External SSD for 2020 iMac

[skylerQ]

I recently bought a 2020 Imac with 256gb storage. I would like to get an external ssd with an enclosure but not sure which one performs well.
Planning to run an Os off it and reading files as well.
Anyone using the same Mac or has experience with external ssd kindly recommend one. I have seen alot of good results on M1 macs with external enclosures but i havent found one for intel mac. Thanks

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

I recently bought a 2020 Imac with 256gb storage. I would like to get an external ssd with an enclosure but not sure which one performs well.
Planning to run an Os off it and reading files as well.
Anyone using the same Mac or has experience with external ssd kindly recommend one. I have seen alot of good results on M1 macs with external enclosures but i havent found one for intel mac. Thanks

By "performs well", you mean max read-write speed?
In that case, just search for a thunderbolt 3 box with 1 or 2 NVME blade in any PC parts shopping website.

 

[Fishrrman]

The 2020 iMac has a t2 chip inside, if I recall.

That means that YOU MUST DISABLE "System Security" to be able to boot and run from an external drive.

You do this by:
- booting to the recovery partition
- opening the "system security" settings app
- choosing the "bottom-most" entries to allow booting from external drives
- then, reboot.

You may also need to disable System Integrity Protection as well.
I do this "as a matter of course" on all my Macs.
While in recovery, open terminal and enter:
csrutil disable
Then, reboot.

What other versions of the OS will you be using?

 

[PBG4 Dude]

I use a Sandisk 2TB USB-C SSD and get about 500MBPS reads and 3-400MBPS writes. Only use it for data and games but it works well for me. 500MBPS should be fine for running an OS, but it won’t be as fast as the internal SSD. There are faster external drives, like the TB3 solution mentioned in an earlier post, but that will be pricier than a USB-C solution.

 

[wilberforce]

I would get a TB3 external SSD (or TB3 enclosure) for running the OS. While a USB 3.2 Gen 2 SSD is fine for data, it is about 1/4 the speed of TB3 and the internal SSD. I think you will notice reduced responsiveness.

 

[rpmurray]

I have a 27 inch 2020 iMac 3.8 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i7. I use the internal SSD for the OS and externals for all other data. My current preferred external SSD combo is a OWC Envoy SX with a Samsung 2TB NVMe SSD, and I have an OWC Thunderbay 6 for some 14TB HD spinners.

I got the lowest capacity Envoy SX (240GB) as a refurb on the OWC site, popped it open and replaced the NVMe with the Samsung 2TB. The OWC NVMe drives are OK for reads, but I find them lacking for writes, which is why I did this. The 240GB OWC Aura that I took out of the Envoy I put into the Thunderbay 6, which conveniently has a slot for it, although the speeds are capped because it only gets one lane.

 

[EugW]

I use a Sandisk 2TB USB-C SSD and get about 500MBPS reads and 3-400MBPS writes. Only use it for data and games but it works well for me. 500MBPS should be fine for running an OS, but it won’t be as fast as the internal SSD. There are faster external drives, like the TB3 solution mentioned in an earlier post, but that will be pricier than a USB-C solution.

For a great USB-C option, there's the Samsung T7 Shield (but not the regular T7).

Samsung T7 Shield Portable SSD Review: Tough and Consistent Portable Storage (Updated)

Samsung’s T7 Shield brings reliability for content capture

www.tomshardware.com