Leveraging External Drive with my MBA

[automan98]

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.

 

[motrek]

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.

If it's a hard drive over a USB 3.0 connection, the bottleneck will be the hard drive speed. No worries.

 

[automan98]

MBA from 2011. Only USB 2.0. How's the 2.0 performance since that's what I'm "stuck with" for now?

 

[Kajje]

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.

 

[motrek]

MBA from 2011. Only USB 2.0. How's the 2.0 performance since that's what I'm "stuck with" for now?

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]

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.

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.

 

[automan98]

Thanks for the responses.

 

[motrek]

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?