Mac mini storage considerations

[archer75]

1.2GB/sec would be fine if this was 1976 and we were using an Apple 1 to write to tape drives. But it's not.

1976 huh? When they measured transfer speed in kb/s?
We still use mechanical drives in the 50-100MB/s range today. My Drobo is full of them.
And a lot of SSD in 500MB/s range such as Samsung Evo 8x0 drives. In my PC I have a Samsung 960 EVO NVMe rated at 3000MB/s+. Compared to the significantly slower 860 EVO I have at 500MB/s I see no real world difference. Only in synthetic benchmarks which are useless.
It's fine. You're being dramatic.

 

[gigatoaster]

So something horrible happened this morning. I have a 2014 external Toshiba HDD and the night before, I had error message like “disk not ejected properly” while playing music with Roon on the mini.

This morning, there was some thunderstorms so don’t know if it is related but the HDD couldn’t be used: it got disconnected after 2 or 3 minutes.

I tried on a MBP from 2017, 2018...same issue.

I then tried on my MBA from 2011 and surprise it worked! Only difference was the blinking light which was white instead of blue.

Have you seen this issue before?

So I ran to the shop & 12 hours later, I managed to backup my music library in a new HDD and another new one for the backup of the backup.

I guess I was obliged to make a decision and went to the simplest: 2TB & 4TB HDD, which costs me 248 SGD.

So I learned a lesson: better do some damn backup. I’ll run more tests tomorrow but I’d like your opinion:

- Do you think the mini could be the reason of my disk failure or is it just too old?

- I’d like to check integrity of the new HDD. Is there a program for it?

 

[Chiromac81]

No. SSD makes no difference. 4k streaming is fine with slow 5400rpm NAS drives which is what I use. For transcoding it's all about CPU. Don't waste your money on SSD for a media library.
I use SSD for system drive. To hold Lightroom catalogs(but the photos are stored on my slow drives) For drives holding games that I want to load faster. That's it.
[doublepost=1542554397][/doublepost]
ONLY 1.2GB/sec. Lol, it's fine. Don't worry about it.

Doesn’t the Samsung SSD have a good processor to be able to play HDR 4K files on their 2 TB external T5?

Why do people get external SSD if they already have an internal SSD?

I was thinking of getting the 1TB upgrade on my Mac mini since my 2012 iMac has 1TB drive and then I was thinking it would be smart to get a 2TB external SSD since I currently have an external 2TB hooked up to my Mac but it’s only a WD my Mac drive and it would probably be very slow paired with a new Mac mini and it’s 1 TB internal drive so I know it’s pricey but it would probably go smoother and be more future proof...?

 

[archer75]

Doesn’t the Samsung SSD have a good processor to be able to play HDR 4K files on their 2 TB external T5?

Why do people get external SSD if they already have an internal SSD?

I was thinking of getting the 1TB upgrade on my Mac mini since my 2012 iMac has 1TB drive and then I was thinking it would be smart to get a 2TB external SSD since I currently have an external 2TB hooked up to my Mac but it’s only a WD my Mac drive and it would probably be very slow paired with a new Mac mini and it’s 1 TB internal drive so I know it’s pricey but it would probably go smoother and be more future proof...?

For 4K video an ssd is absolutely without a doubt not needed and will not make movie watching any smoother. Like I said, a slow, cheap 5400rpm drive will give you multiple streams of smooth video. Even if you NEED an external ssd for other work I’d still use slow cheap mechanical drives for video as they are cheap and offer much more storage for your dollar.

 

[archer75]

You might have missed my post. Plex lists several NAS devices that support 4K decoding. I stream 4K HD from a not so powerful WD PR4100 NAS with cpu utilization <10%. I do have a special Plex client through.

It could be plex isn’t transcoding. PMS will show you what each stream is doing. It’s important to note if it’s transcoding or direct stream/playing. Non transcoding uses almost no power.
My guess is yours is direct playing.

 

[Chiromac81]

For 4K video an ssd is absolutely without a doubt not needed and will not make movie watching any smoother. Like I said, a slow, cheap 5400rpm drive will give you multiple streams of smooth video. Even if you NEED an external ssd for other work I’d still use slow cheap mechanical drives for video as they are cheap and offer much more storage for your dollar.

Thanks for the answer-what would I need a external SSD for if I don’t do video editing or professional graphics or gaming? I don’t mind buying one if it will offer increased performance in either storing and viewing my iPhone pics and 4K videos, storing and eventually watching 4K movies and storing and listing to Flac files and other iTunes songs mostly through sonos...

If NONE of these are helped with an SSD external drive then I guess I will get a conventional drive and save the money...just always thought faster was better but maybe I wouldn’t notice the difference for my “basic” tasks?

 

[archer75]

Thanks for the answer-what would I need a external SSD for if I don’t do video editing or professional graphics or gaming? I don’t mind buying one if it will offer increased performance in either storing and viewing my iPhone pics and 4K videos, storing and eventually watching 4K movies and storing and listing to Flac files and other iTunes songs mostly through sonos...

