, haven’t decided yet) to store lots of sample libraries and sounds for music production. Ideally would like speeds around 2000mb/s (Not even sure this is possible without a enclosure which i don’t want)
Click to expand...

2GB/sec read is very possible with any recent and decent Thunderbolt 3 or better SSD. 2GB/sec sustained write is a little harder, especially if you aren't picking out your own SSD/enclosure combo. Then the budget you mentioned below is a little tight for what you want...

Tequilablue_ said:
Is the Crucial X9 2TB USB.32 Portable External SSD okay for the Mac mini M4?
Click to expand...

Yes but it won't hit your target speed. It is 10Gbit (~ 1GB/s, which is still pretty good for most purposes).

Tequilablue_ said:
If not, any recommendations for a fast USB or thunderbolt 4 or external hard drive with reasonable speed that I mentioned for my budget around £150-£160 would greatly be appreciated!
Click to expand...

This meets your criteria but I have no personal experience with it (or any other drives that meet all your criteria):

SanDisk Pro-G40 SSD Review: Rugged Thunderbolt on the Go (Updated)

The best portable SSD we’ve tested to date
www.tomshardware.com www.tomshardware.com

It does only get ~ 4.2 stars at B&H Photo (a US/New York-based company popular with photographers as well as those who like related technology). You can see it in context with other options here:


Based on that list, I'd probably also consider the LaCie option which is higher rated and has a long Mac history:


Otherwise defer to others here who have first-hand experience with a specific SSD that meets your needs.
 
Last edited:
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No Apple Silicon Mac has USB ports that support USB 3.2 Gen 2x2.

You can install a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 PCIe card into a Thunderbolt PCIe expansion chassis.
Here's some low profile options:
https://www.startech.com/en-ca/cards-adapters/pexusb321c
https://www.sonnettech.com/product/echo-express-se1-tb3/overview.html
A full height PCIe card requires a larger expansion chassis.
https://www.owc.com/solutions/mercury-helios-3s

You can get USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 speeds from the Thunderbolt 5 ports of a Thunderbolt 5 hub/dock but only if you put a Thunderbolt 3 device between the the Apple Silicon Mac and the Thunderbolt 5 hub/dock.

You could settle for USB 3.1 gen 2 (10 Gbps) (Crucial X9 2TB)

or get a Thunderbolt 5 NVMe enclosure.
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-envoy-ultra
or USB4 v2 (which is the same thing as Thunderbolt 5)
or USB4 v1 (slightly faster than Thunderbolt 3)
or Thunderbolt 3.
 
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bzgnyc2 said:
I would assume not. The future is USB4+ and Thunderbolt 4 ( ~ USB4 with tighter tolerances). I wouldn't buy any external SSD less than USB4 and ideally Thunderbolt 4 at this point. Not counting flash/thumb drives and the like.



2GB/sec read is very possible with any recent and decent Thunderbolt 3 or better SSD. 2GB/sec sustained write is a little harder, especially if you aren't picking out your own SSD/enclosure combo. Then the budget you mentioned below is a little tight for what you want...



Yes but it won't hit your target speed. It is 10Gbit (~ 1GB/s, which is still pretty good for most purposes).



This meets your criteria but I have no personal experience with it (or any other drives that meet all your criteria):

SanDisk Pro-G40 SSD Review: Rugged Thunderbolt on the Go (Updated)

The best portable SSD we’ve tested to date
www.tomshardware.com www.tomshardware.com

It does only get ~ 4.2 stars at B&H Photo (a US/New York-based company popular with photographers as well as those who like related technology). You can see it in context with other options here:


Based on that list, I'd probably also consider the LaCie option which is higher rated and has a long Mac history:


Otherwise defer to others here who have first-hand experience with a specific SSD that meets your needs.
Click to expand...
First time posting on here, and I’m blown away by your incredibly helpful reply. I really appreciate it! Thank you so much.
 
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joevt said:
No Apple Silicon Mac has USB ports that support USB 3.2 Gen 2x2.

You can install a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 PCIe card into a Thunderbolt PCIe expansion chassis.
Here's some low profile options:
https://www.startech.com/en-ca/cards-adapters/pexusb321c
https://www.sonnettech.com/product/echo-express-se1-tb3/overview.html
A full height PCIe card requires a larger expansion chassis.
https://www.owc.com/solutions/mercury-helios-3s

You can get USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 speeds from the Thunderbolt 5 ports of a Thunderbolt 5 hub/dock but only if you put a Thunderbolt 3 device between the the Apple Silicon Mac and the Thunderbolt 5 hub/dock.

