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Migration from 8TB 5K iMac to Mac Studio?

Brodgar

Brodgar

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 7, 2023
8
1
Bologna, Italy
Hello,
I'm using a Retina 5K 27" Late 2014 iMac equipped with a 8TB SSD. This computer is struggling to keep up with the latest software and macOS (it's running Sonoma via OpenCore), and for years I've been hoping Apple would restart selling a 27" Retina iMac, but as everyone knows, that's not going to happen anytime soon.

So, my only option is to buy a Mac Studio + either an Apple Studio Display Monitor or a Samsung ViewFinity S9 5K. However the biggest issue is the SSD, as I'm currently using an 8TB drive that is 75% full.

Adding 6TB to a basic Mac Studio equipped with a 2TB SSD would double its price. This means that (in Europe) to get a Mac with the same internal drive space as my current iMac, I would have to spend at least € 5,209, or about $ 5,650, which is a lot.

Is there any cheaper solution to easily add drive space, perhaps using a much cheaper 8TB NVMe card in one of the latest Thunderbolt 4 external drive enclosures? But on a system level, how would I manage documents, movies and large photo libraries spread over two different drives?

Any suggestions are welcome!

Thank you.
 
The Late 2014 iMac were only configurable up to 3TB Fusion Drive or 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of flash storage (SSD) 🤷🏼‍♂️

The base Mac Studio comes with four Thunderbolt 4 / USB 4 ports.

Buy a 2nd generation USB 4 NVMe enclosure for fastest performance (like the Maiwo K1695 USB4 NVMe enclosure, HyperDrive Next USB4 NVMe enclosure, ZikeDrive USB4 NVMe SSD Enclosure Z666 or Satechi USB4 NVMe SSD Pro Enclosure) and a $999 8TB NVMe SSD like the Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus and call it a day.

You can choose default download, "scratch" or temporary folder for pretty much any modern application that is applicable.
 
Pressure said:
The Late 2014 iMac were only configurable up to 3TB Fusion Drive or 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB of flash storage (SSD) 🤷🏼‍♂️
Click to expand...
Of course I have changed its basic internal drive over the years: first with a Seagate 8TB hard drive and then with a much faster Samsung 8TB SSD.

Thank you for the tips on NVMe enclosures. But with a 2TB internal + 8TB external Mac Studio configuration, how would I migrate the contents of the iMac's current 8TB SSD? I believe macOS considers the internal Mac Studio drive to be the primary and only destination for the data migration, so it might throw an error ("not enough space") or copy only a portion of the files managed by the system and that need to reside on the primary drive.
 
Brodgar said:
Of course I have changed its basic internal drive over the years: first with a Seagate 8TB hard drive and then with a much faster Samsung 8TB SSD.

Thank you for the tips on NVMe enclosures. But with a 2TB internal + 8TB external Mac Studio configuration, how would I migrate the contents of the iMac's current 8TB SSD? I believe macOS considers the internal Mac Studio drive to be the primary and only destination for the data migration, so it might throw an error ("not enough space") or copy only a portion of the files managed by the system and that need to reside on the primary drive.
Click to expand...
I can't really comment on that as I don't know how you have managed to hoard over 6TB of data locally even though you have a 98TB NAS ... 😅

Is it stored inside applications and need to be ready at a moments notice?
 
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Brodgar said:
Is there any cheaper solution to easily add drive space, perhaps using a much cheaper 8TB NVMe card in one of the latest Thunderbolt 4 external drive enclosures? But on a system level, how would I manage documents, movies and large photo libraries spread over two different drives?

Any suggestions are welcome!

Thank you.
Click to expand...

It's cake. Do a bit of research, look for the fastest reasonably-priced NVMe drive, and the fastest NVMe enclosure, which take advantage of Thunderbolt 4. There are tons of reviews. (Note: do not waste your money on PCIE Gen 5 drives and enclosures. They are double the price, but the speed is not worth it. Grossly overpriced because there are so few quality PCIE 5 controllers available.)

Once you put the NVME drive in the enclosure, just plug it into your Thunderbolt port, format it as Extended Journaled, and you are good to go. Your NVMe drive will show up in your left-hand side Finder menu under "locations." You can also put an image of your SSD/NVME on your desktop folder too, but, I turn that off, too distracting.

You just drag and drop. I use both an NVME drive and an SSD. It's cake to manage. OSX makes it very clean and simple. And you will save a fortune doing it this way, now and long into the future.

If you were asking something else concerning "managing" your files, then I misunderstood the question.
 
