Of course you can boot up from your main drive if your external drive, your boot drive, fails, I've been doing this for years as I always buy the base model to save on exorbitant fees. Your main drive basically goes into hibernation mode when using an external drive (you can even unmount your main drive if you want too) to boot up too, and so if your external drive (boot drive) were to fail, you still have your main drive to rely on. Great video! Thank you!
I've been booting from an external thuntherbolt drive for years and haven't a single problem, and recently bought a Mini M4 and did the same and its working perfectly.
Hi Chegaro, is there any article / video, that has step by step process of this? I'm windows user, planning to buy mac mini, I don't want to mess up doing wrongly.
I have a iMac that I have been using with an external NVME enclosed external. Works fine would I be able to move my external Samsung NVME drive to the OWC and continue to use it on the M4?
Yeah no problem, you won’t have to change any of the formatting or lose any data, it will pretty much just show up as the same drive after you transfer it
This was very timely and very, very well presented and explained, I'm also looking at the M4 so I'll check out your video on that as well. You have a new subscriber.
Thanks Geoff.. You're video's on this new Mac mini are great. you answer the question most people like my self are asking but can't find on UA-cam. The others start of by saying yes I'm using the base M-mini. But by the time they are finished talking tech gibberish we are lost. You are very clear and straight to the point. This I appreciate. Many thanks. 👍🙏
I bought the M4 Pro Mini 512 internal SSD. I have also bought and waiting delivery on an Acasis Tb5 enclosure and will pair with a Samsung 990 pro 4Tb ssd. Ive already set up my Mac mini though including iCloud etc. Can I point my Home folder after the fact when I get my new ext enclosure?
I'm really new to using external SSD's. I own the base model m4 Mac mini and I'm hoping to do some gaming, but the base model of course doesn't come with enough space for all of the games I'd like to play. Does this OWC that he's recommending utilize the thunderbolt 4 ports that are on the base model m4 Mac mini?
lol, I just needed to make it clear many…. Many times. I mentioned it in my first video and many didn’t listen. It’s one of two things, they heard about it from another video and came to mine without watching, or they really wanted to try it anyways
I just got the M4 Pro Mac mini with 2T Internal SSD, but still, I plan on using external SSD to host my huge movie collection which I usually link to the TV app on the Mac
I have a basic version of 16gb/256gb Macmini M4 and I bought a Thunderbolt 4 case and this Lexar NQ790 2TB - SSD - M.2 2280 - PCI Express 4.0 x4 drive and surprisingly the speeds are faster than the internal drive, but I use it as an external drive for editing movies in final cut pro and I am very happy. In my case I do not see the point of installing the profile folder on an external drive, because I only use this mac for Finalcut pro
@@FrancoAmorto write 3100mb/s , read 3700mb/s - connected to case thunderbolt 4, this same case TB4 if connect to MacBook Air M1 , the speed is write 1200mb/s and read 1500-1700mb/s
I started down this route, but it seems you can”t encrypt the external drive. When I tried to boot I received some error when it tried it access the home folder the external drive.
Great video, just one question, some people is reporting problems using iCloud files with Spotlight, so macOS is not indexing iCloud files from the external drive, can you confirm this?
THANK YOU, every video i see is about "extra" storage and no one NO ONE telling or mentioning that i can set external storage as the MAIN drive what i was looking for is something i can plug in 24/7 and you just said it in this video THANK YOU the option of being the MAIN DRIVE is excellent ... i was planning to buy the 512gb .. now im getting the 256gb .. THANKS
What if I do this and upgrade to a new computer? Can I transfer this drive to the new computer easily or does it have any specifics for making it work?
@@ReachFilms Thank you for the information. I have a lot of data which are mainly photos and videos which I currently have on an external connected to an iMac. My mac mini arrives in a week. Thank you for the content.
Just one question: does Time Machine backup still work using an external drive as the main drive? Will it see the system + external drive as one machine and back it up, and 'rebuild' it in case of computer failure?
But Apple Intelligence doesn't support external drive... I want Apple Intelligence to work because it's a good feature and I think it will continue to improve in the future I ended up re-ordering Mac Mini M4 Pro with 1 TB of storage, I still have the external drive but I just use it to back-up files from the main drive.
Would this method be good to use along with a NAS as my primary storage for all of my pictures and videos? I recently purchased the UGreen 4 bay NAS and a M4 pro Mac mini with everything maxed out except storage. Now I'm wondering if I should use this method as well
With a new Mac mini M4, I have established all my files including the boot files on a Samsung 990Pro. Everything appears to work correctly, but when trying a software update, I receive the following: "User Interaction Required. An error occurred while installing the selected updates." Do you have guidance as to what interaction is required? I have full back up files and a bootable drive for emergencies on separate drives.
I haven’t done the booting from the drive because I didn’t want to deal with the headache if major issues occur so I don’t have experience with that sorry!
Hello, I know it’s not out yet but for those with way more knowledge than myself would the new owc ThunderBlade X12 be a drive you could do this with? Thanks
If I am purchasing a Mac Mini it makes more sense just to buy one with a larger storage than spend $249 for OWC on top of the Mac mini price....am I missing something?
It’s $119 for the owc, the next storage upgrade from Apple is $200 and it’s only 512gb. You can get a 1tb nvme and still be under $200 or even go 2tb 4tb etc
@Geoff Fagien - I have a Samsung 1TB 870QVO SATA2.5 in my Mac Mini 2012 and just upgraded to the M4 you mentioned. Could i pull that drive and use it as an external seeing that i still have about 800GB free on it? or would this limit the new M4?
I bought an M4 Mini on a Black Friday sale, including tax, after Amazon rewards + another incentive, at a crazy good price. Now awaiting mid-December shipping. I’ve been trying to figure out my external drive options (for the home folder as this and other videos suggest). Even though I have an Akitio 4 bay Thunderbolt 3 enclosure, moments ago, I bought a Samsung Pro 990 (Best Buy), on sale, and OWC Express 1M2 enclosure (direct from OWC) also on sale … Probably THE most powerful “Mac Rig” I’ve ever purchased, in 35 years of using Macs for professional music production 😀 Geoff, THANK YOU! Your advice has been invaluable and has helped me make this decision!
I'm using the T7 as my Home and it's working no problem what so ever. It is cool to the touch (though it's not summer yet). I must mention that I was smart enough not to install the apps on it. Applications live on the internal disk for the best performance
If the applications live on the internal disk you aren’t using the T7 as the home drive, you are just using it to keep your data on which tons of people do without issue!
Sorry but I have another question. I have been using my new Mac mini for a few weeks now, but haven't installed any programs on it yet and only have the regular Mac apps that come installed with the system. I do have all my photos and music that has been downloaded from Apple iCloud and iTunes. When I do my set up this weekend to make the external SSD my main HD, will I have any issues if I didn't install any programs yet? Also would it be better to erase all content and settings so it would be like a factory reset or would that be too extreme and unnecessary in my use case?
