Just FYI, with the latest macOS 15.1 update, you can now set an external drive of your choice as the default for application installs that are large (1GB or greater)
@@Tigerex966 check my comment I made on your post, we aren’t talking about booting from a drive we are talking about setting your external drive as your default drive . And I’m not sure I would want to boot from an external Drive
I had a Acasis enclosure 40GBps with a WD 1GB drive for my M2 Mac Mini. Fast as hell, but I thought it was going to burn a hole in my desk. I bought two heat sinks and sandwiched it between them.Same thing just took a little longer to cook. I then decided speed was my not a big concern and what the heck, I need more USB ports anyway so I bought a Quiizlab enclosure. Runs slower but doesn't torch the place. I know I could have got a enclosure with a fan, but quiet is Key. I use my Mac Mini for recording.
Same here with an Inatec + samsung 980pro. incredible speeds (+3200Gbs), but so hot! And not only in use, but also when the Mac mini M4 is in sleep. In the end I also bought an agptec enclosure, and all runs cool. But now with M4 the form factor is off.... Went back to my Sandisk ssd 1Tb, speed is around 8-900Gbs.
@@RudolfdeGeus I'm an old time Computer Field Engineer. Ex-IBM, Ex-Digital, Ex-Well I worked for just about all of them. Mainframes, Mini's, PC's. I know the damage that excessive heat can do. The home equipment is expensive, and I've worked too hard on my personal data, photos, and music to have it burn up. I can wait another 50ms to retrieve it and keep it. You made a good choice going back to the Sandisk my friend.
I use the OWC, it's perfect for my Mini 2024 running cooler and faster than anything else I saw. I used a Crucial T500 4TB drive, under $250 for all of it and I'm future proofed. It just works great.
Inateck USB4 enclosure, crucial P3 plus 1TB, on my M2 Pro Mini, 2800 write and 3000 read. A folder 6GB copied in 2,5 seconds. I added two little 40mm fans with heat resistant double side tape, keeping the temp low at lowest speed setting of the fans. Very happy with this solution.
What the difference between “OWC SSD Enclosure Only” VS “OWC SSD Enclosure with 1TB Storage” which one would I need. I’m not a tech guy at all so what ever you think is the simplest/user friendly option. Thank you this is a great video
The difference is with the one with built in memory you get guaranteed best SSD possible. Where if you just get the enclosure you have to do some research in order to get one that will be fully utilized speed wise and not overheat
Great info~! I just ordered my M4 Mac Mini and should get it the 1st week of Dec. While I plan to use an external drive, I did upgrade the RAM to 24GB (as much as it pained me to do so.) These days, I'm more of a casual user and don't do any video or audio editing. The most taxing app that I'll have loaded is Fusion 360 for creating designs I'll use for woodworking, 3D printing, & CNC work. Several other apps I use are now cloud-based, so I probably didn't need the RAM increase, but we'll see. Looking forward to checking out your other video content. Thanks much~!
I have purchased a M4 Mac min and plan to use a external SSD and move my home folder (fresh install). I have ordered a OWC enclosure, however they are on back order until Feb. My thought is to use a cheap M2 adapter in the meantime, but then wondered if the Mac would see the OWC enclosure (with the same SSD used earlier) as a different drive and so cause an issue? Hope this makes sense and thanks for the work done on the video
I just bought an el cheapo USB4 enclosure for $18. The case is pretty well built tool-less aluminum. Tested with WD NS850X 2TB using Blackmagic it got 2,650 Write and 3,208 Read. Using CrystalDiskmark it got 3,717 Read and 3,790 Write. OS is Windows 10.
@@moeskido I don’t boot from the drive but I have all the apps installed. The no booting is in case there is an error with the SSD it’s easier to fix later on
@@allanpennington data only as I got a 1TB internal SSD specifically so there is plenty of room for OS, apps and data such as email. The external drive is for Documents, Music, Pictures...etc.
@@MichaelAnderson-l3k Mines the base model with 512 ssd. But on my old Mac 2010 I put a 512 ssd and a 2tb hdd and pointed my home folder to the hdd. All my apps etc are 30gb plus Mac osx high sierra so total used is only 148gb so I figured the base m4 pro will be fine for me. But I’ve got 4tb of stuff on an external but it’s only usb 3. Quickest read right on the new m4 is 80gb/sec so the new tb5 OWC drive seems like a must. Expensive though
Right now you can’t upgrade anything after you purchase. That may change for the internal SSD sometime in the future but that would be the only thing that would be possible and right now it isn’t
That m4 mini I need more than 16gb… I wish there was an external hard drive increase that that’s what I was asking. Oh well thank you anyway probably best to buy the M4 overall the other mini PCs I never even heard of beelink any of them and there’s a lot of problems How’s HP Dell for Protools or cube base or just get that mini M4 thanks a lot I appreciate it
FYI - T7's have an issue with Macbook's not detecting them via the required "PortableSSD" Samsung software. You would have to find a work around for that.
so the question is ... why should I buy a enclosure & nvme ssd if I edit my Fx3 videos from Samsung t7 /Crucial x6/8 and no problems at all ? Only for a faster files transfer from Sd cards to SSD ?
@@mex5341 right only faster for file transfers so if you don’t care about that and don’t use the external to replace your internal drive then stay with what you got
Thank you for this video. You basically confirmed what I decided to buy already! I am buying the OWC enclosure for sure, I am looking into all my options on the NVME drive that will live inside this enclosure. I am planning to use this for my "Home" folder instead of the built in one on my new M4 Mini.
How do you find the T7s are for directly editing Final Cut Pro projects on. Ie FCP project and media files stored on the T7 not in the Macs internal drive. Are they fast enough for vid editing?
the system apps that come with the computer cant be moved to the external home drive so once youre booted up from the external home drive, will the system apps that are on the internal drive still open up when you click them?
@@mtwagner mine doesn’t have the cover over the screws either, it does look like there is a slot for it, but my guess is on the custom enclosures that don’t include the pad since we need to unscrew the bottom, while on the prebuilt units I’m thinking the pad is there
Throughput is only half the story. The other half is latency, aka responsiveness. Throughput alone is fine when measuring large file operations like copies. Latency is much more important for those who use these external drives to run applications from, aka extend the size and use of their internal drives. Throughput measures the average rate of data movement, for example copying 50 megabytes every second. Latency measures how long it takes for a specific piece of data to move, for example copying a specific photo from the drive. If you have a photo editing app that's doing a batch conversion then throughput is what you want. However, if you're instead doing edits on a single photo then it's latency that's more important - the app has to wait for a specific photo to be read from the SSD before it can let you do your edits, so it impacts how responsive the computer is to your mouse clicks for the edit. External storage devices may have higher throughput than the internal SSD but they will almost always have worse latency - this is because the Thunderbolt and USB protocols go through several layers, each of which adds steps needed to move a specific piece of data. In short, I suggest including latency comparisons in your future videos on storage performance.
