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External storage solutions with 40 Gb/s?
- Thread starter Silly John Fatty
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This is expensive!
Ok, you're right about that. I did chose an expensive system when I was talking about the Samsung SSDs, they're the most expensive NVME SSDs they have. But NVME SSDs aren't comparable to old SATA SSDs imo. And then you have lots to spend on things like cooling, etc. That's where the encasings become steeply expensive. Same for SSDs if you want them to come with a heatsink.
I mean, Apple is sort of abusive with their prices, but they're not the only ones - corrected it!
It's just a personal computer, but I have hundreds thousands of photos, videos, etc. that I take every day. I also make music, and I work with huge Excel files and Word, and they're laggy on the SSDs I have in my 12-core Mac Pro.
Yes, but I'd rather take NVME drive. I think it's the new thing to go right now. It will probably change in the future and something else will replace it at some point. It depends how much speed you want too of course.
Since the Minis storage options are so expensive: What possibilities can you recommend me to get external SSD storage at 40 Gb/s? (I want that speed because that’s approximately the read & write speeds of the Mini’s internal drives and I need those speeds)
From what I’ve heard I should get NVME SSDs and put them in a Thunderbolt enclosure.
The thing is, a TB port only allows up to 22 Gb/s for data transfer.
So I guess I’ll have to use two ports somehow? Could that do any damage to the Mac?
I also have a 27 LED cinema display, so I have to keep in mind that I will have to connect this one somewhere as well.
I am looking for a solution that’s safe and won't risk doing any harm to the Mac. I hope to keep this system for the next 10 years if possible.
Thanks peeps
I did a lot of research into this for a possible upgrade to my editing storage. 40gb is not realistic as the ports and cables both rarely hit the top speeds.
The fastest thing I've found is fiber direct into a switch with a NAS. That's about the same as Thunderbolt 4 but can run much longer than 6’. Thunderbolt 4 officially will do 40 Gbps but finding a RAID enclosure to handle that is hard.
OWC Jellyfish is about the fastest out there for videos but be prepared to spend tens of thousands... The price is holding us back right now.
OWC Jellyfish - high speed, scalable NAS built for video
The plug and play shared storage solution designed for both small and large video teams looking to streamline workflow and maximize output.
eshop.macsales.com
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I did a lot of research into this for a possible upgrade to my editing storage. 40gb is not realistic as the ports and cables both rarely hit the top speeds.
The fastest thing I've found is fiber direct into a switch with a NAS. That's about the same as Thunderbolt 4 but can run much longer. Thunderbolt 4 officially will do 40 Gbps but finding a RAID enclosure to hand that is hard.
OWC Jellyfish is about the fastest out there for videos but be prepared to spend tens of thousands... The price is holding us back right now.
OWC Jellyfish - high speed, scalable NAS built for video
The plug and play shared storage solution designed for both small and large video teams looking to streamline workflow and maximize output.
Yeah, that's overkill for me. I'm disappointed that so many providers of these encasings have the 40 Gb/s written in big letters all over the place, but when you read the fine print or ask them, you realise 40 Gb/s aren't possible.
Then you have systems like the ones you linked, but I believe they're mainly expensive because they have such huge amounts of storage. I'm looking for the same thing but in small, where I can put maybe two NVME SSDs of 2 TB each.
Can't believe there's no such thing. It's one step closer to the 8 TB Mini for me, but I really hate the situation, especially because of the price.
I don’t know what you’re doing but OWC Thundeblade is a Raid 0 SSD and is very affordable. It doesn’t do anything near 40 Gbps but it streams 16 channels of video no problem.
It’s over 1000 $ for the 4 TB model (roughly the same as adding 4 TB at Apple) but only half as fast though.
Yes, a 128 TB 8 disk Pegasus RAID 5 enclosure.
Apple SSDs speeds keep increasing every generation. As I have migrated systems I've gone from ~800+, ~2700, to >6000 MB/s. For daily use the changes in speed became negligible. The intended uses you list will however show a difference.
Personally for external storage I use Disks, at least for now. Greater capacity at much less cost, don't lose data as fast when inactivated for a long time, may have a larger TBW, etc.
Do you by chance have any idea if the limitation or inability (or I should say, the lie) of the 40 Gb/s for external storage on a Mini is due to the Mini’s hardware, or is it an external matter?
Will you ever be able to get 40 Gb/s external storage on a 2023 Mini in the future?