Great video. Agree 1000%. I have this OWC with the Samsung 990 Pro and getting Read/Write at around 3500 MG/s with the Mac ini Pro. I also have a Samsung T7 SSD and that read/write is only about 400 MB/s. The OWC drive is setup as the main User drive and stores larger applications and working files.
Do you have a step by step tutorial on how to make the OWC primary? i just got the mini m4 and the 1TB OWC I'm not a techie and need a good step by step to get it done
Is the provided cable that comes with OWC Express 1m2 fast enough and compatible to use with the thunderbolt 5 ports on the new M4 Mac mini base model to get at least 3,000 MBs transfer speeds?
They are compatible and from what I heard can get slightly better speeds than the Thunderbolt 4 on the base Mac mini. You won’t get Thunderbolt 5 speeds though on that cord if you get a Thunderbolt 5 drive in the future so just keep that in mind
@@ReachFilms Thanks. I took your advice and ordered the OWC Express1M2 USB4 External SSD with the Crucial T500 2TB Gen4 NVMe and I should have them delivered by this Sunday. I don't need Thunderbolt 5 speeds for my use as I don't do any video editing at least not for the foreseeable future, just music production and digital art.
You're saying that the OWC drive is the only way of running your home folder off an external drive? I've been using a 1tb Samsung T7 to do this for a couple of years and had no problems. You're saying you can't even use your computer if it has the home folder on the T7? Maybe there's something I'm overlooking.
@@seanohaimheirgin1047 it’s not that the owc is the only way, it’s the best for the money. As for a T7 I just can’t recommend it because that drive can overheat when used in situations with heavy loads. You are keeping all your info on that drive so me personally I wouldn’t risk it, and people were coming at me in my last video using the T7 and having major issues with their computer like I am tech support. I can only speak to what I use and what I have experience just like yourself. You are saying you have had no issues with the T7 and I’m happy for you! I just can’t recommend it from experience
I don't see getting much faster speeds on the Owc than I reported in my SSD video which covers the speeds. Now I did see in the m4 pro Mac mini it did get slightly faster speeds than the base model when it comes to the Owc drive
I'm planning to buy the Crucial X9 Pro, but I want to use it on both my Windows laptop and Mac Mini as a storage drive (majority of the time it'll stay plugged into my Mac Mini) and keep it plugged into my Mac mini and run Illustrator , Photoshop, After Effects and Lightroom etc. files from the SSD and occasionally use it for some file transfers from my Windows laptop. Will this setup run smoothly and is it safe to keep it plugged it at all times? PS:I will not be using the X9 Pro as my home folder. I'll just edit off it since my apps are installed on the interntal SSD
Hey @kabirnanvati Id suggest buying an M.2 NVME SSD and putting it inside a good quality enclosure instead. While the crucial is a reliable ssd its architecture ensures heat dissipation to the outer metal casing and it can over time in rare cases be a problem. Id advice a crucial P3 m.2 nvme ssd for example and just apply some thermal tape on it. Im an owner of an crucial X8 and a Crucial P3 nvme so just sharing from experience.
Besides double the space which is obvious is there another benefit to upgrading to 512 for $200 more? I thought Apple fixed the issue with the 256 version where they now use two nand chip instead of one like they did previously? I think that’s what they are called? I don’t remember.
They did add two nand chips on the 256gb but the read and write speeds are still much slower than the 512gb and def 1tb internal drives so that would be the bigger benefit than space, the 1tb drive is almost double the read and write speed of the 256gb SSD
I bought a Zike enclosure, still waiting for it to arrive. That OWC enclosure looks like a better heat dissipation device for my ssd. I guess ill wait for the Zike one to arrive and see how it manages heat and speeds. I don't do heave workflow, but when I am doing creative work I wan to access files from the ssd and use it as a scratch disk too.
I've watched a couple of comparisons between the Zike and Acasis enclosures. The biggest difference between the two seems to be the Zike doesn't cool quite as well as the Acasis, with its fan and included thermal pads. Under all but some extremely heavy use, like benchmarks, you probably won't see a whole lot of difference. The Zike seems to be a pretty good little case. Hope it works well for you!
Wondering if you have thoughts about using the new ORICO MiniMate SSD that's made specifically for the new Mac Minis. My understanding of the specs is limited, but from what I can tell it looks comparable for about $150 cheaper.
SEQUOIA 15.3 UPDATE ON EXTERNAL DRIVE If you want to update to Sequoia 15.3, installed on your external drive, You will receive an error message "Requires operator input", or similar. Solution: 1.Close down your Mac 2. Press and hold down the on/off button, and eventually a window will appear with two icons. 3. Press the right handed icon and 4 Icons appear with text asking, "onto which drive do you wish to install the new O/S". 4. Select the external, (Acasis mounted drive, on my case). The new O/S will then be installed on your Mac.
What do we do if we've got the Mac Mini M4 Pro and it has a Thunderbolt 5 port? Can we still use the same SSD that you're using, or would it not be compatible? And if it's not compatible, what would you recommend?
It’s still compatible, but OWC makes a faster one that is Thunderbolt 5 called the envoy which is about twice the speed and right now is the only Thunderbolt 5 drive available
I got the mac mini 16 core m4 (24GB) and I absolutely love it. Didn't know how well it would be with Blender, but it works great! Right now I am learning basic animation and rendering so it's more than enough, but I also have my 3080GTX i9 PC on the network that I can use to help render larger projects through render farm tech. Why not just use the PC? Power. That thing hogs power. This mac mini is a perfect fit.
Udate! I just received my OWC Express 1M2 enclosure as well as the Crucial T500 2TB today which you suggested and I just finished making it into my main disk for my new M4 Mac mini base model a mere 10 minutes ago. I know you don't recommend it, but I decided to put the home folder on my new external SSD and believe it should be fine as I have also created a second user account with admin rights for my internal Mac HD if I ever run into any issues. The method that worked for me, was to fully erase and reset my 2 week old Mac mini (which had no apps or programs installed other than the preinstalled Mac OS software, so I didn't lose anything). I also made sure to use Disk Utility to reformat my new Crucial T500 to the APFS format before using it. Everything works perfectly and I love the new setup. I also have a SanDisk Extreme 4TB to store all my documents and files. Thank you for all your wonderful suggestions and recommendations they turned out fantastic!
