External SSD for Late 2015 27" iMac recommendations

[volkwagen1300]

Just picked up a late 2015 27" iMac with a 256GB internal SSD. I'd like to use an external SSD of 2TB and partition it with about half for external backup/Time Machine and use the other half for my music and photo library, the internal SSD is too small for everything.

Can someone recommend an external SSD that they like?

thanks,

 

[Juicy Box]

Are you planing on booting from the internal SSD? Or the external SSD?

If speed isn't that important, a simple USB3 SSD would be fine. A lot of people on the forum like the Samsung T5 and T7.

You can save a lot by getting a SATA SSD and a USB3 enclosure or USB3/SATA adapter versus the T5 and T7. The T5 and T7 might be a little bit faster than a SATA SSD in a separate enclosure, but not really that noticeable on your Mac's 5Gbps USB port.

Using a T5, T7, or an external SATA SSD solution will be slower than the internal SSD that is currently there.

There are faster options for your Mac, such as using a TB3 NVMe drive, but that isn't probably worth it for what you stated.

I'd like to use an external SSD of 2TB and partition it with about half for external backup/Time Machine and use the other half for my music and photo library, the internal SSD is too small for everything.

Is this going to be the only back up of the information?

It is generally not a good idea to back up information on the same drive that the information is stored.

Maybe consider getting two 1TB drives instead of one 2TB, and keeping the backup separate from the source data.

 

[Fishrrman]

Agree with Juicy.

A time machine backup should be kept on a separate drive, "all by itself".
I wouldn't "mix it" onto another drive with "normal" data.

I'd suggest you get two drives.
One for the tm backup, the other for the libraries.
The tm backup drive could be platter-based (you don't "need speed" for this).

BUT... wait, there's more...!
If you're going to store data (such as your music/photo libraries) on a separate drive, now you need ANOTHER (third) drive to back that up, as well.

You never, NEVER want to trust important data to ONLY ONE drive.
If that drive fails...?

Final thought:
I've never used tm.
Instead, I recommend either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper for backups.

I've just seen too many posts here from folks who relied on time machine, who THOUGHT it was working, and then tried to access their data in a moment of need... and... couldn't.

 

[Moonjumper]

I have a 1TB Samsung T5 that I use as an external boot drive for my late 2015 iMac and it works well. I have a couple of SanDisk external SSDs that are great as ordinary drives, but macOS installation always stalls (and never moves on) when trying to set them up as a boot drive.

As others have suggested, have a separate drive for Time Machine. I have a 3TB hard drive that is now full just with Time Machine, even though there has never been more than 1TB of data at any one time. All the data over time builds up. The slower spinning disk is not generally a problem when backing up.

 

[volkwagen1300]

Thanks to all, some good points raised here that I hadn't thought of. My plan is to keep the internal SSD as the boot drive - works well, why mess with it? So I'll pick up a regular USB 3.0 SATA SSD to use for my external data storage for all the stuff the internal SSD isn't big enough to hold. I'll back it all up once in a while to an old USB 3.0 1 TB HD that I already have and can reformat for mac. Whether I clone or use TM I'll decide later, but noted that TM is not 100% reliable.

Does that sound right? If so, can someone point me to a regular USB 3.0 SATA SSD that works well for this purpose? I don't buy computer stuff all that much and there are just so many out there and I'm not sure if they are all the same or not. Generally I've bought from OWC in the past because I like their tutorials and information pages and figure I might as well support the site.


PS: to MoonJump - yes, I use a Samsung T5 as a boot drive on this 2017 iMac that I'm typing on and agree it works very well, probably don't need that level of speed for something with only USB 3.0 ports.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"I use a Samsung T5 as a boot drive on this 2017 iMac that I'm typing on and agree it works very well, probably don't need that level of speed for something with only USB 3.0 ports."

Seems to me that 2017 iMacs have 2 USBc ports on them (at least the 27" version has them).

These are FASTER THAN USB3.
They are USB3.1 gen2.
That means you get about double the read speeds if you're using a USB3.1 gen2 drive (such as the Samsung t7).

 

[volkwagen1300]

Yes, the 21.5" has the same ports. When I moved over to the Samsung in early 2019 the T7 was still really expensive so I got the T5 and plugged it into the USB 3.1/C port and it's way way better than the internal HD.

 

[pshufd]

I don't think that it matters all that much as you're limited by the bandwidth of the USB 3 port. I personally prefer Crucial SATA3 for pricing - you can get 4 TB for $269 at Amazon right now.

 

[HDFan]

1. An SSD for just backups, particularly large ones, makes no sense. You are paying extra for speed that you don't need. A much larger and cheaper HD will allow you to keep valid backups with snaphots for years for less $. There are places where an SSD would be preferred, such as when there are poor environmental conditions.

2. In extreme cases SSD TBWs can be less than HDs. Long term reliability results from Backblaze may be available in a few years to give more long term data.

3. Only use 1 TM disk in the recommeneded 3-2-1 backup strategy. TM backups are more likely fail than ones using programs such as Carbon Copy Cloner or on-line backup services (Not iCloud).

 

[rampancy]

Just picked up a late 2015 27" iMac with a 256GB internal SSD. I'd like to use an external SSD of 2TB and partition it with about half for external backup/Time Machine and use the other half for my music and photo library, the internal SSD is too small for everything.

Can someone recommend an external SSD that they like?

thanks,

If you're still soliciting opinions, the Samsung T7 Shield (1 TB) has worked out great for me - I use it as my primary boot drive for my 2014 21.5" iMac.

If you're just looking for more external storage though (as opposed to a boot drive), depending on how pricing goes you may want to go with a SATA 3 SSD like the Samsung 870 EVO in a USB 3 drive enclosure.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Just picked up a late 2015 27" iMac with a 256GB internal SSD. I'd like to use an external SSD of 2TB and partition it with about half for external backup/Time Machine and use the other half for my music and photo library, the internal SSD is too small for everything.

Can someone recommend an external SSD that they like?

thanks,

I would suggest a 2TB Icloud+ plans (9.99$) for your music and photo library, the most durable storage drive, provided that you pay monthly. You can free 1 USB port for other usage, too.