Super interesting take, thanks! I’m sure I’ve experienced some of that latency working off a drive before. I’ll never forget the day when internal SSD drives came out. But you couldn’t record audio to them they warned us back then. Good times
So, I have that OWC enclosure and a fast m.2 in it, it beats the internal drive of my M4 Mac Mini, but how does it compare to the internal drive latency wise? If it’s as fast or “a little” less than the internal drive, I’d be happy. Again, latency speaking, how does it compare, that any of you might know of? I’m still putting my setup together but I hope I “hacked” the Apple tax by building this external enclosure…🫤
@@testcams some external drives have better latency than Apple internal drives and better throughput, particularly apples slow base and 512 single nand drives. So external is a win, except for Apple security restrictions for ai, and the fact that if the internal ssd fails your Mac cannot boot from external and becomes a brick in need of a new motherboard. Planned obsolescence on another level.
Your analysis ignores modern OS (operating system) architecture and design including software applications built on top of OS system calls that buffer I/O to external devices. Consequently, as long as an external drive has good throughput then concerns about its latency are masked by OS buffering.
Realistically any computer is going to have things plugged into ports and dangling no matter what. But if you wanted to get the most minimalist configuration possible, one can get a mount for the mini to mount it under the desk or to the back of the monitor. It’s not really for someone who is constantly using the ports, but it’s the most minimalist thing one could do.
I'm buying a new Mac mini pro, and I do music production, orchestration with sample libraries and I see you're doing not too upgrade for tbs. What would be the best drive to get for me? Thank you
If you are going for the m4 pro, owc has a thunderbolt 5 drive called the envoy that has better speeds than all the drives in this video here’s a link, it’s about twice as fast as their Thunderbolt 4 drive I cover in this video amzn.to/3ZdsdH8
I just got the M4 Mac Mini with 16GB and 512GB memory. I use it almost exclusively for photo editing. I keep all my photo files on an external hard drive (currently a 1Tb G-tech old school spinning hard drive). Backed up multiple times, obviously. Would I notice much difference if I upgraded to a T5? I don’t batch process or export any of my files although I do sometimes need to import through a power hungry app (DxO PureRaw 4), which produces files of 150MB each.
The huge difference is the transfer speed, however two things, I wouldn’t buy a T5 now as the tech is old and still slow. With the Mac mini go for the owc enclosure I mentioned or if your looking for a deal a T7. The T9 drives don’t fully work on the mini and you get the same speeds as a T7 on them unfortunately
I own around 10, these were the best performers when it comes to transfer speeds overtime and overheating. I have a bunch from all the major brands from over the years of doing freelance video work and clients buying me ssd drives for their footage
Which cable did you while testing the speed. Im getting mac mini 4. Should I get the cable which comes with the ssd enclosure or should get a thunderbolt 4 cable
Thanks for the info, very useful. I have 2 Samsung T7’s 1tb and 500gb, but I’m only getting around 40mb/s from the 1Tb and 120mb from the 500gb. Am I doing something wrong, do they need to be in a specific port or have a specific cable, why would these be so much slower than yours? Thanks
@@rschunkster something isn’t right, if you are connected to the thunderbolt ports in the back and getting those speeds it’s either a bad cord or bad drives, most of the time it’s a bad cord
Not when you move large files constantly causes wear on internal MacBook drive and causes drive/MacBook failures. Not to mention I work with 10G internet and 100G Ethernet between workstations.
Great vid, thanks for the info! I'm only getting about 635 WRITE with my 2TB T7, but that's on the M1 MacBook Air. Did you test yours on the MacBook Air?
What about the Oyen Digital U34 Bolt 4TB (USB4 40Gbps) NVMe Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) Portable SSD at $429 and the Thunderbolt 4 paired with the Mac mini M4 is this great to use as your main drive? I bought the Mini through your link at $529 on BF, and I am new to video editing, but that is what I want to use this for, along with a podcast is this a good drive and setup? Thanks
@@pedzsan the hard drives across all Mac computers are not equal. The speed you get first depends on the size of the hard drive across then the computer itself. Obviously this video speaks to the Mac Mini m4 and not your MacBook Pro so you will see different results
You consider for moving home directory to an external drive with USB 3.2 with 10Gbps? Because raycue is launching a hub for the new Mac mini m4 that’s is really more appeal that having a enclosure like the owc
If you mean cable between the external storage as in the video and the Mac, then there seem to be two answers. You need cable labelled 3-4-5 (Thunderbolt version) that matches your devices at the slowest device's rate you have and (1) AFAIK up to about 12" or 30cm the cables supposedly are "passive" and if true, then there are no chips in the connectors. From the data rate perspective, anything should go. (2) Longer cables will have chips on either end and these split a sequential data stream into parallel streams on one end then on the other end these bits are put in sequence again. That's more expensive. One of the old MythBuster guys did a YT video explaining why an Apple cable was US$ 120 or so. He forgot to mention that Apple's brand value is part of the price. But, in a CT scan or so, the cable with chips, data strands and power strands, looked impressive. How many Watts of device power over the TB cable can be relayed is another question. Potentially the chips in the connectors can negotiate about the speed (Ampères) of charging and/or Voltage. In a cable with chips, the chips should be able to speak that language. For the passive 30cm cable this means that the devices at either end should negotiate about power. With cables without the TB version printed on the connector, if that does not work, you might have a USB 2.0 cable on the inside, or it may just be a data only cable without power or the other way around a power cable without data strands. The short about USB-C is that it's a mess. The connectors are "USB-C" and the rest is defined in other standards. It's possible to buy a cheap cable (for too much money) that is plain USB 2.0 and its data strands would give you 480 Mbps. The short answer is that Apple may have a cable for you that you can trust to actually deliver. But it will be expensive. So far, it seems impossible to buy seriously longer cables above 10 Gbps.The short ones should not be a problem.
It would be great to compare the new Thunderbolt 5 options, since the Mac Mini M4 Pro model (and Macbook M4 Max) features three Thunderbolt 5 ports. Since the NVME drives are capable of higher speeds than Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 can deliver. You would need a Thunderbolt 5 enclosure and a Thunderbolt 5 cable to test.
Great video, subscribed. I'm thinking about getting the OWC Express 1M2 enclosure with either the Samsung 990 Evo Plus 4TB or Samsung 990 Pro 4TB. Do you know if you can update Samsung SSD firmware while it's in the OWC Express 1M2 enclosure with Samsung Magician Software on M4/M4 Pro Macs? If not, then you're better off using OWC SSDs. Thanks in advance.
You should try the new OWC TB5. In addition, I have the impression - not tested though - that even TB4 drives perform slightly better with TB5 cable. Does it make sense?
For video and photo editing, can you keep the movie and photo lib in the external drive ? Or do you continually off load files I once you are done with them? Thanks
I only keep them on the drive while actively using them in edits, then offload them because the file sizes I’m dealing with are huge from my red and blackmagic cameras
The x9 pro is pretty similar to the T7, really the only one I would be interested in is the x10 pro, but the OWC drive with 2 tb still blows that drive away for almost the same cost
Hey, are you using a Samsung 990pro 4tb in any of those "add your own NVME" drives? I tried a 990pro Ugreen TB4 external case and the drive drops out constantly on Mac, (I've tried multiple cases and multiple macs,) seems to work on on Windows though. Samsung looked at the drive and said it was fine, but not recommended for an external enclosure. Let me know if you did get any 990pro combo to work, otherwise I would warn people to stay away from them...
Hey! I haven’t tried the 4TB drive yet. I’ve listed the drive I currently use in the description, and that one has been the best I’ve used so far. I haven’t had any issues with overheating or performance slowing down.