@ sounds like nothing lol check the comments I’m not affiliated with OWC in any way. They didn’t sponsor any content but happen to make the best performing Thunderbolt 4 enclosure for the price
@@toronto547 Sounds like you didn’t watch this video which specifies these particular products and why they work so well for the topic of this video. I was addressing and telling the content creator how his advice and product suggestions worked out perfectly for me, I have no affiliation whatsoever with the products or companies involved and get no financial benefit from mentioning that they worked great for me.
i got the orico enclosure that looks similar, i'm returning it as it over heats and bottle necks so ordered one that has a cooling fan. Im using a 3rd gen nvme so i dont think its that thats over heating i think its the enclosure, however when i do the swap if it is il replace the nvme also
@@ReachFilms what nvme would you recommend? I have ordered the enclosure you recommend its coming from the States so delivery estimate is the end of January
I tried moving my home folder ... kept getting an error message saying the Library can't be downloaded. Think I might just set up another account and put it on the external from the get-go ... see how that plays out. Using the Acasis TB4 enclosure with active cooling and it is faster than the internal on the base M4. Phenomenal bit of hardware, some of the macOS bits drive me nuts as a Windows/Linux user since the 90s.
Hello I have a question, I have a portable Crucial X9 SSD 1TB, up to 1050 MB/s, Can I use on my Mac Mini M4 as a full-time internal memory? thank you for continuing excellent videos, hug friend!
Not as fast as the internal drive. Only has half the write speed and only a third of the read speed. I have a similar drive, an X8 1TB and it’s great, but not good enough for a main drive IMHO. But I haven’t tested it.
Unfortunately right now Apple doesn’t support the architecture that the T9 uses so you don’t get the full speed out of them, you get the same speeds as a T7
I think this is the very reason why Apple put the power button on the bottom: it would be very easy to have a thin hard drive to stack on the bottom to have a clean setup and a lot of space practically for free (compared to Apple prices), but having the power button on the bottom makes it less obvious.
Surprised you would select base model Mac Mini M4. At least move up to 512GB or 1TB drive. Anyways, my reason for using fast external SSDs for my client and personal projects is that I frequently move between host system (Mac Studio) AND Mac laptop (MacBook Air because, for recording purposes, NO FANS). Oh yeah, after fooling around with WD, Samsung, and G-Tech external drives, I use (and trust) OWC. Their products are superb and their support is solid (despite what some folks say).
@@SoftwareManiacLSM the thing is in my situation 512 still isn’t enough so at that point I’d rather just get the base model and put the money towards the drive. Space I really need.
Stumbled on your video this morning. Great timing! I just purchased the Mac mini M4 24 x 512 to replace my 2016 iMac after the HD failed for the second time. I was looking to do the same thing using a SanDisk 4TB Extreme Portable SSD - Up to 1050MB/s, USB-C, USB 3.2 Gen 2, IP65 to house all of my RAW images and possibly another one to use as my Time Machine. I'm completely new to this setup BTW. When I restored the Mini from TM I only downloaded the applications to the Mini. All of the files on the iMac were backed up on iCloud so I'm going to leave them there. At this time I have two OWC external HD's. One for TM the other for images. I use Lightroom Classic and it had been running very slow with the old iMac. What are your thoughts on the SanDisk SSD? I know it's a third of the speed of the OWC SSD but do I really require more speed for photo editing? Big difference in price too but reliability is always a concern. I don't do any video editing. Thank you for posting this video!
Hey! You can use the sandisk as an external drive and it will be fine but don’t use it for the process discussed in this video, it won’t work right and will create issues with long hse
@ yes but it’s all about the brand. Unfortunately as great as sandisk memory cards are, their SSD units have the highest unreliable performance of any major company. Just a heads up
@ if you are looking for all in one the Samsung, sabrent and OWC are probably the best if you are just using them as external drives and not a home drive
@@christophery8927 YUP! I have done the same and it works amazingly well. It is smaller, quiter and more efficient than my MSI RTX 4070 i7 gaming PC and runs cooler without all those fans. Desktop PCs are great as gaming rigs, Macs are great for everything else, especially when they are super inexpensive, have an insanely small footprint, are quiet as can be and impossibly powerful for such a compact, low cost investment.
@@huntercaron you have no clue how many people watched my tutorial video and used a T7 then couldn't access their account, so in this video I had to make it clear multiple times to try and get it trough not to use the T7 for the main drive method to save people from running into issues
@@dagnytaggart5955 I don’t think you can transfer from computer to computer. If you want to do that don’t make it your home drive just keep it as an external and format the drive to APFS
Thank you for posting this. I might have to try this on my M1 MacBook Air. I picking up one of the new Sharge Disk Plus ssd enclosures from Kickstarter and it’s incredibly fast or at least for my use case. I’m using it as external storage, but I would rather make it my boot drive.
Because they have the storage on a separate board. I am sure it is only a matter of time before companies offer some kind of nand chip swap service. Sending in your board as a core and they send you a different board with the new chips, or the make new boards. These will sell much much more than the studio so the market for people wanting to upgrade is going to be huge. They already successfully built a working blank board for the studio just a few months ago. If you have a T7 or something similar lying around it might be work just using it for your files and see what happens if you don't want to invest into a NVME and enclosure. I had a 2017 macbook pro and people eventually made a nvme board where you can upgrade the storage but you had to keep the old drive to swap in when you wanted to update to a new macos major version release which was super cool of apple.
I wanted the OWC enclosure but there was a long delivery time to the UK and I wanted to setup my new Mac Mini, so I went for the Satechi USB4 enclosure with a Lexar 4TB NVME. I have no regrets, the speed is awesome - 3,000MB/s write and 3,200MB/s read. I initially setup the OS on the external drive but changed my mind and just did the home drive. The only issue I’ve had with the home drive on the external drive, is BackBlaze doesn’t fully work. BackBlaze does backup, but the menu bar icon won’t appear and I couldn’t inherit a previous backup. If I log into my backup admin account which runs off the internal drive, it works fine. I haven’t spotted any other issues though.
I just bought the Samsung T7 and put my music movies and download folder there. Oh well. I still have my home folder on the iMac along with my applications and documents.
To build an USB4 drive, it’s better to get an SSD with DRAM like Samsung 990 Pro or Kingston KC3000. Although it’s gonna be hotter, it will have better random reads and writes. DRAM-less SSD, like Samsung 990 Evo Plus, uses host memory buffer, which is using 64mb of the system RAM as DRAM, to store the drive’s data mapping tables to achieve good random reads and writes. However Apple Silicon Macs don’t give USB4/Thunderbolt direct RAM access, so HMB wouldn’t work in enclosures, and the drive heavily relies its SLC cache, which will hinder its response speed. The sequential reads and writes would not be affected too much (Of course the USB4/Thunderbolt limitations are still there), but randoms are way more important for system usage.
Thanks for the detailed explanation. So you are saying it is fine for day to day usage? I am considering buying this enclosure and I am not a video editor. I plan to get the Sasmung 990 EVO as its idle power consumption seems very low. Thanks!
