What external storage solutions are you going to use with the Mac Studio

[datagov63]

Thanks to the information on this thread I have by now tried three NVME enclosures with my Studio M2 Max and the results are all great.

This is a SK Hynix Platinum P41 in an Acasis TBU405Pro M1

This is a Samsung 980 Pro in Maewoo k1719

The Samsung runs hotter (48C) in the Maewoo without the fan running. The P41 runs at 41C in the TBU405Pro M1 without the fan on, and below 40C with the fan. I have also connected a TBU405 and had no problem running all three external enclosures at the same time, after multiple shut downs and reboots. At these speeds I see no difference between the Apple internal drives and these external SSDs.

The Acasis was 100 euros and the Maewoo about 55 shipped.

 

[Fravin]

My Samsung 980 Pro runs a bit hotter than my other SSDs. It's heck fast, but runs hot.

 

[Melbourne Park]

Guys, thanks for the thread.

Does it make sense for me to put my PCI Raid card (which has 4TB init at the moment via two NVME 2TB sticks in it) from my Mac Classic 5,1, into a PCI enclosure and use it on a Mac Studio? The card is a Highpoint Technologies SSD7101A-1 NVMe RAID Controller PCI bus card.

I might be able to sell it and just buy an external setup like you guys have been talking about. I am unsure if a silicon mac would also work well with the card setup in RAID, despite its own controller. If the card is worth something, it might be better to sell it.

 

[datagov63]

Unfortunately, Mac Studio Thunderbolt 4 ports use PCIE 3.0 controllers which limits maximum bandwidth. It seems the best sequential read and write times depend on the external drive's PCIE controller, which is why there is so much variance in the throughput.

No way of knowing how your PCI Raid Card will perform until you test it and tell us. But if it beats the Maewo k1719, you will be our hero and we will try to emulate your solution.