Fast external drive for Mac Mini M1?

ALS57

ALS57

ALS57

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Location
Muswell Hill London
Hi All

I'm looking to upgade from my old 2012 MAC Mini to a

Mac Mini - M1 Chip - 16GB RAM - 512GB SSD​

I do graphics work so Illustrator and photoshop and maybe looking to keep all my working files on a fast 2TB external drive. Can you please recommend a fast external drive, or should I pay more for the 1TB Mac mini and try and squeeze all my data on the internal drive?

I'm a bit out of touch on Mac hardware so I'd appreciate your thoughts.

Cheers

Al
 
I have that exact set up and I use

SanDisk Extreme 2TB portable NVMe SSD, USB-C, up to 1050MB/s read & 1000MB/s write speed​


Available for £150 at the minute. I use two. One to store all my photo's etc and the 2nd which I'm waiting to be delivered as my time machine drive. I did think of using a NAS or direct drive but this way I need no more plugs and keep the machine totally silent.
 
You can get 2400+ MB/sec read and 2400+ MB/sec write from a Sabrent USB-C NVMe drive. I'm sure there's others too just as fast or faster.
 
Just be aware that some chipsets don't work via USB-C with the M1 products.

I had a pluggable enclosure with Realtek chipset, that wouldn't work with my M1 Mac via USB-C. It would constantly connect and disconnect. Plugable to their credit sent out a revised version with JMicron chipset, via DHL express at their own cost. This was despite me buying the enclosure before M1 Macs even existed.
 
I now have a new Mac mini M1 16GB 1tb on order, too much work on to wait for the M2's

A last question on an external drive enclosure for a back-up if you will.

I nearly ordered this thanks to your advice

[Intel Certified] ORICO Thunderbolt 3 (40Gbps) M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD Enclosure, Aluminum External M2 2280 PCIe M-Key Adapter Case with 0.5m Thunderbolt 3 Cable - USB C Compatible (SSD NOT Included): Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

[Intel Certified] ORICO Thunderbolt 3 (40Gbps) M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD Enclosure, Aluminum External M2 2280 PCIe M-Key Adapter Case with 0.5m Thunderbolt 3 Cable - USB C Compatible (SSD NOT Included): Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories
www.amazon.co.uk

But this alternative seemed to get good reviews: any thoughts / experience on these two please before I buy?


Also; a decent thunderbolt to full sze display port cable? My Dell monitor doesn't have HDMI and a Windows PC is using the DVI port

Many thanks

Al
 
ALS57 said:
I now have a new Mac mini M1 16GB 1tb on order, too much work on to wait for the M2's

A last question on an external drive enclosure for a back-up if you will.

I nearly ordered this thanks to your advice

[Intel Certified] ORICO Thunderbolt 3 (40Gbps) M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD Enclosure, Aluminum External M2 2280 PCIe M-Key Adapter Case with 0.5m Thunderbolt 3 Cable - USB C Compatible (SSD NOT Included): Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

[Intel Certified] ORICO Thunderbolt 3 (40Gbps) M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD Enclosure, Aluminum External M2 2280 PCIe M-Key Adapter Case with 0.5m Thunderbolt 3 Cable - USB C Compatible (SSD NOT Included): Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories
www.amazon.co.uk

But this alternative seemed to get good reviews: any thoughts / experience on these two please before I buy?


Also; a decent thunderbolt to full sze display port cable? My Dell monitor doesn't have HDMI and a Windows PC is using the DVI port

Many thanks

Al
Click to expand...

Either will do, just go with the ones with the best reviews.

I can only say from my own TB3 drive (similar case to your 2nd choice, probably same one) it does work amazing and never had an issue, but it gets really hot in use, just bare that in mind, perhaps the first choice has better heat dissipation, who knows!
 
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