Fastest external storage possibilities for Mac Mini M2 Pro

[Silly John Fatty]

I'm not planing any server activities or anything in that direction, so I'm not sure if this is the right forum, but I know this is where all the experts are lurking.

I am planing to get the new Mac Mini M2 Pro, but the storage is so damn pricey, that I will most likely only get the 2 TB model and get additional external storage.

The thing is that I'd like the external storage to be as fast as the internal storage. That's the main point.

So far everyone has recommended me NVME SSDs. Some other people said that's "dangerous" because of the heat, etc., but perhaps also because of the bandwidth? Could such storage do damage to the Mac?

So I appreciate any recommendations to get external storage that's as fast as the Mini's internal SSD in terms of read & write speeds. And also, now that I think of it, could I maybe even use Ethernet for such storage?

Thanks guys, you're the best

 

[jz0309]

I'm not planing any server activities or anything in that direction, so I'm not sure if this is the right forum, but I know this is where all the experts are lurking.

I am planing to get the new Mac Mini M2 Pro, but the storage is so damn pricey, that I will most likely only get the 2 TB model and get additional external storage.

The thing is that I'd like the external storage to be as fast as the internal storage. That's the main point.

So far everyone has recommended me NVME SSDs. Some other people said that's "dangerous" because of the heat, etc., but perhaps also because of the bandwidth? Could such storage do damage to the Mac?

So I appreciate any recommendations to get external storage that's as fast as the Mini's internal SSD in terms of read & write speeds. And also, now that I think of it, could I maybe even use Ethernet for such storage?

Thanks guys, you're the best

what type of data do you have that requires said speeds? and how much storage do you need/want?

 

[Silly John Fatty]

what type of data do you have that requires said speeds? and how much storage do you need/want?

Now I have to ask this stupid question: What types of data are there? My thought is that it would ideally be suited for all types of data.

As for the amount of storage: I'm thinking of ordering the Mini with 4 TB and then I'll probably need another few TBs externally. The question is of course wether it might not be cheaper to get the 8 TB mini right away. Because the reason I'm looking for external solutions is that the 8 TB Mini is so damn expensive.

What I'm also looking forward to is the possibility to expand the storage in the future. So I might only get 1 TB of external storage to start with. I already have 6 TB of external storage now (some on SSDs, some on normal HDDs), but I might not copy everything right away to the new system. There's some stuff I never touch, so it could potentially stay there.

 

[jz0309]

Now I have to ask this stupid question: What types of data are there? My thought is that it would ideally be suited for all types of data.

As for the amount of storage: I'm thinking of ordering the Mini with 4 TB and then I'll probably need another few TBs externally. The question is of course wether it might not be cheaper to get the 8 TB mini right away. Because the reason I'm looking for external solutions is that the 8 TB Mini is so damn expensive.

What I'm also looking forward to is the possibility to expand the storage in the future. So I might only get 1 TB of external storage to start with. I already have 6 TB of external storage now (some on SSDs, some on normal HDDs), but I might not copy everything right away to the new system. There's some stuff I never touch, so it could potentially stay there.

re what type of data: eg, I have close to 2TB or ripped DVDs, but for playback a USB 3 external SSD is plenty fast enough, even a HDD might be. same would go for music playback. Those are primarily read, not write.
Then you hav data that gets constantly written/read, that's where speed matters. .
What type files do you have today? how much space does it occupy? how do you see that changing over time?

For me, I opted for a Studio with 4TB internal, plan is to use that Studio for the next 4-6 years. I have ~80k photos that take currently ~ 1TB and I anticipate that will at least double over that 4-6 year timeframe. And I wanted to keep them on the internal SSD for best performance, external would have worked too of course.

So think about what you have today, how you use it, and what growth do you expect over time

 

[Silly John Fatty]

re what type of data: eg, I have close to 2TB or ripped DVDs, but for playback a USB 3 external SSD is plenty fast enough, even a HDD might be. same would go for music playback. Those are primarily read, not write.
Then you hav data that gets constantly written/read, that's where speed matters. .
What type files do you have today? how much space does it occupy? how do you see that changing over time?

For me, I opted for a Studio with 4TB internal, plan is to use that Studio for the next 4-6 years. I have ~80k photos that take currently ~ 1TB and I anticipate that will at least double over that 4-6 year timeframe. And I wanted to keep them on the internal SSD for best performance, external would have worked too of course.

