Mac Studio External Storage Options

[tbwnm]

You can find used WD MyCloud boxes on eBay. You want the ones with Ethernet ports. These are refurb'd by WD. They don't sell them empty anymore. The My Cloud Home is not a NAS box but it does support Time Machine and WD does have phone support. Normally, you set it up through your browser. Connect it via ethernet to your router.
https://www.ebay.com/p/23030652624?iid=294894576066

As for the drives inside, plenty of choices among WD, Seagate and Toshiba. I like energy saving HDDs with 5 year warranties. With your needs, I don't see going less than 20TB.

I'm trying to connect an external USB Drive to my WD My Cloud for Time Machine Back-ups over my local network. The only drive it will recognize is a "Seagate Backup+ Hub BK" formatted Mac OS Extended (Journaled) but it shows '0 KB Free of 0 KB" space available and I'm unable to share the volume. How do I need to format an external USB External Drive so that it will is recognized be WD My Cloud?

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[tbwnm]

I'd recommend BackBlaze in the cloud. Unlimited cloud backup for a single computer. $9/mo

Caveat is you can't use NAS.

I also run Time Machine on local USB2 HDs. I've been running Seagates for years... 8TB for Time Machine, 14TB for long-term storage. I omit VI samples from TM but keep them on BackBlaze.

Thanks, I'll check into BackBlaze. Although I'm not crazy about ANOTHER monthly storage subscription, in addition to what I'm already paying for 6TB iCloud, DropBox and Google Drive. That's how they get you these days . Would prefer to just have a set it and forget it back up on local hard drives. I'm going to see if I can get Time Machine working over my ethernet network perhaps with my old WD My Cloud box (see earlier post), Thanks for the suggestions!

[mikehalloran]

How do I need to format an external USB External Drive so that it will is recognized be WD My Cloud?

WD MyCloud devices support only one Time Machine Volume per device. Otherwise, you can pretty much configure as you like. Their manuals can be somewhat confusing.

I recommend calling and have someone walk you through it. ‭1 (855) 493-7867‬. They can look at your screen which makes things go faster.

Have a picture handy of the back sticker on your unit that you can email or open up on the screen share. Each time I spoke with someone, I was told that my serial number didn't exist—obviously a problem on their back end. With one of my calls, the tech needed to read the MAC address, also.

In my case, the two issues that I needed solving were not found in the documentation. All is good now.

[tbwnm]

WD MyCloud devices support only one Time Machine Volume per device. Otherwise, you can pretty much configure as you like. Their manuals can be somewhat confusing.

I recommend calling and have someone walk you through it. ‭1 (855) 493-7867‬. They can look at your screen which makes things go faster

Many thanks. The drive I actually want to us is a reconditioned DELL EMC Exos X18 that I picked up recently but it shows 0KB Free of 0KB storage available (also no partitions show up in Safepoints). I'll try contacting WD and see if I can get this working.

I need a cost effective high capacity local network Time Machine back up solution. Has anyone had success with the QNAP TS-130 Home NAS https://www.aaawave.com/qnap-ts-130-1-b ... 1k7_gx6li&? 16 TB currently on sale for $298. Alternatively I can purchase just the bay for $119 https://a.co/d/cY6I2xM and install the Exos 18TB.

[mikehalloran]

The WD and Synology support Time Machine in the firmware — it's in their browser app.

The Qnap should be configurable but you will have to configure it manually and may need to create a Volume. With Ethernet, this will be done through a browser.

Look at my Locations sidebar: the three circled drives are the TM drives available to this Mac over Ethernet as you can see, I'm only backing up to two at the moment but that will change soon. None of them show up on the desktop unless I force them to be double-clicking. If you can get the Volume on that Qnap to show up there, TimeMachine should see it when you open it and try to add a backup volume. Be sure to check the box to encrypt your backups, otherwise, certain data will not be backed up.

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[tbwnm]

I'm on the phone with WD support right now and they are telling me only Western Digital Drives formatted HFS will work? Is this what you are using?

[tbwnm]

If you can get the Volume on that Qnap to show up there, TimeMachine should see it when you open it and try to add a backup volume. Be sure to check the box to encrypt your backups, otherwise, certain data will not be backed up.

Yes, also tried to see if I could get the Exos 18TB USB attached to My Cloud to show up as a network volume in the finder but it does not. I may just give the Qnap enclosure a go as I have already spent several hours trying to get different USB drives to show up on my network connected to My Cloud with no joy so far and I need to get back into some right brain activity (like actually making music ).

Good news is, it looks like my 3.7TB Apple Photos Library has finally finished syncing to iCloud so now all my Apple devices are in sync in terms of photos and videos. That has taken over a month to complete (Mac Studio Sonoma 14.1). Transitioning to a new computer/system is something of a time sync to say the least! I'm hoping this new system will out last me .

[tbwnm]

I was finally able to get Time Machine back up working with a USB drive connected to a WD My Cloud by using a Western Digital Ultrastar HDD formatted Mac OS Extended Journaled (WD tech support was right, you do need to use a WD drive!). Plugged it in and it worked just fine and as we speak my Mac Studio is happily backing up to it. Thanks everyone for all your support (especially Mike ).

