Macbook m1 hard drive compatibility

[Miggins1610]

Hi there. After years of getting crappy refurbished computers and never lasting long, I have decided to go for the M1 macbook pro..

I want to get an external hard drive but confused about what drives would be compatible.

Thunderbolt 3 (up to 40Gb/s)
USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10Gb/s)

Those are what it says the ports are. Are there any reasonable hard drives around £100 that would work.

I was looking at the western digital

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjAAegQIGhAB&usg=AOvVaw1ATtm4VKiuPnpcIPw3G3Sd

[/URL]

 

[Zazoh]

Go to Apple site, see what they offer, if nothing at price point you want, then search google for same specs. There is a 2TB external For $99 (U.S.)

 

[lightfire]

I am hoping a USB nvme enclosure works well with the m.2 drive of one’s choice.

 

[deeddawg]

Hi there. After years of getting crappy refurbished computers and never lasting long, I have decided to go for the M1 macbook pro..

I want to get an external hard drive but confused about what drives would be compatible.

Thunderbolt 3 (up to 40Gb/s)
USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10Gb/s)

Those are what it says the ports are. Are there any reasonable hard drives around £100 that would work.

I was looking at the western digital

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjAAegQIGhAB&usg=AOvVaw1ATtm4VKiuPnpcIPw3G3Sd

[/URL]

I can't think of an external USB or Thunderbolt drive that wouldn't work.

Speed costs though. The inexpensive high capacity drives tend to be slow. Fast drives (external SSD) tend to to be expensive.

Both of these work fine with my macbooks:

SanDisk 1TB Extreme Portable SSD - Up to 1050MB/s - USB-C, USB 3.2 Gen 2 - External Solid State Drive - SDSSDE61-1T00-G25

Your life’s an adventure. To capture and keep its best moments, you need fast, high-capacity storage that accelerates every move. 1050MB/s read and 1000MB/s write speeds let you store your content and creations on a fast drive that fits seamlessly into your active lifestyle. Up to two-meter drop ...

www.amazon.com

Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB External Hard Drive Portable HDD – Blue USB 3.0 for PC Laptop and Mac, 2 Months Adobe CC Photography (STDR2000102)

Store and access 2TB of photos and files on the go with Backup Plus Slim, a great external hard drive for Mac and Windows computers. The perfect compliment to personal aesthetic, this portable external hard drive features a minimalist metal enclosure and quick plug and play connectivity with the ...

www.amazon.com

The 1TB SSD is well over 10x faster than the 2TB spinning drive.

 

[deeddawg]

I am hoping a USB nvme enclosure works well with the m.2 drive of one’s choice.

Certainly should, although a DIY setup is perhaps better suited for those who needn't ask what's compatible.

 

[lightfire]

Certainly should, although a DIY setup is perhaps better suited for those who needn't ask what's compatible.

It is certainly not rocket science to insert a nvme disk in an enclosure. And yes, it should work fine. The problem with it is that speed wont be optimized for USB4. I would think the Thunderbolt drives may offer the optimal solutions, but personally will be fine with my “DIY” setup. 2TB drive in a very small enclosure - love it.

 

[Taru]

Buffalo USB-C SSDs does not work on M1, while they work perfectly on Intel Macs.

I myself became a little scared of buying stuff for M1 without confirmation, that it works.

 

[Fomalhaut]

Bear in mind that there are many USB 3.1 drives and enclosures that don't run at the advertised speeds with the M1 Macs. For example, I have some USB 3.1 gen 2 enclosures that should support 10Gbps that only connect at 5Gbps on the M1 (but work correctly on an Intel Mac). I also have some Samsung SSDs (T5 & T7) that connect at 10Gbps, but get considerably slower sustained read/write speeds on the M1 compared to the same drive on an Intel Mac (c. 700MBps vs 950MBps read speeds).

This may not be significant to you, but it is useful to know if you are using external disks for applications with high bandwidth requirements (e.g. 4K+ video editing).

Thunderbolt 3 external disks work better, but you pay a premium, and there is a lot of variation in performance, so you really need see real-world results for specific drives.

 

[Fravin]

I was looking at the western digital

WD drives are good enough. Never had any kind of issues with them.

Don't mind about those speeds. No Hard Drive will run that fast.

In My M! Mini I'm currently running two WD USB drives.

 

[Taru]

Bear in mind that there are many USB 3.1 drives and enclosures that don't run at the advertised speeds with the M1 Macs. For example, I have some USB 3.1 gen 2 enclosures that should support 10Gbps that only connect at 5Gbps on the M1 (but work correctly on an Intel Mac). I also have some Samsung SSDs (T5 & T7) that connect at 10Gbps, but get considerably slower sustained read/write speeds on the M1 compared to the same drive on an Intel Mac (c. 700MBps vs 950MBps read speeds).

This may not be significant to you, but it is useful to know if you are using external disks for applications with high bandwidth requirements (e.g. 4K+ video editing).

Thunderbolt 3 external disks work better, but you pay a premium, and there is a lot of variation in performance, so you really need see real-world results for specific drives.

I would like to add info on the Buffalo USB-C SSDs I was referring.

In June the company prepared another firmware. Those drives have two version of firmware, the normal and the Apple Silicon. There is a utility for M1 macs to change between those versions. This utility does not work on Intel macs.

After changing the firmware, it works, but the results are abysmal.
The 1.9T drive performance is about reading 300 GB/s, writing 200-300GB/s.
The 960GB drive is reading 200-300 GB/s, writing... about 30GB/s. Thirty, is is not a mistake.

My guess is the M1 firmware cripples drive so it does not drain too much power.