You could settle for USB 3.1 gen 2 (10 Gbps) (Crucial X9 2TB)

or get a Thunderbolt 5 NVMe enclosure.
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-envoy-ultra
or USB4 v2 (which is the same thing as Thunderbolt 5)
or USB4 v1 (slightly faster than Thunderbolt 3)
or Thunderbolt 3.
Click to expand...
Thank you the reply. Very helpful. I was looking the crucial ones, yeah. Little bit of a price difference between the x9 and the x9 pro - Is that because the pro is pre-formatted? Is this important as I’m trying to save a bit of money and will get the x9. Although I will get the pro if I need to, I just don’t know what the difference is.

Thank you
 
Tequilablue_ said:
Thank you the reply. Very helpful. I was looking the crucial ones, yeah. Little bit of a price difference between the x9 and the x9 pro - Is that because the pro is pre-formatted? Is this important as I’m trying to save a bit of money and will get the x9. Although I will get the pro if I need to, I just don’t know what the difference is.
Click to expand...
x9 seems fine if you don't mind QLC vs TLC.
https://vi-control.net/community/threads/crucial-x9-vs-x9-pro-vs-x10-pro.145735/
 
Tequilablue_ said:
First time poster. Hope somebody can help. Watched too many reviews and googling that I’m just confused now.

There is ANY possibility that Apple quietly upgraded the plain M4 chip in the Mac Mini to include support for USB 3.2 Gen 2x2? Can’t find a concrete answer anywhere.

Im basically looking for a decent, fast external SSD 1TB (Maybe 2T, haven’t decided yet) to store lots of sample libraries and sounds for music production. Ideally would like speeds around 2000mb/s (Not even sure this is possible without a enclosure which i don’t want)

Is the Crucial X9 2TB USB.32 Portable External SSD okay for the Mac mini M4?

If not, any recommendations for a fast USB or thunderbolt 4 or external hard drive with reasonable speed that I mentioned for my budget around £150-£160 would greatly be appreciated!
Click to expand...
Most external SSDs cap at around 1050MB/s due to the limitations of the USB 3.2 interface.
There are faster ones out there but they will probably break your budget. (Many will work best with an NVMe enclosure that you don't want).
Personally, with my mini M4, I use the fairly affordable Sandisk Extreme 1TB, which stores my 80GB photo library and all my video editing projects. It's worked flawlessly so far and has a read speed of 1050MB/s.
Personally, I've been using Sandisk storage for years and have never regretted it.
For more speed (2000MB/s) there's the Sandisk Extreme Pro and the Samsung T9 which I think are good choices.
Both are available on Amazon.
Good luck choosing the right one!
 
For @Edouard Perreault "For more speed (2000MB/s) there's the Sandisk Extreme Pro and the Samsung T9..."
"...which I think are good choices."

But not for a Mac, because the Mac won't support '(2000MB/s)'. Only ~1000MB/s.
Except under the circumstances described in post #3 earlier in this thread.
 
Tequilablue_ said:
Thank you the reply. Very helpful. I was looking the crucial ones, yeah. Little bit of a price difference between the x9 and the x9 pro - Is that because the pro is pre-formatted? Is this important as I’m trying to save a bit of money and will get the x9. Although I will get the pro if I need to, I just don’t know what the difference is.

Thank you
Click to expand...

For a difference of $30 between the two at 2TB capacity, I would get the Pro. In addition to (or perhaps because of) the TLC over QLC as someone else mentioned, the Pro has a rated write speed of ~ 1000MB/s while the base doesn't spec a write speed. For small bursts of I/O (where the data fits within the drive's onboard cache), the two models probably perform about the same but if you anticipate copying over many GB of data at a time, the Pro will be faster. Also it has a metal case, which will dissipate heat better. The Pro has other features that are probably not valuable for your purposes but the higher quality, longer drive life/endurance would be worth the extra money to me.

www.anandtech.com

Crucial Unveils X9 Portable SSD: QLC for the Cost-Conscious Consumer

www.anandtech.com www.anandtech.com
 
I got the Crucial X9 Pro, as it was only a little more than the X9, and I am waiting for when a good Thunderbolt/USB4 hub becomes available at a decent price.

The difference between using the X9 Pro at 1,000MB/s and the internal SSD at 3,000MB/s is almost unnoticeable due to the bottleneck of the Operating System processes. (IOW, it takes longer to process an activity than it does to read it from the drive.)

There are a couple of minor differences. The X9 Pro takes two seconds longer to boot up (16 seconds vs 14 seconds for the internal SSD). Also, the internal SSD suspends a VMware Machine in a couple of seconds (writing at 3,000 MB/s) vs about 5 seconds for the X9 (writing at about 1,000 MB/s).

The only other thing to watch out for is that many drives will get very hot under sustained Reading/Writing activity. Some will slow down when they get too hot. Samsung T7 drives have been known to melt. I use a small USB fan to keep them cool.
 
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I have a few external SSDs currently connected to my MBP. Two are M.2 SSDs in external enclosures connected through the CalDigit TS4 Pro dock and I have a Crucial X9 Pro (4TB) connected directly to my Mac.