What do you recommend for Lightroom editing in terms of a permanent external enclosure? Best value buy considering speed, stability, storage size, and price? I don't need portability as I just use SD card.
I saw that even though the current 256 gb in the base model is faster than previous models as it has 2 sticks of NAND, it's still around 1000 ish MBs slower than the 512gb internal ssd. My question is will notice the difference? I dont think i ever will need to edit stuff other than the occasional holiday stuff.
It depends on how often you edit and your editing needs. If you can use an external hard drive than yeah it’s more than enough. If you have to have the unit by itself go for more hard drive space
@ReachFilms let me put it this way. I can count on 1 hand the amount of times I edited on my PC in my entire life haha. Just wondering outside of editing will the loss of speed for the 256 Vs 512 affect me in other tasks .
This is a little off topic but I want to get into the Apple ecosystem. What would be the best laptop and iphone to get? Im just a average user who checks email, surfs the web, and watches videos. I don't get into all of the really cool stuff though I wish I could.
The MacBook Air is solid for an every day computer that doesn’t break the bank. The issue with that one is it’s due for a new model in a few months. If you don’t care about having a laptop as small as the air the base model MacBook Pro m4 14 inch is super solid too. As far as the phone sounds like a normal iPhone 16 will be great! Or if you want the bigger screen go for the max. But sounds like you may not use the pro features on the pro versions of the iPhone so maybe best to save $$ there.
@@andrewchayles I have them and tested the ones I do have, which performed worse than the T7 although I know there are better versions now. The big thing is all the people I know who had their Sandisk SSD fail. I love sandisk and use their media with my red Komodo. But I’m not sure I would rely on their ssd drives but maybe they are better now. If they want to send me some I’ll review the new models! Haha
cool vid, thanks Geoff! while i love the durability & quick/consistent mounting time of the T7, the performance of mine plummets within 30-45 min of hard editing 😿for longer editing sess, what's your real-world performance like with the OWC? see slow-downs with it couple hours into editing, or does it manage the heat pretty well? will say, cannot wait for the day we can utilize some of these 6000-7000MB/s speeds advertised by some of these HD brands. maybe TB5 will bring that! 🤞🤞
I’m sure it’s great!! The owc has crazy good handling of the thermals compared to that drive. With Thunderbolt 4 drives as small as the hyper drive if you were transferring more than a few TB to the drive I could see it slowing down, where does the heat go once it get too much? That’s part of the reason unfortunately the owc drive is so big
Hello all, new to ssd. would anyone be able to speak to the Crucial T705 fitting and working in the OWC Express 1M2 Portable enclosure? Thank you for the tie and help
I am confused. I have the new M4 and my internal read/write speeds are better than what you are showing and are the same as your OWC drive. Could it be because I purchased 512G storage and not 256?
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definitely , the base version with 256GB is the slower one , but even this speed is more than you can use for video editing and general computing , Apple even had the problem when introducing the M2 that the speed was half compared to M1 Macbooks as they were using only one memory chip , now they learned and even on base models they use two chips and speed is ok
11/18/2024 Just found your channel. I have a 21" 2010 intel iMac that t Have been considering upgrading to the 24" iMac M4 18GB Memory with 512GB storage but would like to add an external 1-2TB SSD to add additional storage and set it up where I can have my default storage for programs and files is the external SSD. Would this setup meet my needs to similar results for use as in your video or should i go with an iMac mini M4 with 16GB with 512GB storage or even go iMac mini Pro? Thinking of doing this during Black Friday or Cyber Monday coming up.
You are asking a lot of questions in one, but the easiest way to answer this is to get the most ram and the bigger storage drive if you can afford it. The iMac and base model Mac mini will perform very similarly, if you need the more performance go for the m4 pro mini. Just remember you will then have to buy a screen with the mini
Enjoy your channel ! Which ports did you use for the speeds you measured on each ? OWC and sabrent via thunderbolt on back and Samsung via USBC C on front ?
Learned about OWC decades ago. I have and old enclosure of theirs - full size HD. The "go to" for Mac users for decades. Cool to see they continue there excellence in products. (often, the pricer option is actually going to save you money, and TIME. You can't buy time...) Long term payoff.. ;-)
For sure, what most users realize is the OWC is only more expensive by a few dollars it’s not $50 or even $100 more than the competition, but with better results
If speed of SSD drive is less than 2000MB, what is the point of thunderbolt drive at all.seagate firecuda gaming dock has two thunderbolt 3 ports, display port, USBs, Ethernet, audio in/out and slot for nvme drive. Get a faster drive >2000MB, even max out on speed, and connect it with just thunderbolt cable and it will just fly. You get lexar 1TB+ with USB, connect with any thunderbolt 3,4 or 5 cable and it will fly.
@@Wog68 which driver are you talking about? The internal one? Kind of confused on what you’re asking because you’re talking about a device that only uses thunderbolt three ports the benefit of the Mac mini is that it has thunderbolt for so you can take advantage of those speeds for those who do file transfers. My channel is mostly about video editing, and video production,so videographers cinematographers anybody in the industry wants to take advantage of fast transfer speeds in order to maximize the speed of taking videos off of media cards in putting them on the drive as fast as possible with thunderbolt three you get limited by the thunderbolt three speed.
@ that was a typo. Let me repeat this. I have lexar external SSD, which has 2000 MBS read write speed. I use cal digit thunderbolt cable to connect 1TB lexar SSD. It is just great. Seagate firecuda gaming dock has two thunderbolt drive and 4TB and empty bay for nvme SSD slot. Connect it with thunderbolt drive and it is at top speed. It also power my computer. I bought Seagate firecuda dock before COVID at $350, no other thunderbolt doc with that HDD, Nvme SSD slot and as many ports in the market. It’s the best value form money.
For sure, I stayed away from the T9 only because for some time they were not compatible with the blackmagic cameras. I’m not sure if that is still the case though
great video. New Mac Mini 16 GB RAM 256 GB SSD 10-10 cores for $599 is a really good price point ! Now get this, compared to the exact same specs on an 24" iMac, you're paying $900 extra for a 24" screen which is TOTAL BULLS$$T !!!
the bigger SSD you get the better the speeds are unfortunately, I am using the 256gb base model that has the slowest internal hard drive speeds. If you are going to upgrade the hard drive you or NEED to upgrade the hard drive your use case is likely beyond a base model Mac mini and you should go for the M4 Pro version
the external drives max out at pcie 3 speeds you can just buy pcie 3 ssds and save some $$
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@@rossw1365 the speeds are better starting with 512GB capacity , but I agree , the topic with storage is like a scam for apple , to get people to upgrade with their extremely overpriced memory , I just got the base version and for 300 Euro I managed to put together a 4TB external SSD , works like a charm , after I installed everything I need on the internal drive I still have almost 200GB of internal storage , and everything I need for work goes on the external SSD
New sub here. Great channel. Would you be so kind as to answer a few questions. I mostly use Final Cut Pro & Photoshop to create videos on my Billy Luna Crime Stories YT channel. I am working in 1080p, but plan to start working in 4k. Currently I am Using a Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD (2TB & 4TB) to edit off whilst using FCP. 1) For my needs, which exact configuration of the new M4 Mac Mini should I get? (Pro or no, RAM, SSD) 2) Can I get maximum speed via Thunderbolt 4 or 5 using a Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD? 3) Is there any speed or performance advantage in going with a 1 TB SSD vs 512? 4) I’m now leaning toward an M4 PRO MAC MINI 512 SSD & 64 GB - Is this overkill for running Final Cut Pro, Photoshop and 30 web browser tabs open at the same time? 5) Do I need to worry about fan noise when I’m recording on camera video or voice over? I would really like to save $ by not going with the pricey Apple storage & sticking with the externals. Thank you!
