What fast and cheap external memory for iMac?

[Miqs]

I have three external USB backup drives all HDD and I am conscious of their age (6 years) and thinking about SSD and possibly USB sticks of 50GB -1TB size. Are they fast and reliable enough to do the job? Or should I go Thunderbolt? Or is Thunderbolt old tech now? I am a photographer and some image backups are quite large so I need something reasonably fast. Is this the way to go? I have a 2019 iMac running Sonoma. Obviously cost is a factor consequently the cheaper the better.

 

[Bigwaff]

Cheap and fast are contrary to each other when it comes to external storage. Only you can determine what is the sweet spot based on your needs and budget.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I've gone the route of TB enclosures+fast NVMe for DAS on my MBP using cloning, as well as Time Machine. Under consideration was also a NAS but it fell over due to flaky WiFi and placement where four to five 3.5" HDD's couldn't be heard. Have you considered a NAS with your iMac? I found that by the time I had my 3-2-1 DAS set up with TB and fast NVMe, it was creeping up to the costs of a mid tier Synology with 4-5 3rd party HDD included. But in my case I preferred reliable directly connected backups, at the cost of devising manual schedules and sticking to them.

 

[OldCorpse]

Be sure to check prices. I was buying enclosures and ssd/hdd separately, but recently noticed that it's actually cheaper to just buy an external ssd/hdd drive, even from the same OEM (f.ex. Samsung). By the time you buy the enclosure, the drive and the cable, you might be paying more than just getting an external drive with everything included. Cost - for larger capacity drives, you'll pay more for SSD than an HDD; however, watch out for "cheap" drives on sale from unknown brands and sellers, there is a lot of fraud out there where the advertised capacity is fake, especially on Amazon - stick to known brands and sellers. Speed - with modern SSD/HDD, the speed limitation is going to be the ports on your iMac, the drive enclosure and cable. Reliability - it seems that SSD are pretty reliable (again, from known OEMs such as Samsung, Crucial etc. and known sellers) although it is said that when they fail, they tend to give little warning. Modern HDDs are pretty reliable (again, from known OEMs) and cheaper at larger capacities. But there are regularly mini-scandals regarding some really bad batch of drives from Seagate or WD or whatnot. Also, be aware that many known "brands" simply put their own enclosure and badge and the drives inside are from the same handful of OEMs. Always google for the latest reliability alerts, like the recent disaster from Sandisk's external SSD drives.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

Be sure to check prices. I was buying enclosures and ssd/hdd separately, but recently noticed that it's actually cheaper to just buy an external ssd/hdd drive, even from the same OEM (f.ex. Samsung). By the time you buy the enclosure, the drive and the cable, you might be paying more than just getting an external drive with everything included. Cost - for larger capacity drives, you'll pay more for SSD than an HDD; however, watch out for "cheap" drives on sale from unknown brands and sellers, there is a lot of fraud out there where the advertised capacity is fake, especially on Amazon - stick to known brands and sellers. Speed - with modern SSD/HDD, the speed limitation is going to be the ports on your iMac, the drive enclosure and cable. Reliability - it seems that SSD are pretty reliable (again, from known OEMs such as Samsung, Crucial etc. and known sellers) although it is said that when they fail, they tend to give little warning. Modern HDDs are pretty reliable (again, from known OEMs) and cheaper at larger capacities. But there are regularly mini-scandals regarding some really bad batch of drives from Seagate or WD or whatnot. Also, be aware that many known "brands" simply put their own enclosure and badge and the drives inside are from the same handful of OEMs. Always google for the latest reliability alerts, like the recent disaster from Sandisk's external SSD drives.

And also from certain Samsung NVMe's that can develop a shortened life-span if not on later firmware. Am going through this atm and my Amazon purchased 990 Pros are shipped and getting a firmware update in the Netherlands (from DE) right now. On a positive note, Samsung have release their "Magician" software for MacOS but it is pretty much useless...but a start. You're right re pricing but I will stick to buying enclosures+SSD combo just because then I have control if the enclosure chip goes South and I look at good support from OEM when I buy anything really. Also, the better Samsung SSD's have a 5 year warranty as opposed to 3 years, Pros and cons as always.

 

[ChrisA]

I have three external USB backup drives all HDD and I am conscious of their age (6 years) and thinking about SSD and possibly USB sticks of 50GB -1TB size. Are they fast and reliable enough to do the job? Or should I go Thunderbolt? Or is Thunderbolt old tech now? I am a photographer and some image backups are quite large so I need something reasonably fast. Is this the way to go? I have a 2019 iMac running Sonoma. Obviously cost is a factor consequently the cheaper the better.

I would think that your requirements would be for "reliable" before even thinking about cost or speed.

I keep my data on a Synology NAS. The space is effectively unlimited because I can just add drives and swap small ones for larger ones without shutting down.