So think about what you have today, how you use it, and what growth do you expect over time

Okay I see, well it's all kinds of data really. It's a big amount of photos and videos as well (and the Photos app is super slow for me), but in the past I've also been doing a lot of music production and I want the computer to be suited for that as well in the future.

In addition I also have huge and very complex Excel and Word files that terribly lag on my SATA SSDs in my current Mac Pro. SATA is super dated of course, but I expect everything to grow in size in the future, so I want the computer to be future proof for the next 10 years if possible.

So I personally have no doubt that I need/want those speeds.

 

[ovbacon]

In the mini forum there are tons of threads about external storage.... and there is nothing dangerous about an external ssd due to the warmth that comes from it.

 

[jz0309]

Okay I see, well it's all kinds of data really. It's a big amount of photos and videos as well (and the Photos app is super slow for me), but in the past I've also been doing a lot of music production and I want the computer to be suited for that as well in the future.

In addition I also have huge and very complex Excel and Word files that terribly lag on my SATA SSDs in my current Mac Pro. SATA is super dated of course, but I expect everything to grow in size in the future, so I want the computer to be future proof for the next 10 years if possible.

So I personally have no doubt that I need/want those speeds.

as above, there are also threads n the Mac accessories forum about external storage.

I my memory serves me right, the max speed that you get over TB4 with NVME SSDs is somewhere 2500-2700MBs, which is right half of the high capacity internal SSDs. That is quite fast, but ...
So, compare the delta of cost for upgrading to 8TB internal vs adding external and then you have a datapoint.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

In the mini forum there are tons of threads about external storage.... and there is nothing dangerous about an external ssd due to the warmth that comes from it.

Yeah, will make a thread there as well. Don’t worry, you’ll get rid of me soon enough 👀

as above, there are also threads n the Mac accessories forum about external storage.

I my memory serves me right, the max speed that you get over TB4 with NVME SSDs is somewhere 2500-2700MBs, which is right half of the high capacity internal SSDs. That is quite fast, but ...
So, compare the delta of cost for upgrading to 8TB internal vs adding external and then you have a datapoint.

Yeah, from what I heard it’s because Thunderbolt reserves at most 22 GB/s for data transfer. But there’s ways to increase that I think, if you use two ports. I don’t know if that’s not dangerous for the Mac, however.

Is it possible to connect external storage to Ethernet instead of Thunderbolt?

 

[jz0309]

Is it possible to connect external storage to Ethernet instead of Thunderbolt?

yes, then your talking NAS but I doubt you get speeds close to internal or even external SSD. Others can correct me but I believe 1Gigabit Ethernet gives you ~ 350MBs...
plenty threads here about NAS

 

[gilby101]

Others can correct me but I believe 1Gigabit Ethernet gives you ~ 350MBs

With 8 bits in a Byte, 1 Gbit/s (i.e. 1000 Mbit/s) ethernet is unlikely to give you more than 1000/8 MByte/s. So 350 MByte/s seems a bit optimistic to me. More like 100 MByte/s allowing a bit for protocol overhead.

 

[Middleman-77]

With your question, (for me) it is akin to 'How long is a piece of string?'. External drives come in many shapes and sizes. You don't mention what you plan to use the fast external storage for? Having some idea of what you plan to use it for can help us to work out what exact specs it is that you need.

About myself, I've been involved with imaging for many years so I need and use plenty of storage. Over the years of using Windows (3.1/95/NT/2000) and Macs (Powermac G4/G5, Powerbook G4/G5, Newton, G4 Cube, iMac, Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, Mac Mini, Mac Pro etc) I've come to this conclusion - for external storage nothing beats the speed and costs of RAID drives (and I have been using them for years since the early days using Adaptec/ATTO cards). A RAID drive is a drive made of 4 or more separate drives (usually Winchester 3.5" spinning drives) that works as one array or volume. Even back over 10 years ago, despite large drives sizes over 10TB not being available we could easily fit 16TB into an array using a handful of 2TB drives.

