Which external SSD for iMac Pro?

[Tritonemusic]

I need an external audio drive for my iMac Pro. I'm not sure what I should really be looking for, quite honestly.

I know people recommend the Samsung 860 EVO for recording, but I don't know if that can be connected to this computer or not. The Samsung X5 looks great because of its speed via TB, but is quite pricey.

If you can just give me some keywords to search the forum, or even what to avoid, I sure would appreciate it. Thanks.

[CharlzS]

If you're looking for speed and something that won't dent the wallet too much, look at something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/TDBT-Enclosure-T ... 433&sr=8-4
with this drive:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TL ... 9SPX&psc=1

[Tritonemusic]

If you're looking for speed and something that won't dent the wallet too much, look at something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/TDBT-Enclosure-T ... 433&sr=8-4
with this drive:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TL ... 9SPX&psc=1

Thanks a lot for your time, CharlzS. I will definitely look into this.

[mikehalloran]

If you're looking for speed and something that won't dent the wallet too much, look at something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/TDBT-Enclosure-T ... 433&sr=8-4
with this drive:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TL ... 9SPX&psc=1

But not that. It's $425 for 2TB while the Samsung T7 is $350 and already assembled. I don't like that it's only double the speed of SATA III. Your internal is nearly 4x faster.

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Touch-Po ... r=8-2&th=1

Don't use an 860 for recording. It's less than 1/6 the speed of your internal SSD. Why would you cripple your performance that badly? It's great for storing your VIs and archiving. The speed does not change no matter how you connect it (USB 3/3.1/TB) since SATA III is your bottleneck but USB 3 can have reliability issues, no matter how many post that it hasn't happened to them. -47 errors are not the end of the world but you will lose time and everything since the last Save or Autosave.

I have a pair of 4TGB 860 QVO sitting in a TB2 dock — rock solid connection but still slooooow. VIs, archiving done projects—perfect. Just for kicks, I recently put a project on it to compare and waiting for BTD, AV rendering and other tasks to complete was like watching paint dry.

If you're going to use an external for your active projects, get the X5. It's nearly as fast as the onboard storage and the only 'under $1,000' external that is treated by the OS as an internal drive.

A USB 3.1 blade is between 1/4 & 1/3 the speed of the internal but only half the price of an X5. SATA III is fine for VIs and archiving so I don't see the point except for use with laptops.

APFS Snapshots only works on the boot drive. That's one of many reasons I preach that active should be worked only on the internal. You can move iTunes, Movies etc. onto an external to make room with no hit to performance. Very easy in Mojave but sym-links work well in High Sierra.

[Tritonemusic]

That's one of many reasons I preach that active should be worked only on the internal.

Thanks for all the info, Mike. Much appreciated.

I must say that I was surprised to read what you said about working on the internal. I've always been told to use a separate drive for audio so the System drive doesn't have to do so much work (this was with all spinners). Has this changed since SSDs have taken over? Should I just be using an external for backups? I just want to be sure I understand you correctly. Thanks, again, for your time and patience.

[mikehalloran]

I've always been told to use a separate drive for audio so the System drive doesn't have to do so much work (this was with all spinners). Has this changed since SSDs have taken over?

That changed with the G5 and SATA busses. Older ATA/IDE/EIDE (now called PATA) busses ran at 1/22 to 1/15 the speed of SATA 1. SATA 11 doubled that and SATA III doubled that again.

And yes, it's not an issue with SSDs which don't work at all like HDDs. You can create additional volumes over APFS but you should never partition one. Never ever run so-called de-frag on an SSD or write to zeros. Best case, you'll slow down performance a lot and shorten the life; worst case, you'll make it unusable.

[Tritonemusic]

I've always been told to use a separate drive for audio so the System drive doesn't have to do so much work (this was with all spinners). Has this changed since SSDs have taken over?

That changed with the G5 and SATA busses. Older ATA/IDE/EIDE (now called PATA) busses ran at 1/22 to 1/15 the speed of SATA 1. SATA 11 doubled that and SATA III doubled that again.

And yes, it's not an issue with SSDs which don't work at all like HDDs. You can create additional volumes over APFS but you should never partition one. Never ever run so-called de-frag on an SSD or write to zeros. Best case, you'll slow down performance a lot and shorten the life; worst case, you'll make it unusable.

Thanks, man. I am truly grateful for your help. And, you just saved me some moolah!

[mhschmieder]

I've been facing a similar dilemma as VSL keeps putting out gigantic libraries that only work on SSD, so I keep bouncing stuff back to the HDD that isn't part of an active project. But this is just for sample libraries; not audio project files that will be heavily read/write.

I have the Glyph Atom 2 TB from 2-½ years ago, which was a bit under $500 and has barely budged in price in that time. I need a 4 TB SSD at this point, as there are no ports left to add a second 2 TB drive (my OWC Thunderbolt 3 Dock is unreliable), and those still cost around $1000 (just like end of 2017).

