I'm out of space on my MBA and would like to use an external drive. The primary need for space is for iMovie content. Has anyone run iMovie content over a USB connection? How's the performance? Thank.
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Leveraging External Drive with my MBA
- Thread starter automan98
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If it's a hard drive over a USB 3.0 connection, the bottleneck will be the hard drive speed. No worries.
MBA from 2011. Only USB 2.0. How's the 2.0 performance since that's what I'm "stuck with" for now?
Kajje
macrumors 6502a
I guess it's possible, but you're going to get frustrated when it's time to write.
I can see 3 other options in your case:
1) Replace your internal SSD with a bigger one. The older MBA models do have aftermarket (non-Apple) drives available.
2) Buy a Thunderbold harddrive - The new WD Passport Pro has both USB3 and TB. It's pricey but affordable. It'll survive for a long time.
3) Move as much non-critical files onto the USB drive and use your internal SSD for iMovie data.
I can see 3 other options in your case:
1) Replace your internal SSD with a bigger one. The older MBA models do have aftermarket (non-Apple) drives available.
2) Buy a Thunderbold harddrive - The new WD Passport Pro has both USB3 and TB. It's pricey but affordable. It'll survive for a long time.
3) Move as much non-critical files onto the USB drive and use your internal SSD for iMovie data.
USB 2.0 will max out around 30 MB/s, or a little under half of what a spinning 2.5" drive is capable of.
I don't know about iMovie in particular but I would recommend finding somebody (friend, relative) with a 2.5" drive that you can try out, copy some files onto it, and try working with those. Should be fairly easy to do.
Kajje
macrumors 6502a
Do mind that there might be a huge difference between different drives, different connection cables and formatting types (DOS, MAC, MAC-encrypted)
I have seen drives formated with Journaled/encrypted running on USB3 which perform worse than a cheap drive under USB2 FAT. On the other hand I have USB3 journaled/Encrypted ones which perform great.
I have after market USB3-cables who perform less than half the speed compared with the original supplied USB3-cable.
This is obviously on USB3 equiped machines, but it might be helpful for you while searching for your best choice.
I've had 6-7 different external drives, both USB 2 and 3, and I've never seen huge differences between performance.
USB 2 drives all max out at around 30 MB/s because that's the limit of the standard.
USB 3 drives should all run at the drive's speed. USB 3 is capable of 400+ MB/s, so even if you have a s***** controller or a s***** cable you're going to be able to get ~100 MB/s which is basically the maximum that a spinning 2.5" disk will give you.
I wonder if something is wrong with how you're testing performance?