With RAID it used to be a complex thing with SCSI cards and stuff until the likes of Drobo and Thunderbolt connection appeared (which simplified usage and cost of using them for non-technical users). They helped to bring down the cost of storage with their 5D/5DT drives. But as the Drobo company went out of business early this year, I am reluctant to recommend them these days to users (as they won't work with Ventura). However I would say you could look into drives from Areca (I have been using them for over 10 years) https://www.areca.com.tw/products/thunderbolt-8050T3.html. They have Thunderbolt 3 support (12TB/s), up to 8 or 12 bays and the latest drives all work with Apple Silicon.

I would stick with hardware RAID from likes of Areca as they offer the best reliability overall (which is crucial to maintaining data integrity). I would avoid software-based RAID altogether.

NVMes are not too bad, but they are still very expensive for what they are (compared to Drobo or Areca) and they cannot be combined into a larger sized array like a RAID drive can. If you want to use more than one NVMe you'll need to use a special NVMe dock like this one. > https://www.orico.cc/us/product/detail/7161.html

As for the ethernet via NAS, that is a possibility as QNAP as they have NAS product that works with 10GBe speeds - but you'd need a dedicated network setup plus box to do this. And you must bear in mind QNAP isn't considered that safe these days as a brand as they had a lot of online security issues in recent times.

 

[Dr_Charles_Forbin]

Apple hates NAS, except for backups via smb. I'm in a similar situation... I'm looking at either a mini or studio to replace my 2014 mini that's just dying and I have 2x1TB SSD's on board. Mostly photos and music. 2TB is too big of a cost to swallow for internal storage and I have to go external. Don't need overkill and since I have time machine I can always restore what I need so Raid isn't really an issue. At most, I need a 4 bay solution.. that ARECA is just too damn expensive.

 

[rayward]

I have an M2 (non-Pro) Mac mini, and I added an 8TB SSD inside a Thunderbolt expansion dock. I know the Pro comes with more ports than the non-Pro, but the dock gives me front-facing ports and two SD card slots. Also, you can never have too many ports, amiright!

USB-C Hub with Hard Drive Enclosure for Mac Mini M2 M1, Type C Docking Station with SATA SSD/HDD Slot, Dual USB 3.0/2.0 Port, TF/SD Card Readers, Compatible with Mac Mini 2018/2020

USB-C Hub with Hard Drive Enclosure for Mac Mini M2 M1, Type C Docking Station with SATA SSD/HDD Slot, Dual USB 3.0/2.0 Port, TF/SD Card Readers, Compatible with Mac Mini 2018/2020

www.amazon.com

 

[Dr_Charles_Forbin]

There's a reported issue with port speeds out of these hubs/drive enclosures. Some only use 2 channels instead of 4 in the USB C connector. If you're getting decent speed, that's great. For me now, the storage is pushing off my buy.. now I have to factor in the cost of a SAN device... some of them are outrageously expensive.

 

[rayward]

There's a reported issue with port speeds out of these hubs/drive enclosures. Some only use 2 channels instead of 4 in the USB C connector. If you're getting decent speed, that's great. For me now, the storage is pushing off my buy.. now I have to factor in the cost of a SAN device... some of them are outrageously expensive.

My dock can push through up to 5gb/s, which is not bad but still way below the 40gb/s that the Thunderbolt port can accept. Still, it's not going to be the limiting factor on the read/write speed from an SSD which, at best, run at about 500mb/s.

 

[hajime]

Apple hates NAS, except for backups via smb.

Why Apple hates NAS?

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Personally I think I've found the solution already, and I won't be using NAS (it's only 10 Gb/s at most, but I actually only took the 1 Gb/s Ethernet option on the Mini I got now) but rather I'll be using Thunderbolt. It's 40 Gb/s. I'll do a RAID 0 on two enclosures with multiple drives, then I should be able to get close to 40 Gb/s. Some other people on Macrumors have demonstrated it and uploaded their read & write speeds.

Check out my profile, there's another thread I opened about it. Or go to the Mac Mini or Mac accessories section of the forum, it's there somewhere.

 

[gilby101]

My dock can push through up to 5gb/s, which is not bad but still way below the 40gb/s that the Thunderbolt port can accept. Still, it's not going to be the limiting factor on the read/write speed from an SSD which, at best, run at about 500mb/s.