@@BillyLuna hey! So if you need to edit in a 4k timeline and can’t switch between 1080 to 4k at export time, go for more ram. Per your question on the sandisk you will not got thunderbolt speeds on that drive. It was slower than the Samsung so I left it out of these tests. If you are questioning if you should go pro or not, just go pro because you may need its power down the line and it would save you from upgrading.
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I would say even the base version would work for you , checked the channel and looks like you don't need to do crazy color gradings or animations etc , I do all my editing in 4k without creating proxi/optimized files , and even when editing I have quality mode enabled on the preview with 5 camera angles all at 4k 60fps 150Mb/s and this works great even on the M1 Macbook Pro , just got the base version of the Mini 4 and connected a 4TB external SSD (40GB/s) , on internal memory I only installed the programs that I would use and editing out of the external SSD works perfectly fine , and for one of my clips I usually have 300GB up to 500GB of video files ; if you have the money yes the Pro is definitely better , but because that one is a bit more powerful it will tend to also have a bit of fan noise from time to time , this will not happen on the base M4 chip (I am aware that cooling is a bit upgraded on the Pro but still this is what the reports say)
There’re NO Thunderbolt 4 SSDs. Thunderbolt 4 only gives you PCIe 3.0*1 speed, which is basically 10 gbps, while Thunderbolt 3 is PCIe 3.0*4 with limited bandwidth. There’re are only Thunderbolt 3 and USB 4 SSDs/enclosures, USB4 could distribute more bandwidth to data than Thunderbolt 3.
Hey man, can you explain this a little better? I am having a hard time understanding if those external SSDs are USB or thunderbolt, most of them says compatible with thunderbolt but seem to actually be USB4. I even copy/paste your comment to CHAT GPT and asked to explain it, but it said that the sentence is not entirely true and that thunderbolt can support 4 lanes of PCI-e. Still very confused
I’m not sure I would boot from an external drive. Making it your primary drive? Yeah I actually just made a video on that. But as far as making it the drive you boot from I’m just not sure how I feel about that
@ there is a work hack around, but you need you external drive almost always connected. It involves moving your home folder to your external drive, there are some UA-cam videos that show how, You actually boot from internal as normal, but most of our data home folder will be on the external, so your ai features will work as normal. I think Apple does this for security and to sell mote storage upgrades.
Just FYI, with the latest macOS 15.1 update, you can now set an external drive of your choice as the default for application installs that are large (1GB or greater)
Oh nice! That's a great tip!!
AI will not work when booted from external drives
@@Tigerex966 check my comment I made on your post, we aren’t talking about booting from a drive we are talking about setting your external drive as your default drive . And I’m not sure I would want to boot from an external
Drive
@@Tigerex966 Yay, no more AI bs 🥳
@@nextentrepreneur9288 I agree but other features as well
Thanks! I made a smart purchase thanks to your videos.
Glad I could help! thank you for the super chat!
I had a Acasis enclosure 40GBps with a WD 1GB drive for my M2 Mac Mini. Fast as hell, but I thought it was going to burn a hole in my desk. I bought two heat sinks and sandwiched it between them.Same thing just took a little longer to cook. I then decided speed was my not a big concern and what the heck, I need more USB ports anyway so I bought a Quiizlab enclosure. Runs slower but doesn't torch the place. I know I could have got a enclosure with a fan, but quiet is Key. I use my Mac Mini for recording.
Same here with an Inatec + samsung 980pro. incredible speeds (+3200Gbs), but so hot! And not only in use, but also when the Mac mini M4 is in sleep. In the end I also bought an agptec enclosure, and all runs cool. But now with M4 the form factor is off.... Went back to my Sandisk ssd 1Tb, speed is around 8-900Gbs.
@@RudolfdeGeus I'm an old time Computer Field Engineer. Ex-IBM, Ex-Digital, Ex-Well I worked for just about all of them. Mainframes, Mini's, PC's. I know the damage that excessive heat can do. The home equipment is expensive, and I've worked too hard on my personal data, photos, and music to have it burn up. I can wait another 50ms to retrieve it and keep it. You made a good choice going back to the Sandisk my friend.
I put small USB fans on such items. (exa: Evercool F-UFAN-12 EL Bearing 120mm USB)
@@z352kdaf8324 If you can tolerate the noise, sure, good solution. For me I need quiet with open mics.
Slap a low-speed Noctua fan on there, those things are SO quiet!
I use the OWC, it's perfect for my Mini 2024 running cooler and faster than anything else I saw. I used a Crucial T500 4TB drive, under $250 for all of it and I'm future proofed. It just works great.
For sure! I’m surprised you could get a 4tb from crucial that cheap, my 2tb model from them was $150
What’s your estimated read/write?
Also where did you purchase your crucial drive? 😮
@@ReachFilms That's what I was about to comment. I just bought this setup in my 2 TB, which was about 150 from Amazon.
Are we twins? I have the exact setup too, except my Crucial T500 is 2tb. 🙂
Pretty sure will be pre-owned, never seen anywhere T500 < $290.
Inateck USB4 enclosure, crucial P3 plus 1TB, on my M2 Pro Mini, 2800 write and 3000 read. A folder 6GB copied in 2,5 seconds. I added two little 40mm fans with heat resistant double side tape, keeping the temp low at lowest speed setting of the fans. Very happy with this solution.
What the difference between “OWC SSD Enclosure Only” VS “OWC SSD Enclosure with 1TB Storage”
which one would I need. I’m not a tech guy at all so what ever you think is the simplest/user friendly option. Thank you this is a great video
The difference is with the one with built in memory you get guaranteed best SSD possible. Where if you just get the enclosure you have to do some research in order to get one that will be fully utilized speed wise and not overheat
Great info~! I just ordered my M4 Mac Mini and should get it the 1st week of Dec. While I plan to use an external drive, I did upgrade the RAM to 24GB (as much as it pained me to do so.) These days, I'm more of a casual user and don't do any video or audio editing. The most taxing app that I'll have loaded is Fusion 360 for creating designs I'll use for woodworking, 3D printing, & CNC work. Several other apps I use are now cloud-based, so I probably didn't need the RAM increase, but we'll see. Looking forward to checking out your other video content.
Thanks much~!
excellent info.. thanks for sharing
I have purchased a M4 Mac min and plan to use a external SSD and move my home folder (fresh install). I have ordered a OWC enclosure, however they are on back order until Feb. My thought is to use a cheap M2 adapter in the meantime, but then wondered if the Mac would see the OWC enclosure (with the same SSD used earlier) as a different drive and so cause an issue? Hope this makes sense and thanks for the work done on the video
which nvme ssd did you use and which generation?
Does the generation of the ssd card matter much as far as performance and speed ?
