External SSD or HDXC Card

[Glideslope]

Getting a 21" 2017 iMac. i5, 16g RAM 512SSD. I need about 300-350g of additional external storage. Any thought on a 512g HDXC Card (90MB/s) permanently in the back slot versus a 500g Sammy T3 connected via USB-C? The T3 is less $ by $20.

Thanks.

 

[casperes1996]

If you value performance at all, the Samsung drive is about 5x faster... And that's just sequential.

 

[Fishrrman]

Here's one more vote for the Samsung.
More storage and speed -- it's that simple.

Also -- what if you need to access the SD card slot for something else?

If you don't want the T3 sitting on the desk, get some Velcro strips and attach it to the back of the iMac stand -- out of sight and out-of-the-way...

 

[g4cube]

In addition to performance, there is one more thing to consider, depending how you use that additional storage.

Conventional SD cards like the one you propose, are simply bulk flash, with no write management. Typical SD cards are only provisioned for perhaps a thousand or so write cycles to each block of storage. In other words, the flash wears out if you use it too much.

SSDs on the other hand, have write management, and its internal controller will keep track of writes so that activity is spread automatically so no physical block is written too many times. This is transparent to the user as logically, the memory available is always available.

That said, my Macbook Air has a flush SD card installed that I use for occasional storage of files. Frequently used files that are updated are kept on the internal Air's SSD. Infrequent files that are mostly "read" are stored on the SD card[ ie music or reference documents.

 

[Glideslope]

Thank you. I did not realize the lack of write management. All very helpful. I was leaning toward the T3. I like the velcro suggestion. I 'll use that.

Thats all.