Fast external storage for an M1 Mac Mini

It all depends on how "Fast" you want to go. Thunderbolt will be faster and more expensive. USB3 is going to be fast and much cheaper. You can get a range of USB 3 Hard Drives that will do ~ 150 MB/s, a range of thumb drives that will do ~ 250 MB / s, a range of USB enclosures for 2.5" SATA SSD's that will do ~ 500 MB/s and an NVME Thunderbolt + M2 that will do 1,500 MB/s.

Options options, decisions decisions.

expresspotato wrote: ↑ It all depends on how "Fast" you want to go. Thunderbolt will be faster and more expensive. USB3 is going to be fast and much cheaper. You can get a range of USB 3 Hard Drives that will do ~ 150 MB/s, a range of thumb drives that will do ~ 250 MB / s, a range of USB enclosures for 2.5" SATA SSD's that will do ~ 500 MB/s and an NVME Thunderbolt + M2 that will do 1,500 MB/s.

Options options, decisions decisions.

Sorry I should have picked a minimum first, so let's say the minimum is around 500MB/s. I think a good quality USB3 enclosure with even just a low end NVME drive inside would hit 1000MB/s right? Part of the problem is I don't know which are "good" and which are known to work well with a Mac. For the Mac world seems like when you search you mostly find content focused on ready to go high end stuff, not DIY enclosure type things.

Storage hardware and enclosures are not platform specific. The only thing you get when you buy external storage targeted at the Mac market is a higher price tag.

There are no hard drives that can sustain 500MB/s. Typical hard drive sequential read speeds are 100-200MB/s, and less than 10MB/s (often down to 1MB/s) for random small reads.

500MB/s sustained sequential read/write over USB is achievable off the shelf with an external SSD like a Samsung T7.

If you want to DIY something, you could buy any high-performance SATA SSD (such as a Samsung EVO, Crucial MX, or WD) and install it in a 2.5" enclosure with UASP support. There's not much benefit to doing this vs buying a pre-made SSD, however, unless you just want the experience.

500MB/s sustained small read/write isn't possible with consumer-grade gear. Some of Intel's Optane SSDs can do this, but they cost well over $1,000.

With my NVME SSD in a cheap USB 10Gbps enclosure plugged into a USB 10Gbps port; 850 MB/s seq read, 450 MB/s seq write, 4KQD1 read @ 35MB/s, 4kQD1 write @ 45MB/s.

I use the drive to hold my VMs, if my PC goes wack then I plug it into my laptop and run the VMs off the laptop.

Samsung T7 is great. No need to futz around with DIY solutions.

$67 USD (+ shipping, exchange, etc) for the OWC TB3 enclosure + your NVME SSD of choice. 1TB NVME SSD from Amazon is $130 give or take. This not really expensive, IMO.

FWIW, I boot my 2019 iMac 27" from a more expensive Orico TB3 enclosure with the older gen XPG8200 NVME SSD.

EugW wrote: ↑Samsung T7 is great. No need to futz around with DIY solutions.

I have seen a lot of people mention the Samsung T7, however their speeds tend to be almost half of what others report with their self built enclosures from higher end brands like Orico, OWC, Sabrent might have been another.

JustMike wrote: ↑ $67 USD (+ shipping, exchange, etc) for the OWC TB3 enclosure + your NVME SSD of choice. 1TB NVME SSD from Amazon is $130 give or take. This not really expensive, IMO.

FWIW, I boot my 2019 iMac 27" from a more expensive Orico TB3 enclosure with the older gen XPG8200 NVME SSD.

I read a lot about Orico and OWC, they are probably the 2 most often recommended brands in the Mac discussions I've been reading.


An interesting thing I keep coming across, in many of these threads people are also reporting that their M1 Mac Mini has slower Thunderbolt (I think USB too) performance than their other Macs. Many of these threads are from several months ago, don't know if any Apple updates have improved that or if it's just an issue with the new hardware that cannot be fixed with software.

hystavito wrote: ↑ I have seen a lot of people mention the Samsung T7, however their speeds tend to be almost half of what others report with their self built enclosures from higher end brands like Orico, OWC, Sabrent might have been another.


I read a lot about Orico and OWC, they are probably the 2 most often recommended brands in the Mac discussions I've been reading.


An interesting thing I keep coming across, in many of these threads people are also reporting that their M1 Mac Mini has slower Thunderbolt (I think USB too) performance than their other Macs. Many of these threads are from several months ago, don't know if any Apple updates have improved that or if it's just an issue with the new hardware that cannot be fixed with software.

The Samsung T7 is USB-C gen 2.

Orico, OWC, and Sabrent are not high end brands. They are 2nd tier brands. However, they're talking about Thunderbolt enclosures which are potentially faster. OTOH, if you're already getting near-Gigabyte/s speeds on USB-C, it usually doesn't matter unless you're doing video production or something like that.

BTW, you can get the Samsung X5 which is also Thunderbolt. Samsung is a 1st tier brand, but the X5 is considerably more expensive than the T7.

EugW wrote: ↑ The Samsung T7 is USB-C gen 2.

Orico, OWC, and Sabrent are not high end brands. They are 2nd tier brands. However, they're talking about Thunderbolt enclosures which are potentially faster. However, if you're already getting near-Gigabit speeds on USB-C, it usually doesn't matter unless you're doing video production or something like that.

Yeah sorry I meant higher end than the no-name ones . Oh and the Samsung I got mixed up on the model numbers, the one I saw mentioned several times was the Samsung X5 which is Thunderbolt 3.

hystavito wrote: ↑I read a lot about Orico and OWC, they are probably the 2 most often recommended brands in the Mac discussions I've been reading.

I've had great success with both on an Intel iMac, after extensively researching my options. I get about 1GB/s writes and faster reads with the XPG8200 1TB. Works perfectly for my needs. I've heard a Samsung 970 or WD 750 would be even faster

An interesting thing I keep coming across, in many of these threads people are also reporting that their M1 Mac Mini has slower Thunderbolt (I think USB too) performance than their other Macs. Many of these threads are from several months ago, don't know if any Apple updates have improved that or if it's just an issue with the new hardware that cannot be fixed with software.

I've never heard anything of the sort.

After reading Mac discussions and some random searches on Amazon I have this list. If anyone cares to comment on any of these I'd be happy to hear opinions. Thanks

Thunderbolt 3 Enclosures (DiY add your own NVME SSD)
https://www.amazon.ca/Cube-Enclosure-Sp ... 85&sr=8-26
https://www.newegg.ca/orico-tfm2t3-g40/p/0VN-0003-001N2
https://www.amazon.ca/Sabrent-Thunderbo ... 102&sr=8-6

This Thunderbolt 3 enclosure from AliExpress (couldn't find it in stock in Canada) supposedly works well according to Mac forums and is cheaper.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32952100894.html

Thunderbolt 3 externals 1TB
https://www.amazon.ca/Plugable-Thunderb ... 535&sr=8-8
https://www.amazon.ca/Samsung-Portable- ... WZJFG?th=1
https://www.amazon.ca/Sabrent-Thunderbo ... KH33C?th=1

USB external that claims up to 2000MB/s
https://www.amazon.ca/SanDisk-Extreme-P ... 9M64L?th=1