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petey2133

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 20, 2012
109
2
So for months I have been looking for a decent nvme m.2 external drive option. Everything I find is extremely expensive, and the drives that are obtainable require you to run raid 0 with 4 drives to hit max speeds. and that ends up more than expensive that my computer almost lol.

By doing this combo, I can fill them up with memories, take it out and store it safely. Then just slide a new one back in its place. This would only cost me like $534 for 2TB of TB3 drive with decent speeds?

I can get samsung 970 pro's for like $427.00 for a 2TB

1573056315805.png


And this interface appears to have great reviews, and allows for high speeds when connected via TB3?

1573056464448.png
 
By doing this combo, I can fill them up with memories, take it out and store it safely. Then just slide a new one back in its place.
If your purpose is to safely store digital memories why would you go to all the expense of using super fast SSD? Why not just get a couple of large cheap HDDs for store and backup? Or is your use case different?
BTW I have a TEKQ Rapide 1TB TB3 drive and its really good. Almost as fast as internal SSD drive in iMac 2017. I use it for Lightroom editing, virtual machines and occasional video.
 
That seems like 'way too much money for me...particularly for the drive.
 
If your purpose is to safely store digital memories why would you go to all the expense of using super fast SSD? Why not just get a couple of large cheap HDDs for store and backup? Or is your use case different?
BTW I have a TEKQ Rapide 1TB TB3 drive and its really good. Almost as fast as internal SSD drive in iMac 2017. I use it for Lightroom editing, virtual machines and occasional video.

I have about 6 drives sitting on my computer desk right now. Ranging from 1TB-6TB. all HDD's that are giving me fits. My biggest one (which is only 50% full) a MyBook is failing to open files on a regular basis. I have to unplug it sometimes up to three times for folders to start generating inside of it. Its making me nervous as I have about 2 TB of 4k family movies, and probably 20,000 photos on it.

I failed to mention I am a photographer also, and the real reason for this combo was because I would initially start by filling up 1 or 2 drives with my memories etc, then after removing it use additional sticks to edit weddings and corporate events. I would use it to transfer and edit directly from it with lightroom/photoshop.
 
I agree with others that it's not cost-effective and it's a waste, both of your money and of the drives.

Buy one of those drives to use as your scratch drive for the files you're actively editing. For storage, use a NAS or a DAS - something like one of Synology's solutions, or a Drobo. Admittedly those have become fast enough that you could possibly run your active library off of one of those and not feel too much performance penalty, but it'll be fastest off of a NVME flash drive.

The benefit of a NAS (Synology or Drobo) or DAS (Drobo) storage unit is that you can pool storage and you're protected from one (or two, depending on how you configure it) drives failing. If the drive fails you can still work with your data, and recovering is as simple as pulling the dead drive and putting another one into its slot. It makes hard drives a "plug and play" peripheral. Just as an example, I also take tons of photos and video, and I purchased four 3 TB drives and then reused an old 1.5 TB drive that I had lying around. All together, it's a bit over 9 TB of storage; some space is lost to create that information to recover from one drive failing. When the time comes to upgrade, it's as simple as buying a larger-capacity drive(s), popping out the smallest drive, and then sliding the new drive in. The Drobo then spreads the data across the new drive on its own. You'd need to figure out how to migrate your data off of the drives, but you could theoretically reuse five or all six of the drives you mentioned in such an array (depending on which unit you purchased).

The downside to a NAS or DAS, particularly with a proprietary solution like Drobo does, is that you're stuck if the NAS or DAS experiences a failure. In most cases you can just buy a new one and migrate your drives over to that unit with no data loss, but I'm sure that if you hunt around you can find horror stories of total loss. In my case, I have my Drobo backed up online with Backblaze. That way, even if something happens to the unit and my drives (fire, flood, etc. in addition to the possible catastrophic failure of the Drobo dying and taking the drives with it), all I need to do is buy new ones and then re-download my data (or have Backblaze ship the data to me pre-loaded onto hard drives) and I'm all set. It's all pretty seamless in operation and doesn't require any input on my end. The cost is reasonable and in my mind it's worth it, as I have taken a lot of precious photos and videos that I wouldn't want to lose.