Many say that the real performance of the Glyph Atom isn't really TB3 level anyway; it's simply port-compatible.

When I do a fresh listing at Amazon (Sweetwater only really carries the expensive Glyph Atom, and OWC barely has anything at their site), I get the same results as the last few times, including the suggestions above. I get stymied by the 4 TB requirement; this still seems to be a difficult goal for SSD's?

The X5 from Samsung does look to be a true TB3 drive, unlike the Glyph Atom, and more bang-for-buck overall. Even the Samsung T7 seems better bang-for-buck at this point, and has come down a bit in price.

I just find it so hard to find meaningful and trustworthy (as well as comparable) specs at Amazon, and as "accessories" are so often mislabeled anyway, I had been hoping that OWC would add something, as it's usually pretty easy to dig deep with them and get meaningful specs as well as underlying OEM parts numbers.

[mikehalloran]

I don't know what the deal is with 4TB NVMe 3x4 or 4x4 blades. We were supposed to see them around December. Samsung is supplying a proprietary version for the Mac Pro 7.1 (the controller is in the T2 chip).

Yea, the Glyph Atom is only USB 3.1 over USB-C. Speed (using round numbers) is 10Kmbs max but it's available as 4TB (2x2TB RAID 0) for $879 from a few places.

That's only twice as fast as a 4 TB SATA III SSD — and still way slower than TB3. Now that the SanDisk Ultra 3D NAND 4TB is under $500, that's the one to get. It and the WD Blue 3D NAND 4TB are the same Fujitsu (I think) OEM and WD now owns SanDisk. There's nothing wrong with the 860 QVO but V-NAND is not recommended for system drives—streaming/VIs/archive is a great use but with the $treet at $520 and only a 3 year warranty, the WD/SanDisk with 3D NAND and a 5 year warranty is the better bargain.

As mentioned earlier, a SATA III SSD is the same speed no matter the enclosure as long as not FW or USB 2. A dock like this will be fine though there are some that have both USB-A and USB-C cables for a few $$ more.
https://www.amazon.com/RSHTECH-External ... _1_33_sspa

You can get TB3 external enclosures that will hold up to 760TB worth of drives if you really have the need. Unfortunately, because TB3 has a 4 lane maximum band width, these behemoths are slower than an X5 (the x4 is the number of lanes). A pair of 2TB 970 EVOs in a TB3 external RAID 0 enclosure will each slow down to 2 lanes; a quartet will crawl to 1 lane each. You could get an 8TB external that way. At 1 lane each, a quartet of 4TB SATA III SSDs will be nearly as fast but will be 16GB for roughly the same price.


Hmmm... it never occurred to me till just now that I might be able to configure my TB2 dock RAID 0. It's an earlier TB only version of this:
https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/externa ... drive-dock

It claims Speeds up to 981MB/s but that is only possible a) over TB or USB 3.1 and b) if RAID 0 is supported—likely since that can be set up in Disk Utility.
https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-ut ... 3150fd/mac

Actually, I have no interest in doing that—just nice to know I can. If I lose one drive in a 0 array, I've lost the data on both. Also, I will sometimes swap out a drive with another for testing so RAID is out.

A couple things I like about that OWC Drive Dock is that a) there are on/off switches for the individual drives making them hot-swappable and b) the connection is rock solid through the Apple TB2—TB3 adapter.

Having had problems with USB 3.1 over USB-C sometimes failing & needing to be unplugged/replugged to reestablish a connection, I'd likely spring for a TB3 cable even though, technically, it's not needed — either that or do TB2–TB3 as I'm doing now.

[nk_e]

Hey Mike!

It’s me again. Based on your advice and some number crunching, I’m on an active hunt for an iMac Pro. I’m looking for an 8c or 10c, 64gb, 4Tb machine. (Just missed an amazing deal at Adorama about 10 days ago. Frustrating!) Am following this discussion on external drives.

I have a couple of drive related questions. If I am imposing by asking so many questions, please just tell me so. No harm, no foul of course.

I have a 4 drives housed in an enclosure as JBODs connected via USB 3.1 Gen 1 to my current Mac. They are a mix of 2 and 4 TB 7200 rpm spinners and hold mostly secondary Sample libraries and archived material. I also have 3 additional drives in my MacPro 5,1 dedicated to Active Projects and more frequently used sample libraries and content. (My system drive is a 2TB Samsung SSD.) Eventually, I’d like to move a good portion of much of this stuff to SSDs, but given the cash I’m about to drop and considering the number of TBs involved, this will have to be done over time.

I say all of that to ask these questions:

Given that I’m dealing with spinners, do I stand to gain anything by transferring the drives in my current external enclosure to a TB-based enclosure connected to the iMac? And if so, TB2 or TB3?