I could accept the lower speeds for now if I knew that I could still get higher speeds with this Mac in the future.
Really would like to keep this Mac for the next 10 years if possible.
You need multiple Thunderbolt devices connected to separate Thunderbolt ports in RAID 0 to get greater than 30 Gbps.
The previously mentioned device at https://iodyne.com is a single device with multiple Thunderbolt inputs. I'm not sure how it works. It's probably overkill since it has 8 Thunderbolt inputs.
It's overkill for me, because it's 4000+ $ lol.
What if I take two normal enclosures for an NVMe SSD in each (enclosure and SSD that claim to be 40 Gb/s compatible), then connect each to one of the TB ports that has one TB controller, and merge them in a RAID 0 setting.
Do you think I can get 30 Gb/s this way? And would it be dangerous to any of the Mac Mini hardware? (I don't want any of the Mini's hardware to be overcharged, or to overheat or something. As for the enclosures' heat dissipation, that's another topic, but let's put that aside for a second)
Yes it should work. USB-C is smart enough to not blow up stuff just by connecting a device. The host and peripheral negotiate power capabilities before taking or providing power.
Awesome, so it really IS possible to get the same speeds as the Mac Mini's internal drive on external storage. Now that I know this, I think I can finally order my Mini.
Using your boot drive for video or animation is asking for problems. I have found these drivers to be very very fast for editing.
Left is my mini M2 16GB/512GB - right is my Acasis (TBU405) Enclosure with a Samsung 980 Pro 2TB
ACASIS 40Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure, Tool Free Installation, TBU 401 for M1 M2 Pro/Max, Compatible with USB4/3.2/3.1/3.0/2.0, Support SSD Size 2280 B+M M-Key (TBU401)
ACASIS 40Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure, Tool Free Installation, TBU 401 for M1 M2 Pro/Max, Compatible with USB4/3.2/3.1/3.0/2.0, Support SSD Size 2280 B+M M-Key（SSD NOT INCLUDE）
www.amazon.com
the case above is fast.
the drive below is fast
WD_BLACK 4TB SN850X NVMe Internal Gaming SSD Solid State Drive - Gen4 PCIe, M.2 2280, Up to 7,300 MB/s - WDS400T2X0E
Strap in for breakneck gaming speeds with the WD_BLACK SN850X NVMe™ SSD. Crush load times and slash throttling, lagging, and texture pop-ins for a smooth, fast experience that lets you compete at your absolute peak. This purpose-built gaming drive comes in capacities of 1TB to 4TB(2), with an opt...
www.amazon.com
cost about 430 usd.
to go from 4tb to 8tb internally cost more than 1000.
but the external will do 2800 the internal will do 4800 maybe 🤔
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The hardware may last that long but your applications and need for speed will result in what you buy today appearing to be glacially slow in 5-7 years or so. Likely at the point that Apple declares them to be obsolete.
I agree, but it’s less likely I’ll have to upgrade at that point if I have nearly 40 Gb/s speeds to all my drives. I can live with that and even in 5 years this won’t be slow. The fact alone it was so hard to figure out if it’s possible in the first place (look at all the threads I created/I wrote in) shows that there isn’t demand for those speeds except by people who compare things on paper.
Wether Apple still delivers software updates is another question and depends on so many things.
Let’s say that if it lives for 7 years I’ll be more or less happy as well.
Why is it asking for problems?
That’s not 40 Gb/s though, too slow for me 😝
ACASIS 40Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure, Tool Free Installation, TBU 401 for M1 M2 Pro/Max, Compatible with USB4/3.2/3.1/3.0/2.0, Support SSD Size 2280 B+M M-Key (TBU401)
ACASIS 40Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure, Tool Free Installation, TBU 401 for M1 M2 Pro/Max, Compatible with USB4/3.2/3.1/3.0/2.0, Support SSD Size 2280 B+M M-Key（SSD NOT INCLUDE）www.amazon.com
the case above is fast.
the drive below is fast
WD_BLACK 4TB SN850X NVMe Internal Gaming SSD Solid State Drive - Gen4 PCIe, M.2 2280, Up to 7,300 MB/s - WDS400T2X0E
Strap in for breakneck gaming speeds with the WD_BLACK SN850X NVMe™ SSD. Crush load times and slash throttling, lagging, and texture pop-ins for a smooth, fast experience that lets you compete at your absolute peak. This purpose-built gaming drive comes in capacities of 1TB to 4TB(2), with an opt...www.amazon.com
cost about 430 usd.
to go from 4tb to 8tb internally cost more than 1000.
but the external will do 2800 the internal will do 4800 maybe 🤔
In my country it’s around 1000€+ (and same thing if you get it refurbished). Having an additional 4TB externally at nearly 40 Gb/s will cost approximately the same (a little less) and you have to get two enclosures if you want to use the full speed.
