Use one SSD for photos and TM?

[MrMister111]

I’m looking into getting an iMac stand/dock/hub that has an integrated SSD/NVME slot in which is under the stand hidden out of way, like below.

Firstly what are these like for heat etc, is the SSD ok running in these enclosures?

Secondly would these be ok, can you even, partition somehow to have a TM and Photos library on there? At the moment I have two external, one SSD, one HDD for these. It would be nice to be able to hide it away in an enclosure and both be SSD.

Maybe can’t…just found good Apple support doc about conflicts on Photos library and TM on same external drive.

System Photo Library overview in Photos on Mac

In Photos on your Mac, the System Photo Library manages and stores your photos and works with iCloud services.

support.apple.com

 

[DarkPremiumCho]

I would not recommend using products like this one, as their focus is usually on appearance over functionality. If your Time Machine is frequently utilizing a high throughput, using such a product could put your data at risk or decrease the longevity of the SSD.

 

[MrMister111]

I would not recommend using products like this one, as their focus is usually on appearance over functionality. If your Time Machine is frequently utilizing a high throughput, using such a product could put your data at risk or decrease the longevity of the SSD.

So you think the SSD part is not a good idea? They don’t use a heatsink and just use a thermal pad.

Also looking at the Satechi stand/hub which just has ports on the front and no SSD slot.

Just trying to get rid of clutter, my photos library is on an external Samsung SSD T7, and TM on a older “spinny” HDD which is fine for what it does.

 

[DarkPremiumCho]

It's not a good idea, unless you have multiple backup strategies in place to keep your photos and data secured.

 

[Fishrrman]

You want your main backup to be on a separate, stand-alone drive.
I wouldn't "mix it" with other stuff.

If you have so many photos that they can't fit on the internal, then a SECOND "data drive" would be a solution for that.

But remember, if you store pics (and other data) on a second drive, then THAT drive needs to be "backed up", as well.

 

[MrMister111]

You want your main backup to be on a separate, stand-alone drive.
I wouldn't "mix it" with other stuff.

If you have so many photos that they can't fit on the internal, then a SECOND "data drive" would be a solution for that.

But remember, if you store pics (and other data) on a second drive, then THAT drive needs to be "backed up", as well.

I already have my photo library on a separate external SSD.

The TM backs up my internal and the photos library and I also have iCloud Photo Library 2Tb, and a separate cloud service so covered.

Having found that Apple support article, I won’t be mixing now. I’m unsure now wether to go for the above with SSD and buy a NVME for the TM bit though, or just get the Satechi one just for the ports.

 

[zorinlynx]

You should have two Time Machine drives and swap them periodically, keeping one of them offsite. Make sure they are encrypted so if you lose one your data is not at risk.

Having two drives covers you if one drive fails during the restore process or if you have a disaster like a fire that destroys both the computer and the time machine drive you have at home.

They shouldn't be used for anything else important, except maybe scratch space for unimportant stuff. Any SSD of adequate size should be fine; you don't need super high performance drives for TM.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Enclosures made for SSDs are usually fine. I've been using one from OWC that holds both a m.2 stick AND a traditional HDD inside ONE case with a few extra thunderbolt ports for more than a year now. It gets a LOT of fairly intense use as a video editing scratch disc(s). No problems. OP, if you like the one you identify in post #1, be sure to look up reviews to confirm it is a reasonably good one. If not, shop around. There's plenty of enclosure+hub combos available.

However, as others offered, I wouldn't be trying to double up daily use storage and TM storage. Keep those separate.

Since you seem to have an aesthetics (hide the drives) goal, look into putting your TM drive elsewhere. Does your router have a USB jack? If so, perhaps you can hook the TM drive to your router and turn it into a network TM drive? That generally works very well and can hide the hard drive (visually and audibly) elsewhere (where you keep your router). Bonus: if you are a multiple Mac household, others can backup to it too (a shared TM backup drive if you will).

OR perhaps look into adding a dedicated NAS drive for TM to do the same? It will have an ethernet port and you can connect it to the router by ethernet. This can work well when the router doesn't have a USB jack. Just use one of the ethernet ports. For example, here's a 4-star-rated 6TB NAS drive for about $200 and there are plenty of fish in that sea with all levels of backup storage available... including multi-drive units for gigantic storage if desired. I chose the latter using Synology enclosures myself. Same bonus (of being able to backup multiple Macs if desired here too).

BOTH, meaning use both types of drive for TM:

• the always-attached NAS drive for regular, ongoing backups AND
• the direct attached drive you already have for occasional TM backups.

Then, store the latter OFFSITE so that if your Mac and home TM drive are both lost (fire, theft, flood, etc), you still have a recently updated TM drive to recover everything up to the last day you updated it. I use a 3-drive approach myself:

1. always-attached NAS for daily TM backups
2. one DAS drive at home for regular backups
3. one DAS drive stored offsite in a safe deposit box to swap with #2.

When I'm ready for an approx monthly swap, I TM backup up to date to #2, then take it to the bank to swap with #3. A few weeks later, I'm ready to swap again and repeat the process. At a monthly swap pace, worst case scenario is losing the files not backed up to #3 since the last swap. If there is anything particularly important to not risk that scenario, I can simply do a swap earlier than monthly.