Or will I get the same performance as TB by connecting the existing enclosure via a dock or adapter considering the current drives are spinners? If yes, is the OWC dock a good choice?

(I ask the above two questions because if with the current drives there is no gain in performance going TB, I can put off this expense for a bit.)

Given what you said above about TB enclosures and “lanes” ( all new info to me and what actually prompted these questions), when I eventually do buy new TB2 or TB3 enclosures, should I buy several smaller ones each connected directly to the iMac as opposed to one massive box? For argument’s sake, will three 2-drive TB enclosures connected individually give better performance than one 6-drive enclosure?

Lastly, I’m really interested in moving these drives as far away from my work area as possible. I’ve been looking at Corning and other cables that allow TB connections beyond 2 meters. I’m aware of the heat and longevity issues in some of the offerings, but am wondering if you have any insights/ experience/ advice on using these types of extended TB cables.

Thank you again for any insight you care to offer.

(Edited a few times for clarity.)

[mhschmieder]

Mike, you are a wealth of information, and also I didn't know that WD had bought SanDisk.

I have two Kingwin USB 3.0 TrueDocks, but it had not occurred to me that such an approach (using TB3 or its USB-C equivalent) could also work for SSD's and not just HDD's, opening up the list of available SSD options beyond the ones like Glyph Atom that are specifically designed just to be full housing for external SSD's (vs. internal ones or PCIe-oriented blades).

[mikehalloran]

I’m on an active hunt for an iMac Pro. I’m looking for an 8c or 10c, 64gb, 4Tb machine

You can filter in the left column. There are the two 4TB iMPs right now in the Refurb Store:

10 Core 64GB 4TB Vega 56 $6,119.00
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/G0UR ... 90c24f4e0a

10 Core 128GB 4TB Vega 64 $7,949.00
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/G0UR ... 90c24f4e0a

Add AppleCare+ for iMac for $169.00

plus Sales Tax.

If you blink, they'll be gone.

Back to Uncle Sam

[nk_e]

I’m on an active hunt for an iMac Pro. I’m looking for an 8c or 10c, 64gb, 4Tb machine

You can filter in the left column. There are the two 4TB iMPs right now in the Refurb Store:

10 Core 64GB 4TB Vega 56 $6,119.00
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/G0UR ... 90c24f4e0a

14 Core 128GB 4TB Vega 64 $7,949.00
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/G0UR ... 90c24f4e0a

Add AppleCare+ for iMac for $169.00

plus Sales Tax.

If you blink, they'll be gone.

Back to Uncle Sam

Done. (10c)

I looked just this morning, and that was not there. Thanks bud.

[mikehalloran]

You’re welcome.

As for your drive dilemma, if JBOD is working, leave it. The HDDs will be slower of course but you can A/B that against an SSD as a sample drive — if you notice a difference, move the VIs to SSD first. HDDs are fine for archiving and Time Machine.

Work toward simplification. Active work files should be on the internal.

As for your cable issue, I use the WD My Cloud enclosures via Ethernet to hold my HDDs. Though I use mine for Time Machine, they are designed for NAS and support a number of RAID options. You can get a 4 drive empty enclosure direct or used on eBay. I paid a college kid to run CAT 5a under the house to all the rooms years ago.

VI drives should be connected directly. I’ve never thought my 4TB SATA III SSDs got in the way being so much slower. As mentioned earlier, I can link them RAID 0 as one 8TB array and it would be faster but not double the speed except in theory (close enough, though). That is more complicated.

[nk_e]

You’re welcome.

As for your drive dilemma, if JBOD is working, leave it. The HDDs will be slower of course but you can A/B that against an SSD as a sample drive — if you notice a difference, move the VIs to SSD first. HDDs are fine for archiving and Time Machine.

Work toward simplification. Active work files should be on the internal.

As for your cable issue, I use the WD My Cloud enclosures via Ethernet to hold my HDDs. Though I use mine for Time Machine, they are designed for NAS and support a number of RAID options. You can get a 4 drive empty enclosure direct or used on eBay.

VI drives should be connected directly. I’ve never thought my 4TB SATA III SSDs got in the way being so much slower. As mentioned earlier, I can link them RAID 0 as one 8TB array and it would be faster but not double the speed except in theory (close enough, though). That is more complicated.

So what I hear you saying is: use external USB 3 enclosures connected to the iMac with the current drives for now. Move towards SSDs for the VI sample libraries (presumably using TB2 w/ adapter or TB3 Enclosures) and cross the “which enclosure bridge” when I come to it.

If all of that is correct, the only remaining piece of the puzzle is figuring out what USB hubs to buy to accommodate the plethora of dongles and Synth hardware that use USB connections. I have two pci cards in my 5,1 just for extra usb and FW connections! (I don’t use FW anymore.)

Very excited. Thanks Very much Mike. You’ve been super helpful.

George