You have to invest in good equipment here because of the heat this will produce.
And so for a little less than what Apple is charging you’ll have nearly their speed but instead of having everything in a box (the Mini) you’ll have cables and three boxes (Mini + 2 encasings).
Maybe it even has some advantages to have it all split on different drives (SSD health and I-don’t-know-what).
But I can’t spend the money on a 8TB Mini now anyway. It would be the more rational choice however. But it emotionally feels harder to speed all that money at once than in the future when I’ll need that external 40 Gb/s storage.
Then again, who knows if these encasings and NVMe drives don't become cheaper in the future. Maybe we’ll see much better solutions, with plug & play, that can reach 40 Gb/s. But I believe what we see now is as close to it as it gets.
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1. with video editing, you are constantly moving large chunks of data. While SSDs handle things differently than HDDs, you are still putting your drive through a lot of unnecessary read/write which thereby shortens its lifespan.
2. Video editing uses large amount of space with reduces the availability of virtual memory which all Macs rely on.
3. Having your video files on another drive increases your machine speed as it divvies up the work load to multiple sources.
4. When you have computer issues, your video files are separate and less likely to get corrupted.
Something that I think you’re missing here is that you keep saying you need 40 Gbps, I don’t know of a drive that goes that fast. You really should do a read/write test. My guess is that you’re actually closer to 3 or 4, not 30 or 40.
There is a reason the pros (myself included) never use a boot drive for work flow. Nearly everyone uses some kind of raid system with backups. If your workflow is small, there are non-raid SSDs that can deliver speeds around 3 Gbps. Thunderblade drives are more money but they’re very fast and are built for professional use.
Thanks, that was valuable information! I'll make sure to put all my media libraries on external SSDs.
I'm getting the 4 TB model not really to use the space (you have to count minus 15% to keep up those good speeds they say), but rather so it can live longer.
I will maybe fill 1 TB with it, maybe 2, but I don't think more than that. Just essential stuff. And I have yet to see what should be stored on which drive. The above helped a lot. I guess I will have to learn how other applications work to find out what I should save on the Mac, and what I should save externally.
As for the speed: Some people here did have nearly 40 Gb/s externally (and the Mini's internal speed is even slightly faster than that). 3 Gb/s would be extremely slow, I have more than that in my current 13 year-old Mac Pro.
Many people reach around 20-25 Gb/s, but I wanted to make sure I can reach close to internal speeds, and now I know how to achieve it.
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I was wondering if, instead of having two NVMe drives in two different enclosures, it would technically be possible to have one enclosure with two drives with two cables going to two different Thunderbolt controllers of the Mac Mini and put the drives in a RAID 0 setting.
Does anyone know if it would be possible to reach 30-40 Gbps this way?
That could be a great business idea and would save some cost, as people wouldn't need to buy multiple enclosures. I know there's systems for multiple drives, but I don't think they come with multiple cables. It seems like they're meant to be connected to one TB controller only.
Does anyone know if it would be possible to reach 30-40 Gbps this way?
That could be a great business idea and would save some cost, as people wouldn't need to buy multiple enclosures. I know there's systems for multiple drives, but I don't think they come with multiple cables. It seems like they're meant to be connected to one TB controller only.
There aren't any enclosures with two upstream Thunderbolt ports meant for raid 0 except that iodyne.com device.
You could try just taping two small bus-powered enclosures together.
I mean attach two enclosures together with tape or any other attachment method, such as velcro, or some mechanical method such as with screws or welding or whatever you like...
Okay I see, but that's still two enclosures and that costs more money. I could see a market for a simple enclosure for multiple drives, but one that has two TB cables so you can get those close to 40 Gb/s speeds.
There many places which now aren't bottle necks which might be in 5+ years time. It is not just SSD speed. Memory bandwidth and speeds and numbers of CPU, GPU, neural engine. Thunderbolt 5 may support 80 Gbs speeds. What will Thunderbolt 6, 7 support? If AI invades the personal computer space it may be a major resource user which current systems aren't spec'd to prove.