If you want more information about Drobo or Backblaze, I'd be happy to expand on it. I use Synology's router but not their NAS... but I've been impressed enough with their router that if and when I need a NAS I might choose Synology over Drobo.
 
Well said @Ledgem. Just remember a RAID NAS/DAS isn’t its own backup. You also need a backup, preferably elsewhere. Also bear in mind RAID has limitations as drives are getting much bigger, particularly if you use consumer grades ones.
 
So for months I have been looking for a decent nvme m.2 external drive option. Everything I find is extremely expensive, and the drives that are obtainable require you to run raid 0 with 4 drives to hit max speeds. and that ends up more than expensive that my computer almost lol.

By doing this combo, I can fill them up with memories, take it out and store it safely. Then just slide a new one back in its place. This would only cost me like $534 for 2TB of TB3 drive with decent speeds?

I can get samsung 970 pro's for like $427.00 for a 2TB

View attachment 875321

And this interface appears to have great reviews, and allows for high speeds when connected via TB3?

View attachment 875322
I purchased the small GB version of the TekQ TB3, removed the internal M.2 SSD and installed an older 1TB Samsung 950 Pro NVMe M.2 to use as my dedicated (Bootcamp) Win10 platform on my 2019 iMac i9/Vega 48. (The 950 Pro NVMe M.2 came from my ex-gaming PC)
I have it connected to a CalDigit TB3 Dock from the iMac's TB3 port, it has R/W speeds about the same as the iMac i9's SSD (2500/1900 +\-).
It's been reliable for the last 3 months with Win10, even Gaming is smooth with high frame rates - no complaints.
It has been a cost effective way to me to have an extremely fast external enclosure that EFI Boots Windows 10.
 
I agree with others that it's not cost-effective and it's a waste, both of your money and of the drives.

Buy one of those drives to use as your scratch drive for the files you're actively editing. For storage, use a NAS or a DAS - something like one of Synology's solutions, or a Drobo. Admittedly those have become fast enough that you could possibly run your active library off of one of those and not feel too much performance penalty, but it'll be fastest off of a NVME flash drive.

The benefit of a NAS (Synology or Drobo) or DAS (Drobo) storage unit is that you can pool storage and you're protected from one (or two, depending on how you configure it) drives failing. If the drive fails you can still work with your data, and recovering is as simple as pulling the dead drive and putting another one into its slot. It makes hard drives a "plug and play" peripheral. Just as an example, I also take tons of photos and video, and I purchased four 3 TB drives and then reused an old 1.5 TB drive that I had lying around. All together, it's a bit over 9 TB of storage; some space is lost to create that information to recover from one drive failing. When the time comes to upgrade, it's as simple as buying a larger-capacity drive(s), popping out the smallest drive, and then sliding the new drive in. The Drobo then spreads the data across the new drive on its own. You'd need to figure out how to migrate your data off of the drives, but you could theoretically reuse five or all six of the drives you mentioned in such an array (depending on which unit you purchased).

The downside to a NAS or DAS, particularly with a proprietary solution like Drobo does, is that you're stuck if the NAS or DAS experiences a failure. In most cases you can just buy a new one and migrate your drives over to that unit with no data loss, but I'm sure that if you hunt around you can find horror stories of total loss. In my case, I have my Drobo backed up online with Backblaze. That way, even if something happens to the unit and my drives (fire, flood, etc. in addition to the possible catastrophic failure of the Drobo dying and taking the drives with it), all I need to do is buy new ones and then re-download my data (or have Backblaze ship the data to me pre-loaded onto hard drives) and I'm all set. It's all pretty seamless in operation and doesn't require any input on my end. The cost is reasonable and in my mind it's worth it, as I have taken a lot of precious photos and videos that I wouldn't want to lose.

If you want more information about Drobo or Backblaze, I'd be happy to expand on it. I use Synology's router but not their NAS... but I've been impressed enough with their router that if and when I need a NAS I might choose Synology over Drobo.

Thank you for the detailed reply. I am going to dig into those ideas today. I will admit im not a genius when it comes to storage, and I appreciate all the help
 
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