The SanDisk above and your setup both used DRAM-less WD drives. Interesting. I wonder if the SanDisk is the same WD SN770 now because they used to use the SN750E. I guess SanDisk feels DRAM is not necessary, or else not preferred because of the added heat generation.
Since you’re going to be working with video, you would stand to gain more with going with a thunderbolt 4 like owc and getting a better nvme drive. It’s easy. Plenty of YouTube tutorials
Sn850x going to cheap right now in the states. I like using dramless nvme only in windows pcs that support hmb
Up here in Canada, I missed the SN850X sale where you buy one 4 TB model on sale and you get the second 4 TB model for 30% off the sale price. That ended up being CA$310 per drive, or about US$222 each, but you had to buy two. Great deal, but the 4 TB model is double sided and people were reporting that it's too thick to fit in some of their USB enclosures. Ironically, just after the sale ended, I got a response from my enclosure's manufacturer saying that the double sided SN850X fits just fine in their enclosure. Oh well. It should be noted that SanDisk.com does not take returns unless the drive is defective.
It's a shame that the Hynix P31 isn't available in 4TB. I picked up 5x 1TB ones for £45 each (for small virtualisation servers) and 2x 2TB ones for £75 each on a Prime deal last year.
Yup. The Hynix P31 would be my preferred drive if I was looking for a 2 TB size, since they use so much less power despite having DRAM on board. For the longest time they were not available in Canada, but they are available now, unfortunately without that coveted 4 TB size option.
Simple suggestion -
I originally bought 1TB Samsung 980's... they're DRAM-less but do use HMB which was supported. They were pretty good, but when the P31's showed up at that price I decided to return them.Yup. The Hynix P31 would be my preferred drive if I was looking for a 2 TB size, since they use so much less power despite having DRAM on board. For the longest time they were not available in Canada, but they are available now, unfortunately without that coveted 4 TB size option.
Another low power fast drive is the Lexar NM790 but that is DRAM-less, and Lexar is not the same Lexar as it once was. It used to be owned by Crucial, but the brand now is owned by Longsys in China and uses the controversial Chinese YMTC flash. However, the drive gets good reviews for its super fast speed and low power utilization, and it's quite inexpensive.
The reason I was considering the DRAM-less Samsung 990 EVO Plus was also because it's lower power, but so far it's been pretty expensive. It's actually significantly more costly right now than the WD SN850X which has DRAM.
I'm predicting the Samsung 990 Pro to go on sale on Friday (22nd). And if not this Friday, then Black Friday (29th). If so and the price is right, then I'll probably pick one up. It's got DRAM and uses significantly more power than the EVO Plus, but less power than the WD SN850X. It will have to be under CA$400 / US$286 though.
In the meantime, I'm happy to continue using my 2 TB Samsung T7 Shield. It's just that my USB 4 SSD enclosure is getting kind of lonely with an NVMe drive in it.
Sorry, for the main use I bought the 1TBs for, the virtualisation machines.
I’ve added a TB4/USB4 WavLink 40Gbps m.2 case and a 4TB Orico NVMe PCIe 4x4 (7000MB/s) to my Mac Mini M4. I changed the user folder to be on the external drive and the application directory to be on the external drive (changing external to be boot prohibits AI from working), so most work files will be placed there automatically. Read speeds are over 5k, writes about 4.4k on external. On the 256Gb internal reads are just over 4K, writes about 3.5k. So external is faster than internal! I plan to add a second identical ‘raided’ TB4/USB4 drive which should add about 1.5k to performance through striping. So with right hardware an external TB4/USB4 is actually faster than the 2 chip 256Gb internal drive. Until you get to a 4 chip config (1Tb) I think external will remain faster.I'm running a Thunderbolt 4TB NVMe drive on my mini - used it on the M1 and moved it over to the M4 Pro. Not as fast as internal, of course, but still pretty quick
There’s something wrong with your numbers. >5000 MB/s is theoretically impossible from that external SSD enclosure. And I don’t think anyone has ever gotten over even 4000 MB/s.
Yup, those are closer to Pro numbers but the 256GB internal would suggest this is the base mini.
That was my point, you would need the faster rear ports of the Pro model to hit those external speeds.
That class of enclosures maxes out at about 3200-3500 MB/s. It’s not Thunderbolt 5 so it’s irrelevant if its on a Pro or non-Pro Mac mini. In fact, it’s theoretically impossible to achieve speeds over 5000 MB/s with that enclosure, and I have NEVER seen one reported at over 4000 MB/s, yet that poster was claiming read speeds over 5000 MB/s.
Still agreeing with you, I was just saying even if the enclosure was capable, it would only get those speeds on the Pro model as the base mini could cap it at the TB4 max speed.
Still 20% higher than last year's sale price levels. Should've bought the 990 4TB for $199 last year. SSDs likely going to become stagnant like HDD prices unless China is able to muscle their way in due to memory cartel behavior.
I'd read a few posts stating the JHL chipset(s) were far less power hungry. Perhaps that's due to their lack of Thunderbolt 4 support (until the JHL9480). I was somewhat concerned with the reports of ASM2464P drawing a ton of power even when the machine itself was asleep (~1w) and far more when it wasn't. TB5 seems like overkill for a Mini M4 (not pro) but don't want a power sucking drive either. Any good TB4 enclosures/drives that use no more power than necessary ?
No Apple Intelligence for external booting macOS.
