Which External Hard Drives for 2018 Mac Mini?

[turnipfarmer]

I've finally taken the plunge and purchased a refurbished Mac Mini off the Apple Refurbished website, it comes today. Its is to replace an old 2011 iMac. I have still yet to get a screen and sort out all my external hard drives.

I have at moment 2 x USB hard drives, 1 x Firewire drive and 1 x Thunderbolt 1 drive. I suspect I will have to get rid of these (well at least the Firewire and Thunderbolt 1 drives), I need to check what speed the USB drives are.

Anyway, with my Mac Mini I notice it has USB C ports on the rear, what external hard drives do you guys recommend? Is there a difference between USB C and Thunderbolt 3, I think thats the bit that confuses me. I just want to make sure I get the correct hard drive with correct connectors.

Thank you all.

 

[VineRider]

I use a 1tb Samsung t5. Works great and connects via USB C.

 

[Stephen.R]

It depends a bit, what your goals/use-case are, what your budget is, and of course personal preferences.

So to answer your last question first: USB-C is a connector/port. Just like USB-A (the original one), USB-B (the one usually used for Printers, etc) etc etc. Unlike the other USB connector/port types, USB-C is specifically designed to work in "alternate modes" for other protocols, using the same physical connector.

Thunderbolt3 is a protocol, which uses the USB-C connector/port exclusively.

This is not dissimilar (for the user) to how Thunderbolt 1 & 2 uses the MiniDisplayPort connector/port.

USB-C ports can carry a variety of USB signals: from 2.0 up to 3.1Gen2 (formerly known as 3.2).

USB-C also has an alternate mode for DisplayPort (this is how e.g. cheap "USB-C to DisplayPort" cables work).

So to summarise that: a Thunderbolt 3 port, is by definition a USB-C port, and will support USB-C devices, but non-Thunderbolt USB-C ports (typically found on PCs but also on the 12" MacBook) will not support Thunderbolt devices.

The exception to that is some devices (typically hubs but also some monitors) have a newer Intel chip in them, which is dual-purpose: it'll operate as either a Thunderbolt 3 device, if connected to a TB3 USB-C port, or as a USB3.1Gen2 device, if connected to a non-TB3 USB-C port.


So, as for your specific needs: you *can* use those older Firewire and Thunderbolt 1 drives, if you want to - you just need the appropriate adapters (or e.g. a dock with multiple "legacy" ports on it). For example, I have a left-over TB1 Akitio dock (this one, specifically: https://www.akitio.com/adapters/thunder-dock) that I'd previously used with my 2011 MBP17. It's now daisy chained to the down-stream TB3 port (using a TB3 to TB2 adapter) of a new Akitio disk array which is then plugged into a 2018 Mac mini), and has an ancient FW800 LaCie drive, a slightly less ancient WD USB3 drive, and a fairly recent Orico 5-drive array, connected via eSATA.

However - it wasn't particularly cheap, and at this point it might even be out of regular production.

If you just wanted to use the TB1 drive, the TB3 to TB2 (or 1) adapter from Apple is only $50.


As for a new drive, if that's the way you want to go: for anything besides backups/ridiculously mass storage, I'd probably suggest some form of SSD, either over USB 3.1 or TB3. But again, that depends on your use case? Mechanical drives are still a better choice IMO for time machine backups, and they're the only practical choice for most people, for a large local media library.

 

[lowendlinux]

SSD speed test bettween my "2020" Mac Mini and 2013 Mac Pro

Looks like my 2TB TB3 drive is pretty much as fast as the internals. I have a RAID 0 set (2@512GB) attached via USB3 is as fast as the trash can.

forums.macrumors.com

There's my post on external drives. I have a RAID 0 SSD setup on USB and 2TB OWC Envoy Pro EX TB3 drive

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"I have at moment 2 x USB hard drives, 1 x Firewire drive and 1 x Thunderbolt 1 drive. I suspect I will have to get rid of these (well at least the Firewire and Thunderbolt 1 drives), I need to check what speed the USB drives are."
also
"I notice it has USB C ports on the rear, what external hard drives do you guys recommend?"

First off, get yourself a few of these:

Cable Matters USB C to USB Adapter 6 Inches (USB to USB C Adapter, USB-C to USB 3.0 Adapter, USB C OTG) in Black

Cable Matters USB C to USB Adapter 6 Inches (USB to USB C Adapter, USB-C to USB 3.0 Adapter, USB C OTG) in Black

www.amazon.com

And just plug any device that has a USBa connector into the adapter.
This immediately SOLVES your USBa-->USBc connection issues.

Next, re the drives.
The USB drives -- see above for adapter.
The Firewire and Thunderbolt drives -- more problematic, see below.

Are the enclosures on these "openable"?
Can you open them and take the drives out of the enclosures?
In that case, I'd either get new USB3 enclosures, or perhaps a USB3/SATA docking station to handle them.
If the docking station has a USBa connector, see the adapter above.

You could connect the tbolt drive to the Mini using TWO adapters -- tbolt2 adapter AND a tbolt2 to tbolt3 adapter. But too pricey to be worth it. A similar solution exists for firewire, but again, not worth the money.

 

[Boyd01]

Not clear from your post whether you realize this, so just in case you don't, the new Mini also has two old-style USB 3 ports

I have one of those old Apple thunderbolt to firewire adapters that I used to transfer files and capture video to my MacBook Air back in 2013. It runs very hot - almost too hot to hold in your hand - even when no firewire device is connected. I wouldn't want to leave one of those connected for any longer than needed to transfer data.

 

[inmnbob]

i am using an M2 board with an external cover that is great speeds for my Logic Plug-in. Saprient 2TB is the ssd