Thanks
I just bought an el cheapo USB4 enclosure for $18. The case is pretty well built tool-less aluminum. Tested with WD NS850X 2TB using Blackmagic it got 2,650 Write and 3,208 Read. Using CrystalDiskmark it got 3,717 Read and 3,790 Write. OS is Windows 10.
Excellent discussion. I'm assuming you still boot from the mini's internal drive, but would you rely on the OWC to run its OS if you needed to?
@@moeskido I don’t boot from the drive but I have all the apps installed. The no booting is in case there is an error with the SSD it’s easier to fix later on
I bought the OWC Envoy Ultra 4TB to complement my M4 Pro MacMini. This is one of the first Thunderbolt 5 external drive available on the market.
I have OWC Envoy Ultra TB5 unit. It reads and writes 5000+ the same as the internal SSD on my M4 Pro Mini.
Nice! That drive is insane, probably the fastest you can get for an external right now.
Ive got the Pro M4 Mini too. Was looking at that OWC TB5 drive. Do you use yours for data and files or do you also run applications from it?
@@allanpennington
data only as I got a 1TB internal SSD specifically so there is plenty of room for OS, apps and data such as email. The external drive is for Documents, Music, Pictures...etc.
@@MichaelAnderson-l3k Mines the base model with 512 ssd. But on my old Mac 2010 I put a 512 ssd and a 2tb hdd and pointed my home folder to the hdd. All my apps etc are 30gb plus Mac osx high sierra so total used is only 148gb so I figured the base m4 pro will be fine for me. But I’ve got 4tb of stuff on an external but it’s only usb 3. Quickest read right on the new m4 is 80gb/sec so the new tb5 OWC drive seems like a must. Expensive though
Can you buy ssd that increases Mac mini 4 16 gbram? Or only storage?
Right now you can’t upgrade anything after you purchase. That may change for the internal SSD sometime in the future but that would be the only thing that would be possible and right now it isn’t
That m4 mini I need more than 16gb… I wish there was an external hard drive increase that that’s what I was asking. Oh well thank you anyway probably best to buy the M4 overall the other mini PCs I never even heard of beelink any of them and there’s a lot of problems
How’s HP Dell for Protools or cube base or just get that mini M4 thanks a lot I appreciate it
FYI - T7's have an issue with Macbook's not detecting them via the required "PortableSSD" Samsung software. You would have to find a work around for that.
so the question is ... why should I buy a enclosure & nvme ssd if I edit my Fx3 videos from Samsung t7 /Crucial x6/8 and no problems at all ? Only for a faster files transfer from Sd cards to SSD ?
@@mex5341 right only faster for file transfers so if you don’t care about that and don’t use the external to replace your internal drive then stay with what you got
Thank you for this video. You basically confirmed what I decided to buy already! I am buying the OWC enclosure for sure, I am looking into all my options on the NVME drive that will live inside this enclosure. I am planning to use this for my "Home" folder instead of the built in one on my new M4 Mini.
I have fi ve T7 SSDs for many years and they are great. Thanks for your comments on the OWC enclosure with an SSD.
You’re in good company, they are excellent for the price.
How do you find the T7s are for directly editing Final Cut Pro projects on. Ie FCP project and media files stored on the T7 not in the Macs internal drive. Are they fast enough for vid editing?
I went with Satechi enclousure ($119, usb4) and 8TB WD sn850x ($549) for my PC. The heatsink design looks cool on the owc.
Uncanny, you are starting to look like Wozniak. Give it a couple more years and stones and it will be a spitting image
the system apps that come with the computer cant be moved to the external home drive
so once youre booted up from the external home drive, will the system apps that are on the internal drive still open up when you click them?
Loved this review. You deserve more subscribes
Thank you! Much appreciated
"Hard drives"
You’re right, they are solid-state drives (SSDs)!
"old habits..." but also technically they *are* hard, so... 🤔😂
I've the OWC, is it just me, but does it seem like they forgot to include a stick-on footpad that goes over the screws?
@@mtwagner mine doesn’t have the cover over the screws either, it does look like there is a slot for it, but my guess is on the custom enclosures that don’t include the pad since we need to unscrew the bottom, while on the prebuilt units I’m thinking the pad is there
Throughput is only half the story. The other half is latency, aka responsiveness. Throughput alone is fine when measuring large file operations like copies. Latency is much more important for those who use these external drives to run applications from, aka extend the size and use of their internal drives. Throughput measures the average rate of data movement, for example copying 50 megabytes every second. Latency measures how long it takes for a specific piece of data to move, for example copying a specific photo from the drive. If you have a photo editing app that's doing a batch conversion then throughput is what you want. However, if you're instead doing edits on a single photo then it's latency that's more important - the app has to wait for a specific photo to be read from the SSD before it can let you do your edits, so it impacts how responsive the computer is to your mouse clicks for the edit. External storage devices may have higher throughput than the internal SSD but they will almost always have worse latency - this is because the Thunderbolt and USB protocols go through several layers, each of which adds steps needed to move a specific piece of data. In short, I suggest including latency comparisons in your future videos on storage performance.
Super interesting take, thanks! I’m sure I’ve experienced some of that latency working off a drive before. I’ll never forget the day when internal SSD drives came out. But you couldn’t record audio to them they warned us back then. Good times
So, I have that OWC enclosure and a fast m.2 in it, it beats the internal drive of my M4 Mac Mini, but how does it compare to the internal drive latency wise? If it’s as fast or “a little” less than the internal drive, I’d be happy. Again, latency speaking, how does it compare, that any of you might know of?
I’m still putting my setup together but I hope I “hacked” the Apple tax by building this external enclosure…🫤
@@testcams some external drives have better latency than Apple internal drives and better throughput, particularly apples slow base and 512 single nand drives.
So external is a win, except for Apple security restrictions for ai, and the fact that if the internal ssd fails your Mac cannot boot from external and becomes a brick in need of a new motherboard.
Planned obsolescence on another level.
@@Tigerex966 Throughput yes, latency no.
Your analysis ignores modern OS (operating system) architecture and design including software applications built on top of OS system calls that buffer I/O to external devices. Consequently, as long as an external drive has good throughput then concerns about its latency are masked by OS buffering.
Someone share how they are keeping the Mini and the enclosure organized. I'd like to find someway to make both of them a neat package.
Realistically any computer is going to have things plugged into ports and dangling no matter what. But if you wanted to get the most minimalist configuration possible, one can get a mount for the mini to mount it under the desk or to the back of the monitor. It’s not really for someone who is constantly using the ports, but it’s the most minimalist thing one could do.
The OWC is a USB4 drive*. It does not need the thunderbolt spec to rev up to its full speed. It does not use a Thunderbolt controller.
Hi Geoff thanks for the video, so if I have the means and wants to upgrade, the next best available upgrade is go for the Mac mini pro base model?
Absolutely
I'm buying a new Mac mini pro, and I do music production, orchestration with sample libraries and I see you're doing not too upgrade for tbs. What would be the best drive to get for me? Thank you
If you are going for the m4 pro, owc has a thunderbolt 5 drive called the envoy that has better speeds than all the drives in this video here’s a link, it’s about twice as fast as their Thunderbolt 4 drive I cover in this video amzn.to/3ZdsdH8
I just got the M4 Mac Mini with 16GB and 512GB memory. I use it almost exclusively for photo editing. I keep all my photo files on an external hard drive (currently a 1Tb G-tech old school spinning hard drive). Backed up multiple times, obviously. Would I notice much difference if I upgraded to a T5? I don’t batch process or export any of my files although I do sometimes need to import through a power hungry app (DxO PureRaw 4), which produces files of 150MB each.
