Fastest external SSD for Mac?

[zombierunner]

I was looking at Sandisk Extreme Pro which supports upto 2000mb/s speeds but looking at youtube reviews, you don't get those speeds on M1 macs. Is that the same with M2 series macs. Is there any external SSD that works with Mac and gets 2000 mb/s speeds. I am considering getting the samsung t7 which supports upto 1050mb/s but if there is something faster please let me know.

 

[unrigestered]

if you want to go the fastest, you'll need a Thunderbolt drive, as all max USB transfer speeds will be hampered on Mac.
i don't have any recommendations regarding those more rare TB drives though.

regarding the Sandisk Extremes: be aware that most of them seem to have serious issues regarding sudden data losses. i would avoid those until it has been verified that their newer revisions will not suffer from these issues and that you most likely won't receive some old, affected stock anymore

 

[GumaRodak]

Lacie Bolt for example

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I posted a similar question and sent the T7's back. If you're ok with a 2TB limit then get a TB enclosure with a NVMe m.2.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

I was looking at Sandisk Extreme Pro which supports upto 2000mb/s speeds but looking at youtube reviews, you don't get those speeds on M1 macs. Is that the same with M2 series macs. Is there any external SSD that works with Mac and gets 2000 mb/s speeds. I am considering getting the samsung t7 which supports upto 1050mb/s but if there is something faster please let me know.

OWC says "hello" with the ThunderBlade transferring @ 2800MB/s.

OWC ThunderBlade: 40 GB/s Thunderbolt (USB-C) NVMe RAID SSD

Silent, blazingly fast, and mobile-ready, the OWC ThunderBlade offers top-tier performance with RAID reliability for creative professionals on the go.

eshop.macsales.com

P.S.: Avoid SanDisk like the plague. There's a serious issue with a couple of their models leading to data loss and I quite frankly just wouldn't trust them any time soon.

 

[finalcut]

There is a kingston that does that speed as well

 

[Fishrrman]

Another possibility.

If you have a recent m-series Mac that has support for USB4, you could use a USB4 drive (which are supposed to have a theoretical speed of "up to" 40GBps).

I could be wrong about this, and welcome corrections.

Some USB4 enclosures:

USB4 enclosure | Newegg.com

Search Newegg.com for USB4 enclosure. Get fast shipping and top-rated customer service.

www.newegg.com

 

[ovbacon]

I was looking at Sandisk Extreme Pro which supports upto 2000mb/s speeds but looking at youtube reviews, you don't get those speeds on M1 macs. Is that the same with M2 series macs. Is there any external SSD that works with Mac and gets 2000 mb/s speeds. I am considering getting the samsung t7 which supports upto 1050mb/s but if there is something faster please let me know.

I've only had trouble with the Sandisk Extreme Pro and it completely failed within a few weeks.

I got a Acasis (TBU405) 40Gbps M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure (fits up to 8TB) USB-C with a Samsung 980 Pro 2TB PCIe NVMe Gen 4 M.2 SSD (Tests in Blackmagic on a mini M2: steady at W:2800+ MB/s, R:2700+/- MB/s).

There are multiple good enclosures and ssds to choose from if speed is important.