Also, consider getting an OLED display with your studio. Amazing screens, 120HZ, and OSX displays everything beautifully in HDR on an OLED screen, including text, images, and video. You'll never go back to LCD/LED/IPS.
 
Velin said:
You just drag and drop. I use both an NVME drive and an SSD. It's cake to manage. OSX makes it very clean and simple. And you will save a fortune doing it this way, now and long into the future.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the confirmation. Do you keep macOS files on the internal SSD and all video+photo libraries and documents on the external one, using symlinks?

And one more question: I'm sure the speed of any external SSD would be slower than the internal drive, but since the price is exactly the same, is it better to get a 4TB Mac Studio + 4TB external SSD to share data on two drives, or a basic 512GB Mac Studio + 8TB external drive to install everything on?

Thanks!
 
Pressure said:
I can't really comment on that as I don't know how you have managed to hoard over 6TB of data locally even though you have a 98TB NAS ... 😅

Is it stored inside applications and need to be ready at a moments notice?
Click to expand...
This is a (partial) list of files on my current 8TB internal SSD:
OS: 809GB
Photos: 997GB
Movies: 2.14TB
Apps: 677GB
Mail: 55GB
And this 4.7TB of data should be always at hand - Of course I could move photos and movies on an external drive, if fast enough.
 
Velin said:
Also, consider getting an OLED display with your studio. Amazing screens, 120HZ, and OSX displays everything beautifully in HDR on an OLED screen, including text, images, and video. You'll never go back to LCD/LED/IPS.
Click to expand...
Pity there are still no 5K OLED monitors around. I won't give up a Retina screen ;)
 
Brodgar said:
Thank you for the confirmation. Do you keep macOS files on the internal SSD and all video+photo libraries and documents on the external one, using symlinks?
Click to expand...

Basically. Any data or storage goes on the external ssd. I generally don't make alias files, but sure, you can make as many as you need. You could easily store them in a folder on your internal SSD, which will then point to the NVMe external enclosure.

Brodgar said:
And one more question: I'm sure the speed of any external SSD would be slower than the internal drive, but since the price is exactly the same, is it better to get a 4TB Mac Studio + 4TB external SSD to share data on two drives, or a basic 512GB Mac Studio + 8TB external drive to install everything on?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

The price will be much, much lower for external NVMe, but pretty damn fast for thunderbolt 4. Figure out how much space you need for executables, or "apps." Run your executables, apps, on the internal SSD. Maybe that's 512 or 1 TB or 2 TB. Maybe you also leave a bit of space for a current project/video/file. Everything else, NVMe.

Here is the Storage Review leaderboard for SSDs. Samsung 990 Pro is looking pretty good. 4TB is $249. So two of them, you're looking at $500 for 8TB. But you could go cheaper if you want.

As for the NVMe external enclosure, do a bit of research. Most any SSD will fit into any enclosure, but double-check sizing specifically. Make sure it's PCIE 4 and Thunderbolt 4. Tom's Hardware apparently liked this Orico M2V0-C4 model, with "strong sequential read and write speeds of 3,110.7 and 1421.8 MBps."

So you're looking at 3 GB and 1.4 GB a second read and write (I think I have that right, check for error re MBps vs Mbps). The article is from May 2023, so only six months old. But, there is a lot of new product launches in this space, as both the drives and the enclosures can be used by both PC and Mac users. I've been using an older model for like five years now, never a problem and still going strong. This one is plenty fast -- the new ones listed above are much faster.

Again, I wouldn't waste money on PCIE gen 5. Double the price, not worth it for the mediocre performance gains on external. Heck, not even worth it if you're installing it on a mobo internally.

Another great thing: you keep this storage even if you sell/upgrade any Mac. It's such a win-win.
 
Last edited:
Brodgar said:
This is a (partial) list of files on my current 8TB internal SSD:
OS: 809GB
Photos: 997GB
Movies: 2.14TB
Apps: 677GB
Mail: 55GB
And this 4.7TB of data should be always at hand - Of course I could move photos and movies on an external drive, if fast enough.
Click to expand...
How is the OS taking up 809GB?

Anyway you can easily move the Photos library to an external drives as well as all movies and applications. They don't have to reside on the internal drive at all. There might also be an application or two you haven't used this decade you can delete 😂

You might consider cleaning up your mail archive. Not sure you need all the spam mail from the late 1990's to today or updates from your social media accounts on how you tertiary friend's dog just **** in their yard. Also take this time to unsubscribe to everything you haven't used actively the last year.