The huge difference is the transfer speed, however two things, I wouldn’t buy a T5 now as the tech is old and still slow. With the Mac mini go for the owc enclosure I mentioned or if your looking for a deal a T7. The T9 drives don’t fully work on the mini and you get the same speeds as a T7 on them unfortunately
I’d buy the m4 Mac mini pro and take advantage of thunderbolt 5
It all depends on what you do, once Thunderbolt 5 has a lot more accessories it will be an easier choice
waiting for a proper satechi like mac mini hub
Great video Geoff
Thank you!!
Have you had any issues with the thunderbolt external drives randomly ejecting.
Not as of yet
How many enclosures did you test? 3 is hardly a good cross section of what is available.
I own around 10, these were the best performers when it comes to transfer speeds overtime and overheating. I have a bunch from all the major brands from over the years of doing freelance video work and clients buying me ssd drives for their footage
5:35
What's the endurance on these samsungs? TBW would be great.
So upgrading the RAM to 24gb, should be the only upgrade you should make?
Probably, anything beyond that you might as well just go get the m4 pro version
@@ReachFilms thanks
Which cable did you while testing the speed. Im getting mac mini 4. Should I get the cable which comes with the ssd enclosure or should get a thunderbolt 4 cable
Thanks for the info, very useful. I have 2 Samsung T7’s 1tb and 500gb, but I’m only getting around 40mb/s from the 1Tb and 120mb from the 500gb. Am I doing something wrong, do they need to be in a specific port or have a specific cable, why would these be so much slower than yours? Thanks
@@rschunkster something isn’t right, if you are connected to the thunderbolt ports in the back and getting those speeds it’s either a bad cord or bad drives, most of the time it’s a bad cord
Waiting for Thunderbolt 5 enclosures to become available.
Completely unnecessary
Not when you move large files constantly causes wear on internal MacBook drive and causes drive/MacBook failures. Not to mention I work with 10G internet and 100G Ethernet between workstations.
Yeah! Hopefully that happens soon.
Looking for the answer to what’s the cheapest 1tb drive you recommend for it…
Great vid, thanks for the info! I'm only getting about 635 WRITE with my 2TB T7, but that's on the M1 MacBook Air. Did you test yours on the MacBook Air?
No I gave my MacBook Air to my sister when I upgraded to the m3 pro MacBook Pro so I haven’t had a chance to
What about the Oyen Digital U34 Bolt 4TB (USB4 40Gbps) NVMe Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) Portable SSD at $429 and the Thunderbolt 4 paired with the Mac mini M4 is this great to use as your main drive? I bought the Mini through your link at $529 on BF, and I am new to video editing, but that is what I want to use this for, along with a podcast is this a good drive and setup? Thanks
Do the new Mac M4 Pro allow Samsung T9 to be used to it's full potential with Thunderbolt 5 ports? Or is it USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 ready? Thank you :)
Why did you do T7 not T9?
unfortunately not Apple didn't but in the right hardware to utilize the T9 properly
What about the M4 iMac? Doesn't that need external storage?
yes! and these solutions will work for that as well
I’m a little confused. My 2021 MPB M1 Max gets 6127 write and 5605 read.
@@pedzsan the hard drives across all Mac computers are not equal. The speed you get first depends on the size of the hard drive across then the computer itself. Obviously this video speaks to the Mac Mini m4 and not your MacBook Pro so you will see different results
most people would never notice the difference between 2000MB/s vs 3000MB/s
I think most users looking to buy the M4 Mac mini base model definitely wouldn’t see the difference
You consider for moving home directory to an external drive with USB 3.2 with 10Gbps? Because raycue is launching a hub for the new Mac mini m4 that’s is really more appeal that having a enclosure like the owc
Not fast enough for me to justify
Why do you shown an image of JUSt the encolsure when you are talking about buying it WITH something in it?
@@david1610 I’m not really sure what you are nitpicking here. The T7 doesn’t need anything but the others do. Too many things for a thumbnail
@@ReachFilms 2:21 "Now you can buy drives that are already configure with..." cut to image showing just enclosure. Or have I misunderstood?
Great video . Can anyone recommend the best cable for MAC?
If you mean cable between the external storage as in the video and the Mac, then there seem to be two answers. You need cable labelled 3-4-5 (Thunderbolt version) that matches your devices at the slowest device's rate you have and
(1) AFAIK up to about 12" or 30cm the cables supposedly are "passive" and if true, then there are no chips in the connectors. From the data rate perspective, anything should go.
(2) Longer cables will have chips on either end and these split a sequential data stream into parallel streams on one end then on the other end these bits are put in sequence again. That's more expensive. One of the old MythBuster guys did a YT video explaining why an Apple cable was US$ 120 or so. He forgot to mention that Apple's brand value is part of the price. But, in a CT scan or so, the cable with chips, data strands and power strands, looked impressive.
How many Watts of device power over the TB cable can be relayed is another question. Potentially the chips in the connectors can negotiate about the speed (Ampères) of charging and/or Voltage. In a cable with chips, the chips should be able to speak that language.
For the passive 30cm cable this means that the devices at either end should negotiate about power. With cables without the TB version printed on the connector, if that does not work, you might have a USB 2.0 cable on the inside, or it may just be a data only cable without power or the other way around a power cable without data strands.
The short about USB-C is that it's a mess. The connectors are "USB-C" and the rest is defined in other standards. It's possible to buy a cheap cable (for too much money) that is plain USB 2.0 and its data strands would give you 480 Mbps.
The short answer is that Apple may have a cable for you that you can trust to actually deliver. But it will be expensive. So far, it seems impossible to buy seriously longer cables above 10 Gbps.The short ones should not be a problem.
Thanks for this. I’ll look forward to seeing thunderbolt 5 external drives.
Hopefully soon as those drives are getting really fast!
What about the new OWC t5?
@@darylfortney8081 I’m sure it’s great! I don’t have any thunderbolt 5 machines also the base model m4 Mac mini only has Thunderbolt 4.
also curious lol: what lens/setup did you shoot 6:10 and 7:06 b-roll with? creamy bokeh on macro shots always a good combo! 👌
Im using the Komodo and the Laowa Probe Lens for the Macro Shots
Great video and great advice. I'm a subscriber to your channel now--thanks and keep 'em coming!
Thank you! I'm glad you found it helpful, appreciate the support.
Great video, great look, great vocals, like.
Thank you!!
It would be great to compare the new Thunderbolt 5 options, since the Mac Mini M4 Pro model (and Macbook M4 Max) features three Thunderbolt 5 ports. Since the NVME drives are capable of higher speeds than Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 can deliver. You would need a Thunderbolt 5 enclosure and a Thunderbolt 5 cable to test.
Yes, it'll be interesting to see how they perform!
