Recomendaciones for a fast, reliable not-that-pricy external SSD

[victor.espina]

I am retiring my beloved MacMini late 2012 and replacing it with the latest Intel-based MacMini. This new Mini comes with a internal non-upgrdable 512 gb SSD, so I need to add additional storage via external SSD. In particular I would need one external drive to store my Window's virtual machines (around 600 gb at this moment) and I am thinking on moving folders like Pictures, Music, Movies, Documents, Dropbox, MEGA to a 2nd external SSD.

Any recomendation for fast, reliable and not so pricy external SSDs ?

TIA

Victor Espina

 

[gradi]

This 2tb is just $139 and gets good user reviews:

Western Digital 2TB Elements SE - Portable SSD, USB 3.0, Compatible with PC, Mac - WDBAYN0020BBK-WESN

Get affordable performance in a pocket-size design for your on-the-go lifestyle. With dependability from a brand you can trust, empower your next-level productivity with a WD Elements SE SSD.

www.amazon.com

This one is $169:

SanDisk 2TB Extreme Portable SSD - Up to 1050MB/s - USB-C, USB 3.2 Gen 2 - External Solid State Drive - SDSSDE61-2T00-G25

Your life’s an adventure. To capture and keep its best moments, you need fast, high-capacity storage that accelerates every move. 1050MB/s read and 1000MB/s write speeds let you store your content and creations on a fast drive that fits seamlessly into your active lifestyle. Up to two-meter drop ...

www.amazon.com

 

[EugW]

This 2tb is just $139 and gets good user reviews:

Western Digital 2TB Elements SE - Portable SSD, USB 3.0, Compatible with PC, Mac - WDBAYN0020BBK-WESN

Get affordable performance in a pocket-size design for your on-the-go lifestyle. With dependability from a brand you can trust, empower your next-level productivity with a WD Elements SE SSD.

www.amazon.com

That drive is pretty slow.

This one is $169:

SanDisk 2TB Extreme Portable SSD - Up to 1050MB/s - USB-C, USB 3.2 Gen 2 - External Solid State Drive - SDSSDE61-2T00-G25

Your life’s an adventure. To capture and keep its best moments, you need fast, high-capacity storage that accelerates every move. 1050MB/s read and 1000MB/s write speeds let you store your content and creations on a fast drive that fits seamlessly into your active lifestyle. Up to two-meter drop ...

www.amazon.com

This Sandisk appears to be a MUCH better drive. Another good option is the Samsung T7 Shield. The T7 is OK, but I'm specifically talking about the T7 Shield, which is a touch more expensive, at $189.

SAMSUNG T7 Shield 2TB, Portable SSD, up to 1050MB/s, USB 3.2 Gen2, Rugged, IP65 Rated, for Photographers, Content Creators and Gaming, External Solid State Drive (MU-PE2T0R/AM, 2022), Blue

Samsung T7 Shield Portable SSD delivers high performance on-the-go, not matter the terrain. It has an IP65 rating for water** and dust* resistance, with Dynamic Thermal Guard to manage heat control. Transfer huge files instantly. USB 3.2 Gen 2 and PCIe® NVMe™ achieve soaring sequential read/write...

www.amazon.com

 

[Boyd01]

Why would you want a rugged waterproof SSD just to sit on a desk next to a Mini? I have four 2tb Samsung T7 SSD's and they are great, very fast. Looking at the specs on Samsung's site, they say the Shield is the same speed as the regular T7. This is what I get on my 2018 Mini using the included USB-C cable.

Of course, the 2tb internal SSD on my is about 3x faster (a 512gb will be a little slower though). But you aren't going to get anywhere near that with a USB SSD.

 

[leifp]

The Samsung T5 and T7 have been super reliable partners for me and mine. I had one as my backup drive (replaced when my principal drive exceeded 2TB), one as a portable drive. My wife has a similar setup. For many applications they’re faster than I need. Transferring large files etc is not a regular occurrence, so I can wait a bit…

 

[EugW]

Why would you want a rugged waterproof SSD just to sit on a desk next to a Mini? I have four 2tb Samsung T7 SSD's and they are great, very fast. Looking at the specs on Samsung's site, they say the Shield is the same speed as the regular T7. This is what I get on my 2018 Mini using the included USB-C cable.

