Mac mini M1 2021 external drive

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Level 1

8 points

Mac mini M1 2021 external drive

I am seeking an external hard drive that maximizes the transfer speed of the thunderbolt 4 ports on a late 2021 Mac Mini M1. The mini has two thunderbolt 4 ports to be used for two external hard drives. I will use the HDMI port for the monitor. I will use the USB A port for an old school Mac wired keyboard and mouse.

I need two external drives, one for working files and one for time machine backup.

The total working files sizes are now 1 TB so I need 2 TB for future expansion.

The backup, I suppose, should be 4TB for now.

Because of the file sizes are large, I do not want SSD, but rather HDD due to the price differences.

I will copy process intensive files on the SSD on the Mac Mini and then store the completed work on the external drives.

Does anyone have suggestions about specific hardware to use including the hard drive, cable, and cable adapters?

I am confused about thunderbolt 3 and thunderbolt 4; and their relationship with USB 3, USB 3.1, and USB 3.2.

thanks

Mac mini, macOS 12.0

Posted on Nov 24, 2021 2:39 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

woodmeister50

Level 7

20,503 points

Nov 25, 2021 4:31 AM in response to Cowboy.mouth

Considering that a 3.5", 7200 RPM hard disk transfer speeds are in the range of 100-130 megabytes/sec, perhaps up to 150 on a good day, translates to 1.2 gigabytes/second for the good day case, putting it on anything other than a 5 gigabit/sec USB port is a waste of bandwidth. Even two drives in a hardware RAID 0 striped array would only double it and still not saturate a USB 3.0 bus.

Save lots of bucks and just get USB 3.x hard drives.

Bottomline, the fastest transfer speeds are limited by the slowest device in the chain and in this case is a physical spinning disk drive. A basic comparison, an interstate highway may have a speed limit of 70-75 MPH, but if you hop on it with a basic bicycle there is no way to achieve it.

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Answer 2

Cowboy.mouth Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 24, 2021 4:27 PM in response to Cowboy.mouth

I found these two pieces of equipment:

(1) Amazon.com - Basics USB Type-C to Micro-B 3.1 Gen2 Charger Cable - 3 Feet (0.9 Meters) - Black ($9.58)

(2) Bestbuy.com - WD - WD_BLACK P10 5TB External USB 3.2 Gen 1 Portable Hard Drive - Black ($129.99)

Does anyone have comments on these pieces of equipment?

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Answer 3

tbirdvet

Level 6

14,507 points

Nov 24, 2021 4:28 PM in response to Cowboy.mouth

You will not maximize speeds using a mechanical drive with TB ports. I use the same ports but use NVME drives in TB enclosures. You might as well use the USB port for the mechanical drive. That being said all you need is a USB-C cable (or adapter USB-A to USB-C) to use with the non TB drives connected to the TB port.

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Answer 4

Nov 24, 2021 11:36 PM in response to Cowboy.mouth

I have OWC Dual Drive Dock (OWCTCDRVDCK) and it works great for bare 3.5 & 2.5" HDD & SSD SATA drives up to 560 MB/s in Mac mini 2018 (works as usual also in Monterey 12.0.1). I use 3TB HDDs to archive images, movies, etc (and clone the master HDD to other HDDs as backups with Carbon Copy Cloner) and SSDs for more frequent use.

I asked OWC if they have plans to make a similar bare drive dock for faster M.2 drives but not at the moment.

https://www.owcdigital.com/products/drive-dock-usb-c

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Answer 5

hcsitas

Level 6

12,914 points

Nov 25, 2021 12:22 AM in response to Cowboy.mouth

I’m very happy with my no-fuss Toshibas https://storage.toshiba.com/consumer-hdd/external/canvio-flex, excellent value for money. Does the job reliably, quietly, and comes with 3 year warranties. Good luck!

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Answer 6

Cowboy.mouth Author

Level 1

8 points

Nov 25, 2021 2:38 PM in response to Cowboy.mouth

I took woodmeister50’s advice and bought these two drives during black Friday bestbuy.com for $100 each. I will log in and let you all know how they work. The transfer speed are about as fast as internal hard drives or external hard drives Matti Havri.

tbirdvet had excellent advice too. I did not know about NVME drives could be attached to a Mac, but so expensive, so very fast. I just couldn’t afford them.

the SSD drives are nice too, but again the had drives are just too cheap to pass up.

thanks for you advice

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Mac mini M1 2021 external drive

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