If NONE of these are helped with an SSD external drive then I guess I will get a conventional drive and save the money...just always thought faster was better but maybe I wouldn’t notice the difference for my “basic” tasks?

I’d use it as a system drive for improving loading and opening of programs. And for programs that cache files like Lightroom. Games for load times. It will be a big boost for these things.

For just data I keep that on mechanical drives.
It won’t do anything for music or video streaming.
It can help for 4K video editing.
For what you outlined it won’t do anything for you.

My pc has 3 ssd drives. Those all hold programs and games. Data is on mechanical drives. Lightroom cache and catalogs are on a ssd but the photos live on mechanical drives.

 

[Chiromac81]

I’d use it as a system drive for improving loading and opening of programs. And for programs that cache files like Lightroom. Games for load times. It will be a big boost for these things.

For just data I keep that on mechanical drives.
It won’t do anything for music or video streaming.
It can help for 4K video editing.
For what you outlined it won’t do anything for you.

My pc has 3 ssd drives. Those all hold programs and games. Data is on mechanical drives. Lightroom cache and catalogs are on a ssd but the photos live on mechanical drives.

Ok that answers my question completely-I guess I’ll just pay for them upgrade on the Mac mini to 1 TB internal SSD (and probably 16 GB RAM) so I will be covered for system start up and running programs for the foreseeable future and then I’ll just stick with a mechanical drive like the WD my Mac or my cloud drive for external storage if those ones are fast enough for basic data storage

 

[gigatoaster]

So QNAP made available this: https://www.qnap.com/en/product/hs-453dx/specs/hardware

Look nice but not sure if QNAP is a good brand for NAS. It seems that most people prefer Synology.

 

[ElectronGuru]

So QNAP made available this: https://www.qnap.com/en/product/hs-453dx/specs/hardware

Look nice but not sure if QNAP is a good brand for NAS. It seems that most people prefer Synology.

Seems they are both good but for different reasons

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=qnap+vs+synology

https://nascompares.com/2016/06/23/synology-vs-qnap-which-is-the-best-nas-for-you/

“If Synology is Mac, then QNAP is most certainly Windows and Android!”

https://prizedreviews.com/synology-vs-qnap/

“In a dichotomy that isn’t too far from the ones that you might already be familiar with, one brand is associated with boundless customization and tech savviness while the other prefers to keep things buckled down and simplified.”

But if your link is any indication, qnap is going after the beyond plex, htpc market specifically!

 

[ElectronGuru]

But if your link is any indication, qnap is going after the beyond plex, htpc market specifically!

Then again maybe not

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13650/qnap-unveils-hs453dx-silent-nas

“The other apps were crap. The remote was poor. Funny that in the marketing literature for the current product, the player part of this system is not really covered at all, there is the mention of HDMI outputs and that’s basically it. A lot of people are going to be as disappointed as I am when they find out how it works in practice.”

 

[rmdeluca]

So QNAP made available this: https://www.qnap.com/en/product/hs-453dx/specs/hardware

Look nice but not sure if QNAP is a good brand for NAS. It seems that most people prefer Synology.

Ug, it has SATA M.2 slots :/

I think the more compelling value is a QNAP TS-963X-8G ($809) @ 17.3dbA.

Or if you want the ability to eventually saturate your 10GbE with NVMe SSDs, for $915 total you can get a TS-473-4G-US and put QM2-2P-344 dual NVMe M.2 and QXG-10G1T 10GbE expansion cards in there. It's still pretty quiet @ 21.7dBA.

In the same price range ($885) is the Synology DS1817. It is relatively quiet @ 24.2dbA when fully loaded. This is the only reasonably priced and quiet Synology with 10GbE.

I have lots of professional experience with Synology NAS - they make excellent, easy to use products. QNAP has (IMO) more compelling values for home/small office use though. QNAP is fine as a NAS but the home theater gimmicks (i.e. using it as a media player) are subpar and will never keep up with AppleTV/Chromecast/FireTV/Roku.

 

[gigatoaster]

Thanks everybody for your message. I am thinking of going with a Synology NAS DS718+ to store 4K UHD HDR movies. I will use also to back my music and maybe a second Time Machine if it is possible.

I have the following questions:

1. If anyone using Synology NAS + Apple TV 4K + Infuse...could you share your feedback, what you like, what you don't?
2. How noisy is the NAS and do you have recommendations regarding low-noise HDD? I've heard 5400 RPM HDD are less noisy than 7200 RPM HDD.
3. Can I use 1 bay for the movies and the second for backing-up the first HDD? Would that be the recommended workflow and what setting-up shall I need to do?
4. Would it be possible to leave 1 TB for a Time Machine?
5. Shall I install a torrent client on the NAS directly or shall I still use the Mac mini and transfer the downloaded file once completed to the NAS?
6. Will 1 Gbps ethernet be enough for playback without buffering?

I also asked on Infuse forum but here maybe we have a bigger crowd.