500 mb/s?? I think you mean 500 MB/s, as in 500 MBytes/s. A SATA SSD is limited to about 500 MB/s - so roughly the same as the 5 Gb/s of USB 3.0. But NVMe SSDs (which are in most SSD+enclosures you can buy) are faster than that. So your USB 3.0 dock will be a bottleneck for many SSDs. But it is a nice looking, low cost dock which I am sure will do you well.

 

[Middleman-77]

Apple hates NAS, except for backups via smb. I'm in a similar situation... I'm looking at either a mini or studio to replace my 2014 mini that's just dying and I have 2x1TB SSD's on board. Mostly photos and music. 2TB is too big of a cost to swallow for internal storage and I have to go external. Don't need overkill and since I have time machine I can always restore what I need so Raid isn't really an issue. At most, I need a 4 bay solution.. that ARECA is just too damn expensive.

You may say that (that it seems too expensive) but it becomes a worthy investment in the long run when you consider we didn't need to upgrade the drive/case every 2-3 years and the drive NEVER broke down at all throughout its life. In fact it is still in daily use today since we bought it around 13 years ago, which has since been upgraded to 48TB sometime last year using 8 x 6TB Toshiba drives. How many drive brands on hand can you count can last that long? Not many in my experience (and I've had many). For instance I had a Promise RAID drive a few years back and that didn't last more than 3 years before it went kaput. If getting a drive a little bit more expensive means I get more reliability in the long run I'd rather pay for it quite frankly as it's totally worth it.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

You may say that (that it seems too expensive) but it becomes a worthy investment in the long run when you consider we didn't need to upgrade the drive/case every 2-3 years and the drive NEVER broke down at all throughout its life. In fact it is still in daily use today since we bought it around 13 years ago, which has since been upgraded to 48TB sometime last year using 8 x 6TB Toshiba drives. How many drive brands on hand can you count can last that long? Not many in my experience (and I've had many). For instance I had a Promise RAID drive a few years back and that didn't last more than 3 years before it went kaput. If getting a drive a little bit more expensive means I get more reliability in the long run I'd rather pay for it quite frankly as it's totally worth it.

Do you think Samsung is a good brand? I was thinking of getting their NVMe SSD (the latest one with the heatsink).

I’ve also had a western digital or whatever it’s called. It’s an external HDD I’ve had for maybe 10 years or so (“my book”-something …).

 

[Middleman-77]

Do you think Samsung is a good brand? I was thinking of getting their NVMe SSD (the latest one with the heatsink).

I’ve also had a western digital or whatever it’s called. It’s an external HDD I’ve had for maybe 10 years or so (“my book”-something …).

Yes sure, Samsung is a very good brand (especially their EVO/PRO 950-970 drives). I have bought probably near 60% Samsung drives for all my setups including an SSD for a 2013 Macbook Air. Unfortunately of late there's reports of them causing problems with newer Macs due to a firmware issue (Pro 980?) with Macs. This was reported by a few publications sometime ago. Hence these days users are more likely to move to another brand of SSDs, such as WD.

As for HDDs, WD's hasn't been too bad. I think the MyBook range has gotten better over the years size and reliability-wise. This is because WD has absorbed parts of Hitachi's/HGST and Toshiba's 2.5" hard drive operations, so I think that may be the main reason why they have gotten better. As for others, I mostly buy Toshiba 3.5" for my RAID setups, and if I can't get them WD is usually a second choice.

 

[Silly John Fatty]

Yes sure, Samsung is a very good brand (especially their EVO/PRO 950-970 drives). I have bought probably near 60% Samsung drives for all my setups including an SSD for a 2013 Macbook Air. Unfortunately of late there's reports of them causing problems with newer Macs due to a firmware issue (Pro 980?) with Macs. This was reported by a few publications sometime ago. Hence these days users are more likely to move to another brand of SSDs, such as WD.

As for HDDs, WD's hasn't been too bad. I think the MyBook range has gotten better over the years size and reliability-wise. This is because WD has absorbed parts of Hitachi's/HGST and Toshiba's 2.5" hard drive operations, so I think that may be the main reason why they have gotten better. As for others, I mostly buy Toshiba 3.5" for my RAID setups, and if I can't get them WD is usually a second choice.

These issues with newer Macs, what Macs are we talking about? I suppose older ones, since new ones have soldered memory? I'd plan to use these externally, do you think it makes any difference? I kind of trust Samsung and would feel safe going with their products. I have one Samsung SSD right now (SATA).