@@TheEditorify It’s probably fine for video editing, it might take a little bit longer to load something up, but if you run your home folder off the USB 4 DRAM-less drive or run the system directly off it, then things could take noticeably longer, due to the HMB cache not work and the data mapping tables are in the SLC cache, which is slower than the HMB cache. Would be too slow though. Both 990 Evo and Evo Plus are DRAM-less.
@@rorywalters1614 As I said I am not a video editor and no I do not want to run my home folder off the drive. I do scientific computing and may want to run Docker containers later. Docker takes a lot of space, though. I am considering running some of the applications and containers off the ezternal drive. 990 Pro is too expensive for me, I think.
In my experience with Apple(21years) I have had way to many freaking false external drive ejects to even risk having my home folder on an external drive.
Would be nice to see some examples from your workflow to support the claim that the Samsung T7 is not fast enough? I had a SATA SSD from Samsung and it was more than enough for what I do. Not everyone is a video editor. In fact, I would argue that the issue with the Samsung drive is not its speed but it is not designed to be used as a main drive. So instead of saying that it is not fast enough, saying it has an overheating issue when used as main drive is more appropriate. I am also considering getting this OWC enclosure but there is no long term user of this drive that has been using it as a main drive and almost everyone on UA-cam that are using it are video editors but many people are not. We do not know how hot the OWC gets compared to the Samsung, how hot does it get when using it for day to day stuff. So many questions but I appreciate the effort. Thanks!
check my video on different ssd's, my goal is not to make 25 minute videos like other tech UA-camrs do, I cover separate topics in separate videos for those interested, link is in the description
Nice video and external thunderbolt SSD is a good option. I red that Davinci resolve always install on internal drive, does not give the option to go elsewhere. Is that true? Thanks
I would he careful doing this. Its been known to break. Especialy when apple are always sending updates. I've known peoples file structure get broken. Its not a standard way of doing things so apple does not take this into account when releasing updates. It may work now, but after an update may be broken tomorrow. It can cause big headaches. OWC drives are great, but very expensive. Currently there is independant work going on creating internal upgrades with a replacement non Apple ssd that replaces the original drive. So external drives wont be needed. I would consider this before shelling out too much cash on an OWC. 😉
I can’t tell if your comments are kinda trolly lol, it’s really just about the price compared to other products. Lexar has somewhat a sketchy reputation since they were sold and their products haven’t been as solid as they once were, so they need to compete price wise in order to compete. No one sponsored this video I paid for all the products
Of course you can boot up from your main drive if your external drive, your boot drive, fails, I've been doing this for years as I always buy the base model to save on exorbitant fees. Your main drive basically goes into hibernation mode when using an external drive (you can even unmount your main drive if you want too) to boot up too, and so if your external drive (boot drive) were to fail, you still have your main drive to rely on. Great video! Thank you!
I've been booting from an external thuntherbolt drive for years and haven't a single problem, and recently bought a Mini M4 and did the same and its working perfectly.
Hi Chegaro, is there any article / video, that has step by step process of this? I'm windows user, planning to buy mac mini, I don't want to mess up doing wrongly.
I have a iMac that I have been using with an external NVME enclosed external. Works fine would I be able to move my external Samsung NVME drive to the OWC and continue to use it on the M4?
Yeah no problem, you won’t have to change any of the formatting or lose any data, it will pretty much just show up as the same drive after you transfer it
@@ReachFilms Geoff been using Carbon Copy Cloner for years and it has worked will with my 2019 iMac!
This was very timely and very, very well presented and explained, I'm also looking at the M4 so I'll check out your video on that as well. You have a new subscriber.
Thanks Geoff.. You're video's on this new Mac mini are great. you answer the question most people like my self are asking but can't find on UA-cam. The others start of by saying yes I'm using the base M-mini. But by the time they are finished talking tech gibberish we are lost.
You are very clear and straight to the point. This I appreciate.
Many thanks.
👍🙏
Much appreciated!!!
I bought the M4 Pro Mini 512 internal SSD. I have also bought and waiting delivery on an Acasis Tb5 enclosure and will pair with a Samsung 990 pro 4Tb ssd. Ive already set up my Mac mini though including iCloud etc. Can I point my Home folder after the fact when I get my new ext enclosure?
I'm really new to using external SSD's. I own the base model m4 Mac mini and I'm hoping to do some gaming, but the base model of course doesn't come with enough space for all of the games I'd like to play. Does this OWC that he's recommending utilize the thunderbolt 4 ports that are on the base model m4 Mac mini?
Can you simulate what will happen if the drive fails (by removing the external drive) and how do you restore the home folder?
I clicked your link for the Amazon for OWC and it states "enclosure only" 0TB for $119 what does that mean?
@@KEVINJONES-y1h you buy your own nvme ssd to put inside and you can buy your own much cheaper than they sell with 1tb
After seeing this video, I have the feeling that he would not recommand using the T7… it’s just a guess…
lol, I just needed to make it clear many…. Many times. I mentioned it in my first video and many didn’t listen. It’s one of two things, they heard about it from another video and came to mine without watching, or they really wanted to try it anyways
Lol do people have a brain?
What about RAID? Will it increase speed?
Any recommendations ?
If you get the right raid and it’s usb4/Thunderbolt it would be about the same speeds but you can get much more storage but the cost is much more too
I just got the M4 Pro Mac mini with 2T Internal SSD, but still, I plan on using external SSD to host my huge movie collection which I usually link to the TV app on the Mac
But what if Panasonic recommend only 3 ssd for gh6 camera and none of it works faster than 2000 mbps?
Hi! I’m not exactly sure what your question is?
You're right, I expressed myself badly. It doesn't matter, thanks.
I have a basic version of 16gb/256gb Macmini M4 and I bought a Thunderbolt 4 case and this Lexar NQ790 2TB - SSD - M.2 2280 - PCI Express 4.0 x4 drive and surprisingly the speeds are faster than the internal drive, but I use it as an external drive for editing movies in final cut pro and I am very happy. In my case I do not see the point of installing the profile folder on an external drive, because I only use this mac for Finalcut pro
Very nice!
what are the speeds you achieve on this ED ?
@@FrancoAmorto write 3100mb/s , read 3700mb/s - connected to case thunderbolt 4, this same case TB4 if connect to MacBook Air M1 , the speed is write 1200mb/s and read 1500-1700mb/s
@@FrancoAmorto first I check on PC and the score is write 5900mb/s and read 6500mb/s - connected to motherboard
@@jozeksta what Thunderbolt Case you bought?
I started down this route, but it seems you can”t encrypt the external drive. When I tried to boot I received some error when it tried it access the home folder the external drive.
