I'm looking for a reliable 8TB or larger SSD External ( cost is not an issue ) for the Mac Studio Ultra. I do not want a OWC brand external. Thunderbolt 3 or 4 would be great . Any assistance or feedback would be much appreciated. Jon
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Best External 8TB minimum SSD External for Time Machine Backups
- Thread starter TheFloridaPhotog
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Get a thunderbolt 3 or USB4 (40Gb) enclosure and stick in an 8TB SSD stick. Inland (Microcenter) makes a decent QLC model. Expect to pay about $1250 total for all of this though.
How does your Studio edit the A1 8K footage? In editing 4K HEVC from my A7S3, our Ultra 48C is barely faster than the Max 32C. At best about 30% on effects laden edits, and rarely faster on export. That‘s with heavy edits layers Multicam effects etc. Great for the laptop but Ultra seems overkill for the desktop.
For 8K though….?
How does your Studio edit the A1 8K footage? In editing 4K HEVC from my A7S3, our Ultra 48C is barely faster than the Max 32C. At best about 30% on effects laden edits, and rarely faster on export. That‘s with heavy edits layers Multicam effects etc. Great for the laptop but Ultra seems overkill for the desktop.
For 8K though….?
I just got it setup (7/14) and will be testing it over the next couple weeks. If the speed it loads programs is any indication then I'm going to like this machine.
I tried editing such footage today. All were A1 clips taken at 8K - HEVC. I was able to lay about 3 clips (8K HEVC) on top of each other with color corrections applied in real time at best performance in FCP. 2 clips at best quality. Transitions etc were fast enough. I could edit without transcoding with effects applied for about 2 8K clips at once. 3 if I put on better performance mode. For 4K, it's more like 8-12 (HEVC).
However... even with 8K it's only about 20% faster than my M1 Max 32 core laptop in FCP. The software isn't optimized; the computer never peaks out like the laptop does. I hope they improve that. Some of the render times were identical, showing that the extra encoder engines aren't being used yet.
In Lightroom, Blender, other apps that rely heavy on CPU - it's about 2X as fast.
