Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Any idea how to connect 16 tb with ssd speed to MacBook M1?
- Thread starter Appletoni
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Not really possible until they release ssd of that size - which is a long away off and prohibitively expensive.
You could look in to raid arrays, raid 0 or ‘striped’ as it’s known is the fastest type. you can certainly get great speeds depending on what you need.
This works with spinning disks or with ssds, so if you get an enclosure l that can handle a big enough array, then you can get close to those storage amounts using ssd’s. Will cost you a pretty penny though!
Look in to it, you should find a workable solution.
As others already mentioned, your only choice at this point is a striped RAID of SATA SSDs.
For example (a quick search):
www.newegg.com
Eight of these (2TB or 4TB)
www.newegg.com
For example (a quick search):
HighPoint RocketStor RS6628A 8-Bay 2nd Gen Thunderbolt 3 Hardware RAID Enclosure - Newegg.com
Buy HighPoint RocketStor RS6628A RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, JBOD Thunderbolt 3 8-Bay 2nd Gen Thunderbolt 3 Hardware RAID Enclosure with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!
Eight of these (2TB or 4TB)
SAMSUNG 870 EVO 4TB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-77E4T0B/AM) , Black - Newegg.com
Buy SAMSUNG 870 EVO 4TB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-77E4T0B/AM) , Black with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!
I can’t disagree. I’ve not needed to go beyond a 2-bay array and 2TB.
OWC has a decently fast Thunderbolt SSD RAID that goes up to 16 TB. You can daisy chain two and with their software RAID solution get a single 32 TB drive. As mentioned, it costs quite a bit. $4379.00 for 16 TB so $8758.00 for 32 TB.
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-thunderblade
OWC is Apple level expensive but they make good stuff. They bought SoftRAID and kept it alive which makes them good guys in my book.
I have exactly that one. In a cradle coneccted via USB to my Mac mini. Works like charm.
But if more storage is required, I'd go for a NAS.
OWC is great for niche stuff like that. You’ll pay a pretty penny, but that’s the sandbox we’ve all chosen to play in.
The old MacBook Pro 16-inch has 8 tb ssd. I see no reason to buy less than 8 tb. Especially because it‘s Apple.
8 TB SSDs:
8 TB M.2 NVMe SSDs:
It would be easy for Apple to sell the MacBook Pro 16-inch with 2 x Samsung 870 QVO SSDs instead of only one SSD.
Apple could also sell 3 or 6 Corsair or Sabrent M.2 NVMe SSDs.
8 TB SSDs:
Micron MTFDDAK1T9TCB-1AR1ZABYY Solid State Drive 8TB
Samsung 870 QVO 8TB
8 TB M.2 NVMe SSDs:
Corsair MP400 8TB M.2 NVMe PCIe x4 Gen3 SSD
Sabrent Rocket Q 8TB M.2 NVMe PCIe
It would be easy for Apple to sell the MacBook Pro 16-inch with 2 x Samsung 870 QVO SSDs instead of only one SSD.
Apple could also sell 3 or 6 Corsair or Sabrent M.2 NVMe SSDs.
What are you trying to accomplish that needs this sort of SSD size? There may be other ways to accomplish this other than a very large SSD.
What? Why? What do you need that much storage for? And why would you want to spend so much money?
Apple does not use standard consumer SSDs...
That's bonkers. Specialized software and hardware solutions are $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
For a company, that's not really that much. Employees tend to cost way more than hardware (salaries, benefits, FICA, workers' comp, etc).
If an uber-fast SSD array will help efficiency, that more than pays for itself.
That's true. $8,500 spent over however many years is a drop in the bucket if you're using it for business.
I can see an immediate need for this, even in a portable format like the OWC, for lots of video work. In the office, also for other huge data sets, like image recognition. The speed and ease of working with such equipment pays for itself in a very short amount of time. Nothing to be seen here, move on
Our organization spent well over $300K during the pandemic just to equip each of our sites (25) with the custom made caching Mac Mini (64GB, 6 core i7, 10Gbe), 32TB SSD storage, and a contract for an Apple engineer to write code for auto user profile backups on our DEP enrolled, MDM controlled iOS & Mac devices.
That was not much, compared to the amount we spent on each staff member (750): $700,000 for a new MBP, iPad Pro, ATV, and remote presentation display setups by a contractor.
That was a drop in the bucket as funding came from Federal CARES act...
Last edited:
I would be very difficult to get "SSD speeds" out of any NAS. The only hope would be via 10Gbps ethernet. You'd be better off with a DAS RAID setup connected via TB3 or TB4.
Yes, exactly. If the criterium is only "more storage", then a NAS is very nice. But if you want more storage at that same speed, you're looking at a very heavy investment in your network as well. It's feasible, because all media companies have very high performance storage networks, but expect major reductions of your bank account balance.
But then the network approach is somewhat future proof, subject to less potential risk, and is a sound investment due to easier maintenance and flexibility down the road. Matter of fact when someone comes with a "16-32TB" hot data requirement, I would first look at network solution due to the sheer volume and the associated backup needs that come with it. Prices of 10GbE network components are also getting into pro-/consumer friendly range lately.