Great video, just one question, some people is reporting problems using iCloud files with Spotlight, so macOS is not indexing iCloud files from the external drive, can you confirm this?
Are you still able to use spotlight search after you relocate your home folder to the external drive?
Could I also use the Samsung T7 for this?
🤣🤣🤣
THANK YOU, every video i see is about "extra" storage and no one NO ONE telling or mentioning that i can set external storage as the MAIN drive
what i was looking for is something i can plug in 24/7 and you just said it in this video THANK YOU
the option of being the MAIN DRIVE is excellent ... i was planning to buy the 512gb .. now im getting the 256gb .. THANKS
What if I do this and upgrade to a new computer? Can I transfer this drive to the new computer easily or does it have any specifics for making it work?
Hi, if for some reason the mac mini fails, can i connect the OWC with the home files to my macbook and access the files?
@@winfredso1322 no it won’t work like that, I really only recommend doing this if you have so many apps that it takes you too much hard drive space
@@ReachFilms Thank you for the information. I have a lot of data which are mainly photos and videos which I currently have on an external connected to an iMac. My mac mini arrives in a week. Thank you for the content.
Just one question: does Time Machine backup still work using an external drive as the main drive? Will it see the system + external drive as one machine and back it up, and 'rebuild' it in case of computer failure?
Hi Stef, you will need a separate external drive dedicated to Time Machine only.
Gianni❤
But Apple Intelligence doesn't support external drive... I want Apple Intelligence to work because it's a good feature and I think it will continue to improve in the future I ended up re-ordering Mac Mini M4 Pro with 1 TB of storage, I still have the external drive but I just use it to back-up files from the main drive.
Would this method be good to use along with a NAS as my primary storage for all of my pictures and videos? I recently purchased the UGreen 4 bay NAS and a M4 pro Mac mini with everything maxed out except storage. Now I'm wondering if I should use this method as well
It would work! Being good or not for your situation maybe I don’t currently use a NAS so I couldn’t Speak on that unfortunately
@@ReachFilms Ok thank you. If I am using a NAS along side the external SSD, do you think a 8tb NVMe is too much?
With a new Mac mini M4, I have established all my files including the boot files on a Samsung 990Pro.
Everything appears to work correctly, but when trying a software update, I receive the following:
"User Interaction Required. An error occurred while installing the selected updates."
Do you have guidance as to what interaction is required?
I have full back up files and a bootable drive for emergencies on separate drives.
I haven’t done the booting from the drive because I didn’t want to deal with the headache if major issues occur so I don’t have experience with that sorry!
Hello, I know it’s not out yet but for those with way more knowledge than myself would the new owc ThunderBlade X12 be a drive you could do this with? Thanks
If I am purchasing a Mac Mini it makes more sense just to buy one with a larger storage than spend $249 for OWC on top of the Mac mini price....am I missing something?
It’s $119 for the owc, the next storage upgrade from Apple is $200 and it’s only 512gb. You can get a 1tb nvme and still be under $200 or even go 2tb 4tb etc
Good topic. I am interested. Thanks for sharing.
Not having seen your video, I picked up an ORICO Dual M.2 NVMe SATA SSD Enclosure.
@Geoff Fagien - I have a Samsung 1TB 870QVO SATA2.5 in my Mac Mini 2012 and just upgraded to the M4 you mentioned. Could i pull that drive and use it as an external seeing that i still have about 800GB free on it? or would this limit the new M4?
I wouldn’t do it, if you don’t have a good modern external SSD just use it as a normal external drive
Would it be easy to switch between an apple laptop and desktop using the same external ssd? Thank you
How often can the maker name be mention per minute ?
At least 73 times
72 times too much..
I refuse to use OWC on principle. Their support sucks IMO.
@@sivlapinteresting. Never had trouble with their support and they always go above and beyond. What specific issue did you have?
Does Launchpad still function when an external drive is used as the main drive?
Since the owc external SSD is the home drive what do you use when backing up using time machine ? another external SSD?.
I don’t use an SSD for Time Machine back ups I just use external hard drives, for those speed doesn’t matter for me
I bought an M4 Mini on a Black Friday sale, including tax, after Amazon rewards + another incentive, at a crazy good price. Now awaiting mid-December shipping.
I’ve been trying to figure out my external drive options (for the home folder as this and other videos suggest). Even though I have an Akitio 4 bay Thunderbolt 3 enclosure, moments ago, I bought a Samsung Pro 990 (Best Buy), on sale, and OWC Express 1M2 enclosure (direct from OWC) also on sale …
Probably THE most powerful “Mac Rig” I’ve ever purchased, in 35 years of using Macs for professional music production 😀
Geoff, THANK YOU! Your advice has been invaluable and has helped me make this decision!
Great channel ! Amazing information 💪💪💪💪
I'm using the T7 as my Home and it's working no problem what so ever. It is cool to the touch (though it's not summer yet). I must mention that I was smart enough not to install the apps on it. Applications live on the internal disk for the best performance
If the applications live on the internal disk you aren’t using the T7 as the home drive, you are just using it to keep your data on which tons of people do without issue!
Sorry but I have another question. I have been using my new Mac mini for a few weeks now, but haven't installed any programs on it yet and only have the regular Mac apps that come installed with the system. I do have all my photos and music that has been downloaded from Apple iCloud and iTunes. When I do my set up this weekend to make the external SSD my main HD, will I have any issues if I didn't install any programs yet? Also would it be better to erase all content and settings so it would be like a factory reset or would that be too extreme and unnecessary in my use case?
If you think you maybe installed something, do the factory reset just incase that way it saves you from potential issues
@@ReachFilms Will do, thanks again!
I have a acasis tbu405 ssd enclosure (1tb ssd inside), do you think that will be good enough to use with a mac mini 4?
I don’t have that specific enclosure but have heard good things so if you already own it why not give it a try
Hello sir! Thank you for sharing this information! I want to use this as a main video editing machine, God willing. Thanks again and God bless!
Great video. Agree 1000%. I have this OWC with the Samsung 990 Pro and getting Read/Write at around 3500 MG/s with the Mac ini Pro. I also have a Samsung T7 SSD and that read/write is only about 400 MB/s. The OWC drive is setup as the main User drive and stores larger applications and working files.
Mac mini M4 pro?
Interesting looks like the m4 pro gets slightly better performance!
Do you have a step by step tutorial on how to make the OWC primary? i just got the mini m4 and the 1TB OWC I'm not a techie and need a good step by step to get it done
Yep link to that video is in the description
Is the provided cable that comes with OWC Express 1m2 fast enough and compatible to use with the thunderbolt 5 ports on the new M4 Mac mini base model to get at least 3,000 MBs transfer speeds?
