How reliable are (affordable) dongles with attached external ssds?

[Camarillo Brillo]

Hello,

I am going back and forth between an m1 Mac mini or MacBook Air. It will be used in clamshell 95%+ of the time. But I really love the idea of being able to take it with me anywhere, and having built in battery backup.

My main concern is that I will have to use a usb c dongle with power pass through, because I’d like to use a couple attached devices. I am not willing to spend $300 on a tb dock - if that is necessary I’d rather just use the mini.

I found an anker usbc dongle that works well, but I have concerns about leaving an external ssd attached to the dongle - is it safe? Can a dongle fry an attached ssd? Will it be an unstable setup? Can I just let it go to sleep, wake it up, etc while leaving it in clamshell, without having to constantly eject and remount the ssd? Should I be concerned about leaving a MacBook Air hooked up like this, assuming I exercise the battery every so often?

My number one concern is losing data on the external ssd due to the dongle. If it’s only really safe to leave the ssd attached to the MacBook directly via the tb port, I’d rather just get the mini

What do you think? Could I make this work with an air or should I just be getting a mini?

 

[cupcakes2000]

Buy for a reputable supplier and you’ll have no concern. (Or not, actually in my opinion - never heard of an adapter frying anything).

 

[alien3dx]

Buy for a reputable supplier and you’ll have no concern. (Or not, actually in my opinion - never heard of an adapter frying anything).

yes .. me adapter usb c bye2 . hard disk external still okay.

 

[Fishrrman]

"I am going back and forth between an m1 Mac mini or MacBook Air. It will be used in clamshell 95%+ of the time."

Get the Mini.
More connections.

BE SURE to get one with 16gb of RAM.