Most of it will work if you put your current 8TB SSD (is it NVMe or SATA?) into an external enclosure but the OS taking up over 800GB is a sign you should probably start from scratch.
 
Get the SN850X 4TB on Amazon *NOW*, it just hits the all time low of $229.99.

Then get a top tier Thunderbolt 4 enclosure, say Acasis TBU-405 Pro.

Move the excess 4TB of data to your NAS, with 10GbE you really shouldn't need to keep them all local.
 
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Chancha said:
Get the SN850X 4TB on Amazon *NOW*, it just hits the all time low of $229.99.

Then get a top tier Thunderbolt 4 enclosure, say Acasis TBU-405 Pro.

Move the excess 4TB of data to your NAS, with 10GbE you really shouldn't need to keep them all local.
Click to expand...

That Acasis does look good.
 
Brodgar said:
Hello,
I'm using a Retina 5K 27" Late 2014 iMac equipped with a 8TB SSD. This computer is struggling to keep up with the latest software and macOS (it's running Sonoma via OpenCore), and for years I've been hoping Apple would restart selling a 27" Retina iMac, but as everyone knows, that's not going to happen anytime soon.

So, my only option is to buy a Mac Studio + either an Apple Studio Display Monitor or a Samsung ViewFinity S9 5K. However the biggest issue is the SSD, as I'm currently using an 8TB drive that is 75% full.

Adding 6TB to a basic Mac Studio equipped with a 2TB SSD would double its price. This means that (in Europe) to get a Mac with the same internal drive space as my current iMac, I would have to spend at least € 5,209, or about $ 5,650, which is a lot.

Is there any cheaper solution to easily add drive space, perhaps using a much cheaper 8TB NVMe card in one of the latest Thunderbolt 4 external drive enclosures? But on a system level, how would I manage documents, movies and large photo libraries spread over two different drives?

Any suggestions are welcome!

Thank you.
Click to expand...
It is probably that slow because it has an HDD, my 2013 MBP 16gb i7 is running OCLP Sonoma flawlessly, with no hiccups.
 
Thanks to all your suggestions, I ordered a Thunderbolt 4/USB4 Acasis M.2 NVMe SSD external box and a Samsung MZ-V9P4T0B 990 PRO SSD 4TB drive. I have yet to decide whether it is better to spend (quite a bit) more for a hefty Mac Studio with 4TB internal SSD or opt for a smaller – and cheaper – 2TB version. In the latter case, I would be forced to spend a lot of time selecting what is really essential to keep on the internal drive, which I managed to reduce to 6.25TB on my current 8TB drive. But that is obviously not enough.
 
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Velin said:
Also, consider getting an OLED display with your studio. Amazing screens, 120HZ, and OSX displays everything beautifully in HDR on an OLED screen, including text, images, and video. You'll never go back to LCD/LED/IPS.
Click to expand...
Do you have an OLED to recommend?
 
Brodgar said:
Pity there are still no 5K OLED monitors around. I won't give up a Retina screen
Click to expand...

I know that everyone is different, but from my experience the difference between 5K and 4K is indistinguishable to human eye under normal viewing conditions. I know that many other users think the same. I wonder if you tried to compare?
 
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Chancha said:
Get the SN850X 4TB on Amazon *NOW*, it just hits the all time low of $229.99.

Then get a top tier Thunderbolt 4 enclosure, say Acasis TBU-405 Pro.

Move the excess 4TB of data to your NAS, with 10GbE you really shouldn't need to keep them all local.
Click to expand...
Do you have the Acasis TBU-405 ProM1? If so does it stay cool?
 
Last edited:
Chancha said:
I did some tests back when I bought it in August:
It stays cool, better than the smaller enclosures just because of the sheer size of material alone. The fan may or may not help.
Click to expand...
The WD SN850X seems to get mentioned a lot. I'm most likely getting the WD SN850X. The Acasis also seems to get mentioned a lot. Do you recommend the Acasis TBU-405 ProM1 over the TBU-405?
 
crowe-t said:
The WD SN850X seems to get mentioned a lot. I'm most likely getting the WD SN850X. The Acasis also seems to get mentioned a lot. Do you recommend the Acasis TBU-405 ProM1 over the TBU-405?
Click to expand...
To me the clear cut is if you use it portably, then get the smaller TBU-405 (or even the TBU-405 Air, this one has no USB4 chip).

But for prolonged continuous use, especially 24/7 for mini / Studio, get the TBU-405 Pro M1.
 
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