Great video, subscribed. I'm thinking about getting the OWC Express 1M2 enclosure with either the Samsung 990 Evo Plus 4TB or Samsung 990 Pro 4TB. Do you know if you can update Samsung SSD firmware while it's in the OWC Express 1M2 enclosure with Samsung Magician Software on M4/M4 Pro Macs? If not, then you're better off using OWC SSDs. Thanks in advance.
You should try the new OWC TB5. In addition, I have the impression - not tested though - that even TB4 drives perform slightly better with TB5 cable. Does it make sense?
Unfortunately I don’t have any thunderbolt 5 machines right now but I am very interested in that drive as well
What memory do recommend for OWC
Crucial T500 2TB Gen4 NVMe M.2 Internal Gaming SSD:
amzn.to/40VPlMK
For video and photo editing, can you keep the movie and photo lib in the external drive ? Or do you continually off load files I once you are done with them? Thanks
I only keep them on the drive while actively using them in edits, then offload them because the file sizes I’m dealing with are huge from my red and blackmagic cameras
@@ReachFilms Gotcha. thanks much and thanks for the great review!
I have a 5 year old T7 and the speeds on my M2 Mac mini are W:85 R:68
Something is wrong then, could be anything from a bad drive, bad cord.. would take some troubleshooting
@@ReachFilms Thanks for getting back to me
The base model Mini won’t even fit the apps I run lol. Great video.
Where's the crucial x9 pro?
The x9 pro is pretty similar to the T7, really the only one I would be interested in is the x10 pro, but the OWC drive with 2 tb still blows that drive away for almost the same cost
Hey, are you using a Samsung 990pro 4tb in any of those "add your own NVME" drives? I tried a 990pro Ugreen TB4 external case and the drive drops out constantly on Mac, (I've tried multiple cases and multiple macs,) seems to work on on Windows though. Samsung looked at the drive and said it was fine, but not recommended for an external enclosure. Let me know if you did get any 990pro combo to work, otherwise I would warn people to stay away from them...
Hey! I haven’t tried the 4TB drive yet. I’ve listed the drive I currently use in the description, and that one has been the best I’ve used so far. I haven’t had any issues with overheating or performance slowing down.
What do you recommend for Lightroom editing in terms of a permanent external enclosure? Best value buy considering speed, stability, storage size, and price? I don't need portability as I just use SD card.
For Lightroom you definitely don’t need speed, so whatever fits your budget, most likely a t7 or t9 Samsung would be more than fine
@@ReachFilms Thank you for sharing your knowledge! I have an extra t5, too slow i guess? blessings!
Samsung T9 for the win when working with the base Mac Mini!
Yeah, the T9 is fast! I've been using the T7 myself and it's been great, so I can imagine the T9 is even better!
I just speed tested my t9 and it only got 900 write and 900 read. now im wondering if I should return it and get the owc and ssd.
@@pvnisher7386 friend of the channel Scott Balkum mentioned that may be the case. Good to know so thank you!
My T7 could not handle sustained editing. It would get blistering hot and slow down to protect itself.
I would only recommend the T7 to those on a crazy budget. Otherwise the OWC drive is the way to go
I saw that even though the current 256 gb in the base model is faster than previous models as it has 2 sticks of NAND, it's still around 1000 ish MBs slower than the 512gb internal ssd. My question is will notice the difference? I dont think i ever will need to edit stuff other than the occasional holiday stuff.
It depends on how often you edit and your editing needs. If you can use an external hard drive than yeah it’s more than enough. If you have to have the unit by itself go for more hard drive space
@ReachFilms let me put it this way. I can count on 1 hand the amount of times I edited on my PC in my entire life haha. Just wondering outside of editing will the loss of speed for the 256 Vs 512 affect me in other tasks .
thanks!
No problem! Glad you found it helpful!
This is a little off topic but I want to get into the Apple ecosystem. What would be the best laptop and iphone to get? Im just a average user who checks email, surfs the web, and watches videos. I don't get into all of the really cool stuff though I wish I could.
The MacBook Air is solid for an every day computer that doesn’t break the bank. The issue with that one is it’s due for a new model in a few months. If you don’t care about having a laptop as small as the air the base model MacBook Pro m4 14 inch is super solid too. As far as the phone sounds like a normal iPhone 16 will be great! Or if you want the bigger screen go for the max. But sounds like you may not use the pro features on the pro versions of the iPhone so maybe best to save $$ there.
We need Thunderbolt 5 external drives!
Why don’t you use Sandisk hard drive?
@@andrewchayles I have them and tested the ones I do have, which performed worse than the T7 although I know there are better versions now. The big thing is all the people I know who had their Sandisk SSD fail. I love sandisk and use their media with my red Komodo. But I’m not sure I would rely on their ssd drives but maybe they are better now. If they want to send me some I’ll review the new models! Haha
@ Yes I think the E81 is better now. Highly appreciate your reply! Great video as well 😌👏
cool vid, thanks Geoff! while i love the durability & quick/consistent mounting time of the T7, the performance of mine plummets within 30-45 min of hard editing 😿for longer editing sess, what's your real-world performance like with the OWC? see slow-downs with it couple hours into editing, or does it manage the heat pretty well?
will say, cannot wait for the day we can utilize some of these 6000-7000MB/s speeds advertised by some of these HD brands. maybe TB5 will bring that! 🤞🤞
There’s a new drive from owc I believe it’s called the envoy? It’s the first 6000 speed tb5 drive and looks insane
Why no Hyper Drive?
I’m sure it’s great!! The owc has crazy good handling of the thermals compared to that drive. With Thunderbolt 4 drives as small as the hyper drive if you were transferring more than a few TB to the drive I could see it slowing down, where does the heat go once it get too much? That’s part of the reason unfortunately the owc drive is so big
Hello all, new to ssd. would anyone be able to speak to the Crucial T705 fitting and working in the OWC Express 1M2 Portable enclosure? Thank you for the tie and help
I am confused. I have the new M4 and my internal read/write speeds are better than what you are showing and are the same as your OWC drive. Could it be because I purchased 512G storage and not 256?
definitely , the base version with 256GB is the slower one , but even this speed is more than you can use for video editing and general computing , Apple even had the problem when introducing the M2 that the speed was half compared to M1 Macbooks as they were using only one memory chip , now they learned and even on base models they use two chips and speed is ok
yes its totally the 512 version, it has better read/write speeds
The more internal SSD on the Mac the faster the read/ write will be , though no one needs tell you how much apple over charges for it .
The built-in 512GB SSDs and larger use faster chips so you should see at 3,000MB/s read and write speeds on those
11/18/2024 Just found your channel. I have a 21" 2010 intel iMac that t Have been considering upgrading to the 24" iMac M4 18GB Memory with 512GB storage but would like to add an external 1-2TB SSD to add additional storage and set it up where I can have my default storage for programs and files is the external SSD. Would this setup meet my needs to similar results for use as in your video or should i go with an iMac mini M4 with 16GB with 512GB storage or even go iMac mini Pro? Thinking of doing this during Black Friday or Cyber Monday coming up.
You are asking a lot of questions in one, but the easiest way to answer this is to get the most ram and the bigger storage drive if you can afford it. The iMac and base model Mac mini will perform very similarly, if you need the more performance go for the m4 pro mini. Just remember you will then have to buy a screen with the mini
Enjoy your channel ! Which ports did you use for the speeds you measured on each ? OWC and sabrent via thunderbolt on back and Samsung via USBC C on front ?