Here are the Blackmagic Disk Speed results:

Samsung 970 EVO Plus (2TB) in Inateck external enclosure: 2157 MB/s Write, 2690 MB/s Read
Samsung 980 Pro in Insignia external enclosure: 950 MB/s Write, 790 MB/s Read
Crucial X9 Pro: 1045 MB/s Write, 1127 MB/s Read

The Inateck enclosure is the only one of the three rated for TB4, which is why the speed test results are so much higher. With that being said, I really don't notice any slowdowns when using any of those drives on my MBP.

Like the previous poster stated, external SSDs can run noticeably warm - both of my M.2 drives run very warm, and both included thermal pads to transfer heat from the SSDs to the enclosure. There are some TB4 external enclosures that have built-in fans, I might replace the Insignia enclosure with one of those in the future to see how that impacts the performance and thermals of those drives.
 
Last edited:
Tequilablue_ said:
First time poster. Hope somebody can help. Watched too many reviews and googling that I’m just confused now.

There is ANY possibility that Apple quietly upgraded the plain M4 chip in the Mac Mini to include support for USB 3.2 Gen 2x2? Can’t find a concrete answer anywhere.

Im basically looking for a decent, fast external SSD 1TB (Maybe 2T, haven’t decided yet) to store lots of sample libraries and sounds for music production. Ideally would like speeds around 2000mb/s (Not even sure this is possible without a enclosure which i don’t want)

Is the Crucial X9 2TB USB.32 Portable External SSD okay for the Mac mini M4?

If not, any recommendations for a fast USB or thunderbolt 4 or external hard drive with reasonable speed that I mentioned for my budget around £150-£160 would greatly be appreciated!
Click to expand...
To add to everything that's been said, what you want is a USB4 drive. They will not be £150.

Either that, or if you're happy with 10Gbs (USB3.2) then just get a $20 Orico enclosure and sling an older (i.e. has gotten solid reviews over time) bare NVMe in there - it's not going to have an issue sustaining ~950mb/s.
 
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seggy said:
To add to everything that's been said, what you want is a USB4 drive. They will not be £150.
Click to expand...
You can get close, for example:

www.amazon.co.uk

elecacc 40Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure, 8TB Capacity USB 4.0 NVMe SSD Enclosures for 2280 M Key B+M Key PCIe Compatible with Thunderbolt4/3, USB4/3.2/3.1/3.0

M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure
www.amazon.co.uk
www.amazon.co.uk

Crucial P3 Plus SSD 2TB M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen4 Internal SSD, Up to 5000MB/s, Laptop & Desktop (PC) Compatible, Solid State Drive - CT2000P3PSSD801

Valuable Gen4 performance is here. Introducing the Crucial® P3 Plus Gen4 NVMe™ SSD, delivering impressive speed with sequential reads/writes up to 5000/4200MB/s. Including dynamic write acceleration and adaptive thermal protection to keep your data safe while enhancing system reliability, the P3 ...
www.amazon.co.uk

The following speed test was performed with a temporarily created secondary APFS volume on a Corsair Force MP510 rather than the linked Crucial SSD, FYI.

elecacc_USB4_MP510-960GB_speed-test.png
elecacc_USB4_NVMe_DriveDX.png
It’s no OWC 1M2, but still a good speed and, even under a torture test err back-to-back 4GB and 16GB file benchmarking, temps stayed plenty within spec. While handling AmorphousDiskMark, the drive in each 1M2 topped at ~45ºC.
 
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MacCheetah3 said:
You can get close, for example:

www.amazon.co.uk

elecacc 40Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure, 8TB Capacity USB 4.0 NVMe SSD Enclosures for 2280 M Key B+M Key PCIe Compatible with Thunderbolt4/3, USB4/3.2/3.1/3.0

M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure
www.amazon.co.uk
www.amazon.co.uk

Crucial P3 Plus SSD 2TB M.2 NVMe PCIe Gen4 Internal SSD, Up to 5000MB/s, Laptop & Desktop (PC) Compatible, Solid State Drive - CT2000P3PSSD801

Valuable Gen4 performance is here. Introducing the Crucial® P3 Plus Gen4 NVMe™ SSD, delivering impressive speed with sequential reads/writes up to 5000/4200MB/s. Including dynamic write acceleration and adaptive thermal protection to keep your data safe while enhancing system reliability, the P3 ...
www.amazon.co.uk

The following speed test was performed with a temporarily created secondary APFS volume on a Corsair Force MP510 rather than the linked Crucial SSD, FYI.

View attachment 2486034
View attachment 2486035
It’s no OWC 1M2, but still a good speed and, even under a torture test err back-to-back 4GB and 16GB file benchmarking, temps stayed plenty within spec. While handling AmorphousDiskMark, the drive in each 1M2 topped at ~45ºC.
Click to expand...

HMMMMMM

I was wondering if there might be a Chinese alphabet soup ripoff of the 1M2 but never come across this one.

I might even get it for myself.
 
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