External Drive enclosure for Mac Mini 18

[radiohead007]

I will be migrating off of my 2008 Mac Pro with 4 bays of drives (1 SSD / 3 HD). Yes 10 years!

Had a few questions on external storage on new mac mini that perhaps others may be contemplating.

1) Any recommendations on enclosures. Is the Thunderbay 4 from OWC reliable and speedy? Do I need the Thunderbolt 3 version, Thunderbolt 2 version, would it make any difference? Are there better options out there?

2) How would the speed of this option (with SSD), compare with the SSD internal on the Mac Mini?

3) Is there a thunderbolt 2 or 3 external hard drive that actually leverages the speed of these pipes?

thanks!

 

[Ewen Cameron]

I was looking at this, for a cheaper option,
https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-S..."+External+Hard+Drive+Enclosure+thunderbolt+3

 

[iriejedi]

Great to hear I'm not alone! my 2008 Mac Pro is still great - the 1TB SSD for the boot drive and Radeon 5870 is a great upgrade over the years... but it is getting to the point that even Turbo Tax will not work next year.... so I technically have to upgrade by April.

Regardless of new Mac the question of the 4 drives has always been perplexing - what to do.... wondering really how my crap is redundant (boot folders and App folder duplication) and how much has no value anymore.... could I consolidate to a external drive and not incur the cost of the 4 bay docking station.... Costco has a 6TB USB 3.0 drive.... for $169. That is where I am leaning, but that is because I have little need for speed and most my files are overall small.

 

[ElectronGuru]

If your needs are serious, spend time choosing the perfect raid setup. If those drives are just small and accumulated over years and aren’t organized, you can also go cheap and cheerful

One of these
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D5V2ZXD/

And maybe an external SSD for faster stuff!

 

[radiohead007]

Yah, a Costco 6tb external could serve as a backup. The drive quality inside may vary. My existing drives include a 1tb ssd and 3 wd black drives that have served me good (1-5 tb range). I do heavy photo work and plan to get into video editing.

Great to hear I'm not alone! my 2008 Mac Pro is still great - the 1TB SSD for the boot drive and Radeon 5870 is a great upgrade over the years... but it is getting to the point that even Turbo Tax will not work next year.... so I technically have to upgrade by April.

Regardless of new Mac the question of the 4 drives has always been perplexing - what to do.... wondering really how my crap is redundant (boot folders and App folder duplication) and how much has no value anymore.... could I consolidate to a external drive and not incur the cost of the 4 bay docking station.... Costco has a 6TB USB 3.0 drive.... for $169. That is where I am leaning, but that is because I have little need for speed and most my files are overall small.

 

[archer75]

I use a drobo.

 

[radiohead007]

I use a drobo.

I will be using it for heavy photo / Lightroom libraries. Does NAS work as well (and as fast) as usb/thunderbolt drives for these type of uses?

 

[archer75]

I will be using it for heavy photo / Lightroom libraries. Does NAS work as well (and as fast) as usb/thunderbolt drives for these type of uses?

The drobo I have is not a NAS. It's a DAS. It connects via USB 3 or Thunderbolt 2.
I use it for lightroom libraries and housing thousands of movies, BD rips, 4k rips, full 4k disc rips that run multiple streams inside and outside the home.