They are compatible and from what I heard can get slightly better speeds than the Thunderbolt 4 on the base Mac mini. You won’t get Thunderbolt 5 speeds though on that cord if you get a Thunderbolt 5 drive in the future so just keep that in mind
@@ReachFilms Thanks. I took your advice and ordered the OWC Express1M2 USB4 External SSD with the Crucial T500 2TB Gen4 NVMe and I should have them delivered by this Sunday. I don't need Thunderbolt 5 speeds for my use as I don't do any video editing at least not for the foreseeable future, just music production and digital art.
You're saying that the OWC drive is the only way of running your home folder off an external drive? I've been using a 1tb Samsung T7 to do this for a couple of years and had no problems. You're saying you can't even use your computer if it has the home folder on the T7? Maybe there's something I'm overlooking.
@@seanohaimheirgin1047 it’s not that the owc is the only way, it’s the best for the money. As for a T7 I just can’t recommend it because that drive can overheat when used in situations with heavy loads. You are keeping all your info on that drive so me personally I wouldn’t risk it, and people were coming at me in my last video using the T7 and having major issues with their computer like I am tech support. I can only speak to what I use and what I have experience just like yourself. You are saying you have had no issues with the T7 and I’m happy for you! I just can’t recommend it from experience
Does it work faster if we use external SSD? For example 980 pro ?
I don't see getting much faster speeds on the Owc than I reported in my SSD video which covers the speeds. Now I did see in the m4 pro Mac mini it did get slightly faster speeds than the base model when it comes to the Owc drive
What about the Samsung T9?
@@bovver6092 the Mac mini unfortunately doesn’t fully support the T9 so you don’t get the best out of it speed wise
@@ReachFilms How so?
@@bovver6092 how do is it doesn’t support the usb protocol the T9 uses
You get T7 speeds on the Mac mini
I have t7 would you recommend it to use it as home folder?
I don’t know, would you think I would after watching the video?
I'm planning to buy the Crucial X9 Pro, but I want to use it on both my Windows laptop and Mac Mini as a storage drive (majority of the time it'll stay plugged into my Mac Mini) and keep it plugged into my Mac mini and run Illustrator , Photoshop, After Effects and Lightroom etc. files from the SSD and occasionally use it for some file transfers from my Windows laptop. Will this setup run smoothly and is it safe to keep it plugged it at all times?
PS:I will not be using the X9 Pro as my home folder. I'll just edit off it since my apps are installed on the interntal SSD
Hey @kabirnanvati Id suggest buying an M.2 NVME SSD and putting it inside a good quality enclosure instead. While the crucial is a reliable ssd its architecture ensures heat dissipation to the outer metal casing and it can over time in rare cases be a problem. Id advice a crucial P3 m.2 nvme ssd for example and just apply some thermal tape on it. Im an owner of an crucial X8 and a Crucial P3 nvme so just sharing from experience.
@ahankamath9833 Thanks for the reply! Unfortunately I have already purchased the X9 Pro and the SSD + enclosure is going out of my budget right now :(
Besides double the space which is obvious is there another benefit to upgrading to 512 for $200 more? I thought Apple fixed the issue with the 256 version where they now use two nand chip instead of one like they did previously? I think that’s what they are called? I don’t remember.
They did add two nand chips on the 256gb but the read and write speeds are still much slower than the 512gb and def 1tb internal drives so that would be the bigger benefit than space, the 1tb drive is almost double the read and write speed of the 256gb SSD
@ are the 512GB and 1TBs the same speed?
How about the Sandisk 2TB ssd?
Great Video! Thanks for making things clear. New Sub!
Thank you!!
Can I use the external drive as my main drive and the time machine drive at the same time?
I would keep Time Machine on a separate drive
How much heat is generated with this method? Just curious.
I don’t really notice, I live in Florida. My owc drive is warm but not hot
I bought a Zike enclosure, still waiting for it to arrive. That OWC enclosure looks like a better heat dissipation device for my ssd. I guess ill wait for the Zike one to arrive and see how it manages heat and speeds. I don't do heave workflow, but when I am doing creative work I wan to access files from the ssd and use it as a scratch disk too.
Let me know how it works! They keep reaching out to me to review their stuff, but I haven’t personally used anything from them yet
I've watched a couple of comparisons between the Zike and Acasis enclosures. The biggest difference between the two seems to be the Zike doesn't cool quite as well as the Acasis, with its fan and included thermal pads. Under all but some extremely heavy use, like benchmarks, you probably won't see a whole lot of difference. The Zike seems to be a pretty good little case. Hope it works well for you!
Ultimately it comes down to which one has better customer support.
I have two of these drives, they are gorgeous.
What kind of cable do you use to connect the External to the Mac Mini M4? Which port do you use?
@@RPM0SHIELD I used the supplied thunderbolt 4 cable on the owc to the back Thunderbolt 4 port
Do you think SN850X or 990Pro is better?
Wondering if you have thoughts about using the new ORICO MiniMate SSD that's made specifically for the new Mac Minis. My understanding of the specs is limited, but from what I can tell it looks comparable for about $150 cheaper.
SEQUOIA 15.3 UPDATE ON EXTERNAL DRIVE
If you want to update to Sequoia 15.3, installed on your external drive,
You will receive an error message "Requires operator input", or similar.
Solution:
1.Close down your Mac
2. Press and hold down the on/off button, and eventually a window will appear with two icons.
3. Press the right handed icon and 4 Icons appear with text asking, "onto which drive do you wish to install the new O/S".
4. Select the external, (Acasis mounted drive, on my case).
The new O/S will then be installed on your Mac.
Hi Geoff, great video! How do you do a time machine backup with your setup? Please advise.
So what you’re saying is… use the Samsung T7 as a home drive, yes?
What do you think?
What do we do if we've got the Mac Mini M4 Pro and it has a Thunderbolt 5 port? Can we still use the same SSD that you're using, or would it not be compatible? And if it's not compatible, what would you recommend?
It’s still compatible, but OWC makes a faster one that is Thunderbolt 5 called the envoy which is about twice the speed and right now is the only Thunderbolt 5 drive available
I got the mac mini 16 core m4 (24GB) and I absolutely love it. Didn't know how well it would be with Blender, but it works great! Right now I am learning basic animation and rendering so it's more than enough, but I also have my 3080GTX i9 PC on the network that I can use to help render larger projects through render farm tech. Why not just use the PC? Power. That thing hogs power. This mac mini is a perfect fit.