View attachment 2106101

Of course, the 2tb internal SSD on my is about 3x faster (a 512gb will be a little slower though). But you aren't going to get anywhere near that with a USB SSD.

View attachment 2106107

The T7 Shield has faster sustained transfer speeds than the T7. This is after the initial fast period that the short benchmarks like Black Magic measure.

When I bought the T7 Shield, it was the same price as the T7 so it was a no brainer.

Samsung T7 Shield Portable SSD Review: Tough and Consistent Portable Storage (Updated)

Samsung’s T7 Shield brings reliability for content capture

www.tomshardware.com

Depending upon what you read, the sustained speed of the T7 Touch is either the same or is faster than the T7, and as you can see, the T7 Shield is faster than the T7 Touch.

The T7 series is all good though overall. OTOH, the Crucial X8 is a total disaster.

 

[Fishrrman]

I recently bought a Samsung T-7 "Shield", pleased with it's design and performance.

 

[victor.espina]

Why would you want a rugged waterproof SSD just to sit on a desk next to a Mini? I have four 2tb Samsung T7 SSD's and they are great, very fast. Looking at the specs on Samsung's site, they say the Shield is the same speed as the regular T7. This is what I get on my 2018 Mini using the included USB-C cable.

View attachment 2106101

Of course, the 2tb internal SSD on my is about 3x faster (a 512gb will be a little slower though). But you aren't going to get anywhere near that with a USB SSD.

View attachment 2106107

Well, the thing is that despite the fact I work from home most of the time, I do some travel from time to time, and I don't bring my MacMini with me but a MacBook Pro. So, its handy to have all my virtual machines stored in an external drive so when I need to hit the road, all I need to do is unplug the external drive, plug it in my laptop and I can have the exact same dev environment I have in my desktop setup.

I am perfectly aware that external drives are normally way slower than an internal SSD, but I am pretty sure I can find an external USB 3.2 SSD that runs fast enough to load my MV in a reasonable amount of time.

That said, the Samsung T7 Shield looks really nice and at a good price. It also have a lot of 5 star reviews in Amazon (+1000) , and read/write numbers are like 50% faster than the ones I get from ny current main internal SSD.


Thanks for the tip!!!

 

[victor.espina]

Why would you want a rugged waterproof SSD just to sit on a desk next to a Mini? I have four 2tb Samsung T7 SSD's and they are great, very fast. Looking at the specs on Samsung's site, they say the Shield is the same speed as the regular T7. This is what I get on my 2018 Mini using the included USB-C cable.

View attachment 2106101

Of course, the 2tb internal SSD on my is about 3x faster (a 512gb will be a little slower though). But you aren't going to get anywhere near that with a USB SSD.

View attachment 2106107

Do you use those T7 in a daily basis ? My question is because I intend to use the T7 as my main drive, which involves running a 128 GB Windows VM (using Parallels) and some Angular/Ionic projects which involves the destroying and creation of hundreds of files every time I build a project... all this for 10 hrs/day, 5/6 days by week in a computer that is on 24/7 365 days.

 

[Boyd01]

Wow, I am certainly not qualified to recommend anything for your usage.

I have had one T7 connected all the time and used daily since June 2021. I create maps for web usage in tile format that consist of millions of 256x256 pixel PNG or JPG files. The source files for these are very big geoTIFF raster image files, often more than 100gb. It can take days to render/export these in a Windows 32gb VM. The VM is on my Mini's internal disk but all those files are on the T7. I also have a 2tb WD Black USB SSD used for the same thing and always connected. Then there are three other 2tb T7's that are carbon copy clones. These are only connected long enough to make backups. My computer only runs 24/7 when working on a big project, otherwise it is shutdown nightly.

Works very well for me, but I have no idea if they would be appropriate for what you're doing, which is clearly more intense than my usage.

 

[victor.espina]

Thanks for your replay. It totally helped me.