USB Drive stability

[Taipan]

Even in case this might be a stupid question:
I‘m currently still using my (heavily upgraded) trusty old Mac Pro 4,1, but recently I have started to consider a Mac Mini, mainly because of power consumption.
My main worries: I‘m using 4 internal hard drives in my Mac Pro (in addition to an SSD for the System volume). These would obviously all have to be transferred to external enclosures. Of course I don’t need all of them all the time, but one in particular is running constantly to buffer and record EyeTV Sat TV streams, sometimes while playing back another stream. Another one is used for Logic Pro, although I‘m using it rarely nowadays. Will this work over USB (or Thunderbolt) without driving me mad?
To be honest, I don‘t trust USB for more than mouse and keyboard. In my experience (admittedly mostly with older hardware) streaming from USB drives tends to result in frequent hiccups. Thunderbolt is probably better, but more expensive.
Or am I just living in the past?

 

[Fishrrman]

"Or am I just living in the past?"

Yes, you are.
For most cases, USB these days is just fine.

 

[PaulD-UK]

"...mainly because of power consumption"

SSD's and NVME drives in 2023 use significantly less power, and are an order of magnitude faster than the spinning HDD's of 2009.
For current project workspace, multiple Thunderbolt 3 NVME drives make the Apple Silicon Mac mini a joy to work on.
USB is fine if you need large data storage disks.

 

[Taipan]

"Or am I just living in the past?"

Yes, you are.
For most cases, USB these days is just fine.

I expected as much. Thanks for the confirmation.

"...mainly because of power consumption"

SSD's and NVME drives in 2023 use significantly less power, and are an order of magnitude faster than the spinning HDD's of 2009.
For current project workspace, multiple Thunderbolt 3 NVME drives make the Apple Silicon Mac mini a joy to work on.
USB is fine if you need large data storage disks.

I have probably around 30 GB of data on those drives, I can’t afford to put all of that on Thunderbolt flash drives.
I have no idea how much energy my Mac Pro consumes, I wouldn‘t be surprised if it’s around 200 watts even under light load. There should be room for improvement in that regard, even with an external spinning drive running.