Thanks! I plugged all devices in the rear thunderbolt 4 ports
Learned about OWC decades ago. I have and old enclosure of theirs - full size HD. The "go to" for Mac users for decades. Cool to see they continue there excellence in products. (often, the pricer option is actually going to save you money, and TIME. You can't buy time...) Long term payoff.. ;-)
For sure, what most users realize is the OWC is only more expensive by a few dollars it’s not $50 or even $100 more than the competition, but with better results
If speed of SSD drive is less than 2000MB, what is the point of thunderbolt drive at all.seagate firecuda gaming dock has two thunderbolt 3 ports, display port, USBs, Ethernet, audio in/out and slot for nvme drive. Get a faster drive >2000MB, even max out on speed, and connect it with just thunderbolt cable and it will just fly. You get lexar 1TB+ with USB, connect with any thunderbolt 3,4 or 5 cable and it will fly.
@@Wog68 which driver are you talking about? The internal one? Kind of confused on what you’re asking because you’re talking about a device that only uses thunderbolt three ports the benefit of the Mac mini is that it has thunderbolt for so you can take advantage of those speeds for those who do file transfers. My channel is mostly about video editing, and video production,so videographers cinematographers anybody in the industry wants to take advantage of fast transfer speeds in order to maximize the speed of taking videos off of media cards in putting them on the drive as fast as possible with thunderbolt three you get limited by the thunderbolt three speed.
@ that was a typo. Let me repeat this. I have lexar external SSD, which has 2000 MBS read write speed. I use cal digit thunderbolt cable to connect 1TB lexar SSD. It is just great. Seagate firecuda gaming dock has two thunderbolt drive and 4TB and empty bay for nvme SSD slot. Connect it with thunderbolt drive and it is at top speed. It also power my computer. I bought Seagate firecuda dock before COVID at $350, no other thunderbolt doc with that HDD, Nvme SSD slot and as many ports in the market. It’s the best value form money.
yep
For a few £ more you get get a Samsung T9 with 2000MB/s transfer speeds.
For sure, I stayed away from the T9 only because for some time they were not compatible with the blackmagic cameras. I’m not sure if that is still the case though
great video. New Mac Mini 16 GB RAM 256 GB SSD 10-10 cores for $599 is a really good price point ! Now get this, compared to the exact same specs on an 24" iMac, you're paying $900 extra for a 24" screen which is TOTAL BULLS$$T !!!
I know it’s crazy right? If you already have a monitor it’s almost a no brainer to save the money and get the mini
Thé infernal speed that you give are the slowest (512 Go). 1bTo si WAY faster (6300). OWC ils half the speed
the bigger SSD you get the better the speeds are unfortunately, I am using the 256gb base model that has the slowest internal hard drive speeds. If you are going to upgrade the hard drive you or NEED to upgrade the hard drive your use case is likely beyond a base model Mac mini and you should go for the M4 Pro version
the external drives max out at pcie 3 speeds
you can just buy pcie 3 ssds and save some $$
@@rossw1365 the speeds are better starting with 512GB capacity , but I agree , the topic with storage is like a scam for apple , to get people to upgrade with their extremely overpriced memory , I just got the base version and for 300 Euro I managed to put together a 4TB external SSD , works like a charm , after I installed everything I need on the internal drive I still have almost 200GB of internal storage , and everything I need for work goes on the external SSD
Well, in Europe 1 TB OWC costs 300 euro. Doesn't make sense.
Cool
Owc is a real cooler.
The 512 drive is faster than the base drive and matches your own set up.
🚀🚀🚀
New sub here. Great channel. Would you be so kind as to answer a few questions. I mostly use Final Cut Pro & Photoshop to create videos on my Billy Luna Crime Stories YT channel. I am working in 1080p, but plan to start working in 4k. Currently I am Using a Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD (2TB & 4TB) to edit off whilst using FCP.
1) For my needs, which exact configuration of the new M4 Mac Mini should I get? (Pro or no, RAM, SSD)
2) Can I get maximum speed via Thunderbolt 4 or 5 using a Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD?
3) Is there any speed or performance advantage in going with a 1 TB SSD vs 512?
4) I’m now leaning toward an M4 PRO MAC MINI 512 SSD & 64 GB - Is this overkill for running Final Cut Pro, Photoshop and 30 web browser tabs open at the same time?
5) Do I need to worry about fan noise when I’m recording on camera video or voice over?
I would really like to save $ by not going with the pricey Apple storage & sticking with the externals. Thank you!
@@BillyLuna hey! So if you need to edit in a 4k timeline and can’t switch between 1080 to 4k at export time, go for more ram. Per your question on the sandisk you will not got thunderbolt speeds on that drive. It was slower than the Samsung so I left it out of these tests. If you are questioning if you should go pro or not, just go pro because you may need its power down the line and it would save you from upgrading.
I would say even the base version would work for you , checked the channel and looks like you don't need to do crazy color gradings or animations etc , I do all my editing in 4k without creating proxi/optimized files , and even when editing I have quality mode enabled on the preview with 5 camera angles all at 4k 60fps 150Mb/s and this works great even on the M1 Macbook Pro , just got the base version of the Mini 4 and connected a 4TB external SSD (40GB/s) , on internal memory I only installed the programs that I would use and editing out of the external SSD works perfectly fine , and for one of my clips I usually have 300GB up to 500GB of video files ; if you have the money yes the Pro is definitely better , but because that one is a bit more powerful it will tend to also have a bit of fan noise from time to time , this will not happen on the base M4 chip (I am aware that cooling is a bit upgraded on the Pro but still this is what the reports say)
There’re NO Thunderbolt 4 SSDs. Thunderbolt 4 only gives you PCIe 3.0*1 speed, which is basically 10 gbps, while Thunderbolt 3 is PCIe 3.0*4 with limited bandwidth. There’re are only Thunderbolt 3 and USB 4 SSDs/enclosures, USB4 could distribute more bandwidth to data than Thunderbolt 3.
Hey man, can you explain this a little better? I am having a hard time understanding if those external SSDs are USB or thunderbolt, most of them says compatible with thunderbolt but seem to actually be USB4. I even copy/paste your comment to CHAT GPT and asked to explain it, but it said that the sentence is not entirely true and that thunderbolt can support 4 lanes of PCI-e. Still very confused
Ai function will not work when booted from external drives
I’m not sure I would boot from an external drive. Making it your primary drive? Yeah I actually just made a video on that. But as far as making it the drive you boot from I’m just not sure how I feel about that
@ there is a work hack around, but you need you external drive almost always connected.
It involves moving your home folder to your external drive, there are some UA-cam videos that show how,
You actually boot from internal as normal, but most of our data home folder will be on the external, so your ai features will work as normal.
I think Apple does this for security and to sell mote storage upgrades.
Only one qus can u install app on external drive
Yes you can!
Just buy a 3-4k r/w 2280 nvme and a 40gps thunderbolt 4 enclosure. All of these other picks are a waste of money and underperform.
Thank you for this comment. I will try it out. I hope it works out.
#Band-aid solutions
Solutions for people on a budget
I will buy the Mac Mini Pro with 4 TB storage! 🎉
hav yu come from amazon forests