Udate! I just received my OWC Express 1M2 enclosure as well as the Crucial T500 2TB today which you suggested and I just finished making it into my main disk for my new M4 Mac mini base model a mere 10 minutes ago. I know you don't recommend it, but I decided to put the home folder on my new external SSD and believe it should be fine as I have also created a second user account with admin rights for my internal Mac HD if I ever run into any issues. The method that worked for me, was to fully erase and reset my 2 week old Mac mini (which had no apps or programs installed other than the preinstalled Mac OS software, so I didn't lose anything). I also made sure to use Disk Utility to reformat my new Crucial T500 to the APFS format before using it. Everything works perfectly and I love the new setup. I also have a SanDisk Extreme 4TB to store all my documents and files. Thank you for all your wonderful suggestions and recommendations they turned out fantastic!
That is great to hear it works for you! I always like to hear about other people’s experiences.
sounds like you are selling products
@ sounds like nothing lol check the comments I’m not affiliated with OWC in any way. They didn’t sponsor any content but happen to make the best performing Thunderbolt 4 enclosure for the price
@@ReachFilms not reallyyy
@@toronto547 Sounds like you didn’t watch this video which specifies these particular products and why they work so well for the topic of this video. I was addressing and telling the content creator how his advice and product suggestions worked out perfectly for me, I have no affiliation whatsoever with the products or companies involved and get no financial benefit from mentioning that they worked great for me.
when using external for home (not main) does ai still work?
Yes it does that was one of my main concerns and I can confirm it works
i got the orico enclosure that looks similar, i'm returning it as it over heats and bottle necks so ordered one that has a cooling fan. Im using a 3rd gen nvme so i dont think its that thats over heating i think its the enclosure, however when i do the swap if it is il replace the nvme also
Just be careful sometimes it can be the nvme, I’ve had issues with multiple drives that can overheat quickly even in great enclosures
@@ReachFilms what nvme would you recommend? I have ordered the enclosure you recommend its coming from the States so delivery estimate is the end of January
I tried moving my home folder ... kept getting an error message saying the Library can't be downloaded. Think I might just set up another account and put it on the external from the get-go ... see how that plays out. Using the Acasis TB4 enclosure with active cooling and it is faster than the internal on the base M4. Phenomenal bit of hardware, some of the macOS bits drive me nuts as a Windows/Linux user since the 90s.
Anyone has idea why my external ssd´s get ejected with out reason?
Hello I have a question, I have a portable Crucial X9 SSD 1TB, up to 1050 MB/s,
Can I use on my Mac Mini M4 as a full-time internal memory? thank you for continuing excellent videos, hug friend!
Not as fast as the internal drive. Only has half the write speed and only a third of the read speed. I have a similar drive, an X8 1TB and it’s great, but not good enough for a main drive IMHO. But I haven’t tested it.
What about SAMSUNG T9 SSD?
Unfortunately right now Apple doesn’t support the architecture that the T9 uses so you don’t get the full speed out of them, you get the same speeds as a T7
What of I use an HDD? I mean it'll be a bit slower. But it'd run, right?
Don’t use it for this method way too slow, if you do use it only do so as an external storage drive
Thank you for your video. Is the Qwiizlab Fanless 40Gbps USB4 Thunderbolt External SSD Enclosure a good alternative?
it could be, problem is if I haven't used it personally I can't give you a recommendation or not
I think this is the very reason why Apple put the power button on the bottom: it would be very easy to have a thin hard drive to stack on the bottom to have a clean setup and a lot of space practically for free (compared to Apple prices), but having the power button on the bottom makes it less obvious.
Surprised you would select base model Mac Mini M4. At least move up to 512GB or 1TB drive.
Anyways, my reason for using fast external SSDs for my client and personal projects is that I frequently move between host system (Mac Studio) AND Mac laptop (MacBook Air because, for recording purposes, NO FANS).
Oh yeah, after fooling around with WD, Samsung, and G-Tech external drives, I use (and trust) OWC. Their products are superb and their support is solid (despite what some folks say).
@@SoftwareManiacLSM the thing is in my situation 512 still isn’t enough so at that point I’d rather just get the base model and put the money towards the drive. Space I really need.
Wheres the demo of how to move your home folder?
@@giantbear829 link in description
Stumbled on your video this morning. Great timing! I just purchased the Mac mini M4 24 x 512 to replace my 2016 iMac after the HD failed for the second time. I was looking to do the same thing using a SanDisk 4TB Extreme Portable SSD - Up to 1050MB/s, USB-C, USB 3.2 Gen 2, IP65 to house all of my RAW images and possibly another one to use as my Time Machine. I'm completely new to this setup BTW.
When I restored the Mini from TM I only downloaded the applications to the Mini. All of the files on the iMac were backed up on iCloud so I'm going to leave them there. At this time I have two OWC external HD's. One for TM the other for images. I use Lightroom Classic and it had been running very slow with the old iMac.
What are your thoughts on the SanDisk SSD? I know it's a third of the speed of the OWC SSD but do I really require more speed for photo editing? Big difference in price too but reliability is always a concern. I don't do any video editing.
Thank you for posting this video!
Hey! You can use the sandisk as an external drive and it will be fine but don’t use it for the process discussed in this video, it won’t work right and will create issues with long hse
@@ReachFilms Great! Thank You! Are external SSD's generally reliable? This will be my first time using them.
@ yes but it’s all about the brand. Unfortunately as great as sandisk memory cards are, their SSD units have the highest unreliable performance of any major company. Just a heads up
@@ReachFilms Grrrr! Well, that changes things. I guess I'll have to do more research. Which one's have been proven to be the most reliable?
@ if you are looking for all in one the Samsung, sabrent and OWC are probably the best if you are just using them as external drives and not a home drive
Got a 2 month old preowned base Mac mini m2 for $200 and bought a Satechi hub with ssd enclosure. I’ll use it as my main drive.
sounds like a plan !
Did I read this correctly? A another Mac as a main drive ? lol
@@christophery8927 YUP! I have done the same and it works amazingly well. It is smaller, quiter and more efficient than my MSI RTX 4070 i7 gaming PC and runs cooler without all those fans. Desktop PCs are great as gaming rigs, Macs are great for everything else, especially when they are super inexpensive, have an insanely small footprint, are quiet as can be and impossibly powerful for such a compact, low cost investment.
Very nice Video.. can you show to boot the "Lexar NQ790 2 TB - SSD - M.2 2280 " too ? Perhaps a comparison to OWC ?
it feels like the video is on loop
@@huntercaron watching it that much ey?
@@ReachFilms yup I am very prepared to not buy a T7 now 🫡
@@huntercaron you have no clue how many people watched my tutorial video and used a T7 then couldn't access their account, so in this video I had to make it clear multiple times to try and get it trough not to use the T7 for the main drive method to save people from running into issues
Have you checked if the Home Folder on that drive can be used on another Mac, M4 or otherwise?
@@dagnytaggart5955 I don’t think you can transfer from computer to computer. If you want to do that don’t make it your home drive just keep it as an external and format the drive to APFS
@@ReachFilms You may be correct here but It's worth trying. I have only ONE M2 machine and 3 Intels running Monterey.
