Opening Disclaimer: I know this is task and workload dependent. I'm curious about the user experience of mainstream users who use external SSDs heavily for files, and in some cases use such as their boot drives (for spacious storage that dodges Apple's 'Apple Tax' high priced internal storage upgrades prices).
Basic USB-C external SSD drives tend to get close to 1,000 MB/s data transfer speeds. Example: Samsung T7 Shield.
There's an improved version that gets around 2,000 MB/s, but this depends on a '2nd lane' of some sort that I've read Macs don't support, so on a Mac you may still be looking at 1,000 MB/s speeds. Example: Samsung T9 Portable SSD.
Thunderbolt 3 & 4 (same max. throughput) SSD drives: actual throughput tends to be around 2,800 MB/s. Multiple examples out there, including option to buy a housing and put your own internal SSD in it.
New Thunderbolt 5 external SSD drives - roughly double that (per OWC's Envoy Ultra description, speeds > 6,000 MB/s). Example: OWC Envoy Ultra, and I've read the 4-terabyte version is around $600 (surprisingly low to me).
Prices go up a bit as one moves up through the tiers. It seems obvious anything who could decently afford it would get a Thunderbolt drive. But then I saw this:
ArtIsRight has a video review - Should you buy the fastest SSD for Pro Photo + Video Workflow? The answer will surprise you!
In a nutshell, he rates comparative task completion times for multiple SSDs of various tiers using Lightroom, and said for the most part with photo and video work (unless you're working with 8K raw or anything like that), the most basic SSD will do the job just fine.
We're heading into the Black Friday/Cyber Monday shopping season in the U.S. Thunderbolt 5 is just coming out and hubs and enclosures are few and might not see good sales; Thunderbolt 3 and 4 devices may see good sales, and USB-C drives and hubs are substantially cheaper and may see good sales. So the price difference between a TB5 device and a USB-C device is likely to be higher than usual.
So in terms of Mac boot up time, time to open Photos and a pretty large Photos library and do other moderate mainstream stuff, how much do you notice whether you're using something like a Samsung T7 Shield, or a Thunderbolt 3 drive? Do you think you'd notice if you used a TB5 drive hooked to an M4Pro or M4Max Mac?
Basic USB-C external SSD drives tend to get close to 1,000 MB/s data transfer speeds. Example: Samsung T7 Shield.
There's an improved version that gets around 2,000 MB/s, but this depends on a '2nd lane' of some sort that I've read Macs don't support, so on a Mac you may still be looking at 1,000 MB/s speeds. Example: Samsung T9 Portable SSD.
Thunderbolt 3 & 4 (same max. throughput) SSD drives: actual throughput tends to be around 2,800 MB/s. Multiple examples out there, including option to buy a housing and put your own internal SSD in it.
New Thunderbolt 5 external SSD drives - roughly double that (per OWC's Envoy Ultra description, speeds > 6,000 MB/s). Example: OWC Envoy Ultra, and I've read the 4-terabyte version is around $600 (surprisingly low to me).
Prices go up a bit as one moves up through the tiers. It seems obvious anything who could decently afford it would get a Thunderbolt drive. But then I saw this:
ArtIsRight has a video review - Should you buy the fastest SSD for Pro Photo + Video Workflow? The answer will surprise you!
In a nutshell, he rates comparative task completion times for multiple SSDs of various tiers using Lightroom, and said for the most part with photo and video work (unless you're working with 8K raw or anything like that), the most basic SSD will do the job just fine.
We're heading into the Black Friday/Cyber Monday shopping season in the U.S. Thunderbolt 5 is just coming out and hubs and enclosures are few and might not see good sales; Thunderbolt 3 and 4 devices may see good sales, and USB-C drives and hubs are substantially cheaper and may see good sales. So the price difference between a TB5 device and a USB-C device is likely to be higher than usual.
So in terms of Mac boot up time, time to open Photos and a pretty large Photos library and do other moderate mainstream stuff, how much do you notice whether you're using something like a Samsung T7 Shield, or a Thunderbolt 3 drive? Do you think you'd notice if you used a TB5 drive hooked to an M4Pro or M4Max Mac?