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Seeansh_raj

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 22, 2023
1
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Hey all! I will be buying the M2 Max base model (32gb, 1 tb) 14 inch. I use a lot of FCPX and video editing software’s. I am worried that I’ll run out of storage very soon. I want to know if buying an SSD as a scratch disk is useful and will actually not restrict the potential of the machine.

Basically I want to utilise the laptop to its full potential and it’s internal ssds are much faster, I just want to know that external SSD are going to be slower in any way or under-utilise the machine.
 
Checking with Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, you should be fine:

DiskSpeedTest_M1_USB-3.1-2_NVMe.png

This is with a USB 3.1 gen. 2 enclosure/drive.

If the budget allows, you can go Thunderbolt and get at least double the speed. For example:

 
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I use a lot of FCPX

So how much space does the FCPX folder take? The one with evens, projects, etc. How large are you media files? It is rather unlikely that a 1 TB drive will be enough without a lot of moving things around to/from an external drive.
 
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You shouldn't edit from internal (i.e. save libraries) at all, for redundancy reasons alone. Using an external SSD, any external SSD would be more than recommended. Even the worst SSD (via USB-C or Thunderbolt) has more I/O power than 98% of people will ever need. Unless you're editing 8K multicams, which I'm just going to assume you aren't.
 
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