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[tbwnm]

Mike, do you use Safepoints to back up files on the internal My Cloud drive? I need a a back up solution for the files on My Cloud device without also backing up the Time Machine Back up on the external USB drive (this will take up too much space and at this point I don't need a back up of the back up). When you create a Safepoint, does it back up everything on the My Cloud Device including the Time Machine back up on the external drive? Ideally I want to use the same USB external drive I'm using for TimeMachine to back up to back up the files on the internal My Cloud drive. I only need 3TB of capacity to back up the My Cloud internal drive and as the USB Drive is 16TB it has plenty of capacity for both the Time Machine back up and a back up of the files the internal drive of the My Cloud. Thanks for your assistance!

[Rick Cornish]

FWIW: I am looking at this unit for external storage for my Mac Studio:

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-ministack-stx

I plan to get it with a 2tB SSD for sample and VI playback and a 2 tB HDD for convenient storage of my loop and SF/X libraries. You can configure these any way you like and they stack nicely with either a Mac Mini or Mac Studio. The price for my configuration is $479.

(NOTE: I will not be using this for backups,,, those will be done on a separate Time Machine HDD attached to my WiFi router.)

I’ve always had good luck with OWC products.

[tbwnm]

If you need the 3 additional USB-C/Thunderbolt ports this looks like a nice option. Also depends on how fast you need the drives to be (this should be more than sufficient for SF/X libraries Max listed is 770MB/s) and how much capacity. In my case, I needed a faster SSD with more capacity for video work (in addition to using this drive for active audio projects). For the WD Black 4TB SSD and the ACASIS enclosure I paid a total of $356 (excluding tax) so in terms of price per gigabyte SSD storage, thats less than half the cost of the OWC MiniStack. I'm also getting consistent read/write speeds of around 2500 to 2900 MB/SEC.

[HCMarkus]

FWIW: I am looking at this unit for external storage for my Mac Studio:

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-ministack-stx

high-efficiency cooling fan provides cool, nearly silent operation

Do you have a machine room/closet? There are many fanless alternatives... and for $479 you could probably go all NVMe, no noise at all.

[mikehalloran]

FWIW: I am looking at this unit for external storage for my Mac Studio:

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-ministack-stx

high-efficiency cooling fan provides cool, nearly silent operation

Do you have a machine room/closet? There are many fanless alternatives... and for $479 you could probably go all NVMe, no noise at all.

I'm with Mr. Marcus on this. Why is this box necessary? If you need a TB4 hub to stick a drive or two into, it might be something to consider. Otherwise, I don't see the need.

It can't make anything faster—in fact, just the opposite. Does anyone notice that OWC doesn't mention speed at all? This is the company that, when others state 1500GB/s, they will advertise 1533 on a 2 Lane drive to make it look better. Advertising TB4 doesn't mean much if the data pipe is only 1 Lane — and that is what's happening here. This means that the fastest m.2 blade is around 1000GB/s and the fastest SATA III SSD is around 520—same as a fanless USB3 dock and so on.

You do not want to use anyone's software RAID with an M1/M2 Mac. Just don't.

This 4 Lane USB4 ACSIS m.2 enclosure is under a hundred bucks. Until TB5/USB4.2 gets here, 2800 over 4 Lanes is the fastest external that you can connect to a Mac or PC. I have an 8TB blade in it running cool to the touch.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BBZT42HC?re ... tails&th=1

Not being TB3, I am able to connect it to my 2012 MBP — I even tried it with a USB 2 Printer cable and it worked.
You can see that, for another $28, there's a version with a switchable fan. If I needed mine to be a System drive, that might be necessary but for samples only, it's not (with Amazon, I have till Jan 31 to trade up if I want).

If you need more ports for your Studio, this TB4 hub adds three TB3 ports plus another USB 3.2 Gen 2 (aka 3.1) for $130.
https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB4HUB5P/

Again, the fastest m.2 blade can only achieve 1000 over 1 Lane, 1500 over 2 Lanes and 2800 over 4. Doesn't matter if a P3 rated at 3100, P3+ rated 5000 or the latest Black rated 7300 — until TB5/USB 4.2 shows up.

[Rick Cornish]

This 4 Lane USB4 ACSIS m.2 enclosure is under a hundred bucks. Until TB5/USB4.2 gets here, 2800 over 4 Lanes is the fastest external that you can connect to a Mac or PC. I have an 8TB blade in it running cool to the touch.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BBZT42HC?re ... tails&th=1

OK—Maybe I'm thick, but the Amazon listing for this enclosure says USB… I don't see TBolt mentioned anywhere.

[James Steele]

I think because it’s USB4? It’s still blazing fast. I have two of these enclosures myself…

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09KQBYQHM?re ... b_ap_share

…connected to this dock which in turn is connected to my M1 Max Mac Studio:

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TB4DOCK/

One has a 4TB NVMe drive for my sample libraries. I use this drive for that:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CHGT1KFJ?re ... b_ap_share

And the other is 2TB WD Blue NVMe that used to be my sample library drive that I now use as a Final Cut Pro project drive:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09JM8DJNS?re ... b_ap_share

I routinely get read/write times from both of these drives around 2700MB/s. I think for the 4TB drive I had to go with the Samsung for best performance with that particular enclosure.