@@ReachFilms I think switching the drive between two different OSes won't work because I suspect the Library Folder is os-specific.
Thank you for posting this. I might have to try this on my M1 MacBook Air. I picking up one of the new Sharge Disk Plus ssd enclosures from Kickstarter and it’s incredibly fast or at least for my use case. I’m using it as external storage, but I would rather make it my boot drive.
You got it!! Word of warning though, I wouldn’t do it with a laptop, too many moving parts at play
Because they have the storage on a separate board. I am sure it is only a matter of time before companies offer some kind of nand chip swap service. Sending in your board as a core and they send you a different board with the new chips, or the make new boards. These will sell much much more than the studio so the market for people wanting to upgrade is going to be huge. They already successfully built a working blank board for the studio just a few months ago. If you have a T7 or something similar lying around it might be work just using it for your files and see what happens if you don't want to invest into a NVME and enclosure. I had a 2017 macbook pro and people eventually made a nvme board where you can upgrade the storage but you had to keep the old drive to swap in when you wanted to update to a new macos major version release which was super cool of apple.
Totally agree, this is really a solution until then. I just hope it’s affordable
it's yet done !!!
I wanted the OWC enclosure but there was a long delivery time to the UK and I wanted to setup my new Mac Mini, so I went for the Satechi USB4 enclosure with a Lexar 4TB NVME. I have no regrets, the speed is awesome - 3,000MB/s write and 3,200MB/s read.
I initially setup the OS on the external drive but changed my mind and just did the home drive. The only issue I’ve had with the home drive on the external drive, is BackBlaze doesn’t fully work. BackBlaze does backup, but the menu bar icon won’t appear and I couldn’t inherit a previous backup. If I log into my backup admin account which runs off the internal drive, it works fine. I haven’t spotted any other issues though.
Interesting
So which drive does he recommend?
🤣🤣
I just bought the Samsung T7 and put my music movies and download folder there. Oh well. I still have my home folder on the iMac along with my applications and documents.
I have both a Samsung SSD and a Western Digital HHD connected.
Never had problem with T7 also much faster then the HDD mechanical drive i had inside my iMac.
You have been using it as a home drive this entire time running all your apps documents etc off of it?
To build an USB4 drive, it’s better to get an SSD with DRAM like Samsung 990 Pro or Kingston KC3000. Although it’s gonna be hotter, it will have better random reads and writes. DRAM-less SSD, like Samsung 990 Evo Plus, uses host memory buffer, which is using 64mb of the system RAM as DRAM, to store the drive’s data mapping tables to achieve good random reads and writes. However Apple Silicon Macs don’t give USB4/Thunderbolt direct RAM access, so HMB wouldn’t work in enclosures, and the drive heavily relies its SLC cache, which will hinder its response speed. The sequential reads and writes would not be affected too much (Of course the USB4/Thunderbolt limitations are still there), but randoms are way more important for system usage.
Thanks for the detailed explanation. So you are saying it is fine for day to day usage? I am considering buying this enclosure and I am not a video editor. I plan to get the Sasmung 990 EVO as its idle power consumption seems very low. Thanks!
@@TheEditorify It’s probably fine for video editing, it might take a little bit longer to load something up, but if you run your home folder off the USB 4 DRAM-less drive or run the system directly off it, then things could take noticeably longer, due to the HMB cache not work and the data mapping tables are in the SLC cache, which is slower than the HMB cache. Would be too slow though. Both 990 Evo and Evo Plus are DRAM-less.
@@rorywalters1614 As I said I am not a video editor and no I do not want to run my home folder off the drive. I do scientific computing and may want to run Docker containers later. Docker takes a lot of space, though. I am considering running some of the applications and containers off the ezternal drive. 990 Pro is too expensive for me, I think.
Come on, call this video: OWC TB4 Enclosure promotion video, then its ok! Lol
Lo dice como si fuera novedoso, tiene años que se puede utilizar.
In my experience with Apple(21years) I have had way to many freaking false external drive ejects to even risk having my home folder on an external drive.
Would be nice to see some examples from your workflow to support the claim that the Samsung T7 is not fast enough? I had a SATA SSD from Samsung and it was more than enough for what I do. Not everyone is a video editor. In fact, I would argue that the issue with the Samsung drive is not its speed but it is not designed to be used as a main drive. So instead of saying that it is not fast enough, saying it has an overheating issue when used as main drive is more appropriate. I am also considering getting this OWC enclosure but there is no long term user of this drive that has been using it as a main drive and almost everyone on UA-cam that are using it are video editors but many people are not. We do not know how hot the OWC gets compared to the Samsung, how hot does it get when using it for day to day stuff. So many questions but I appreciate the effort. Thanks!
check my video on different ssd's, my goal is not to make 25 minute videos like other tech UA-camrs do, I cover separate topics in separate videos for those interested, link is in the description
Nice video and external thunderbolt SSD is a good option. I red that Davinci resolve always install on internal drive, does not give the option to go elsewhere. Is that true? Thanks
Same question here
I would he careful doing this. Its been known to break. Especialy when apple are always sending updates. I've known peoples file structure get broken. Its not a standard way of doing things so apple does not take this into account when releasing updates. It may work now, but after an update may be broken tomorrow. It can cause big headaches.
OWC drives are great, but very expensive. Currently there is independant work going on creating internal upgrades with a replacement non Apple ssd that replaces the original drive. So external drives wont be needed. I would consider this before shelling out too much cash on an OWC. 😉
Brilliant
thank you!
so if you put all your apps on an external hard drive (using it as the main drive)
and you click on an application on your dock is it going to open?
Yea but drag the application onto the dock after you have done the migration of the home folder just in case
Im so broke, I need to wait for the Mac Mini M25.
I hope apple doesn't catch on that this is becoming a thing. They will be likely to release an update that cripples it. I wouldn't put it past them
Please guide us step by step how to make external SSD as a main drive. Please make a detail video. Thank you
Already did! Link is in the description as I mention a few times in the video
What about Lexar ares? It’s cheap. Why nobody make review about it?
Sponsors reason?
I can’t tell if your comments are kinda trolly lol, it’s really just about the price compared to other products. Lexar has somewhat a sketchy reputation since they were sold and their products haven’t been as solid as they once were, so they need to compete price wise in order to compete. No one sponsored this video I paid for all the products
I will try
Thanks for answer.
But it’s really strange. No reviews about lexar, but many about cheap china ssd.
I went exactly like you with OWC and it is doing just fine for me.
why not to buy a mac with bigger drive?
@@maxdronov the cost of a 512gb or higher drive from Apple heavily outweighs the cost of a Thunderbolt drive