As for reliability, I can physically remove a disk drive and still continue to work. The system will switch to an on-line spare drive and notify me and I can swap in a new drive. Zero down-time.

Some people argue that networked storage is slow. It is compared to internal SSD storge. But I tend to work on a small subset of my files at one time. Most of the storage is archival. So I set it up so that the active fies on the NAS are mirrored to a folder on the internal SSD.

Why worry about how long backups take? On my system, backups run continuously in the background. I don't notice it and no one has to for something that runs continuously to finish. Each new or changed file gets sent to a backup in real time as it is created or changed.

If you have years worth of work stored, It's nuts to worry about if storage costs $300 more or less. Choose reliability first.

 

[Miqs]

Thanks for all the replies. However I was thinking of a smaller casing than you suggest due to small office space. I have looked at small portable SSD drives and also usb flash drives as an alternative but not sure. I have everything backed up on two drives, and Time Machine, but my main aim is to run Lightroom and Photoshop from a new SSD drive for a greater file swap speed. What do you think?

 

[picpicmac]

but my main aim is to run Lightroom and Photoshop from a new SSD drive for a greater file swap speed. What do you think?

You can use an external SSD for the Start Up disk. You need to go through the macOS installation procedure, but it's well documented.

With these Apple Silicon Macs the boot sequence will always start with the internal SSD for security reasons, but then load the rest of the operating system from the external SSD. If you get a Thunderbolt enclosure I doubt you'll notice any speed problems.

 

[Miqs]

I have an Intel iMac so is that different? Also are there Thunderbolt SDD drives available, I don't see any. Also is Thunderbolt any better than USB-c?

 

[Miqs]

Sorry I now see some drives are dual purpose. USB and Thunderbolt.

 

[Ben J.]

In my view backup storage doesn't need to be fast. Therefore it can be cheap. Timemachine or whatever backup software you use only backs up files that have changed since the last backup. So unless you are creating GBs and GBs every hour every day, each backup update will be small and not take long, even with a slow disk. The first Backup though, will copy every file, and will therefore be typically an overnight-kinda-thing.

 

[jz0309]

I don’t understand why backups have to be “fast”, you should have multiple backups and HDD are quite useful for that purpose.
Personally, I have ~1.3TB of photos, use 1 SSD (because I had it) and 3HDD for backup, 1 of the HDD is a portable one for offsite storage

 

[theorist9]

Thanks for all the replies. However I was thinking of a smaller casing than you suggest due to small office space. I have looked at small portable SSD drives and also usb flash drives as an alternative but not sure. I have everything backed up on two drives, and Time Machine, but my main aim is to run Lightroom and Photoshop from a new SSD drive for a greater file swap speed. What do you think?

Since you'll be opening files from this drive you might want it to be quicker than something that runs in the background to do backups. Once the files are opened they will be transferred to RAM, and thus the drive speed won't matter while you're working on them. I.e., the drive speed will only affect how quickly you can open and save the files. Though if you like to do repeated saves when you're working, then you will feel the drive speed.

You basically have three connection choices, and the last one (USB 4) provides no benefit over USB 3 on your 2019 iMac:

USB 3 SSD (max ≈1000 Mb/s)
TB SSD (max ≈1500 Mb/s, or ≈2800 Mb/s, depending on the enclosure)
USB 4 SSD (max ≈1000 Mb/s; normally these go up with ≈3000 Mb/s, but that's only if your device uses USB 4, which in turn requires TB4, which your iMac doesn't have; since it's restricted to TB3, you're restricted to USB3 speeds). [See chart at bottom for USB 4 performance.]

If you want to go with USB 3, and don't want to get your own enclosure and drive, you should be able to get a good 1 TB external SSD for ≈$100. The Samsung T7 Shield is a popular choice (https://www.samsung.com/us/computin...exact-&ds_k=samsung+t7&gad_source=1&gclsrc=ds ). Not sure if the new T9 is better or worse (https://www.samsung.com/us/computin...rtable-ssd-t9-usb-3-2-1tb-black-mu-pg1t0b-am/) (I'd suggrest checking our reviews on anandtech.com). I personally use the Kingston XS2000. It's fast for transferring a few files, but slows considerably for extended transfers (which sounds like it would be perfect for your use): https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Performance-Pocket-Sized-SXS2000-1000G/dp/B09F5YHQ1K/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1MPFNQY8EJFIG&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.f7XZhKCz8NdXmhImGVB8rwOwU66cKSqd4JM-iue89EuCvfmxQocwRm2kODRaSBky-bqWZx5x9Av80sUG9J4ZhF1QCjBPm322A1ly1CQZquPOUgDwl7z9esx7nnW6Qk1LtLQlCJuJN3TrecDnw8wmHw.Xr8NK_nwlp607Ee2HLYTBSXAqUcClBzyBCtVzwbV4vQ&dib_tag=se&keywords=kingston+xs2000&qid=1705223215&sprefix=kingston+xs2000,aps,143&sr=8-3&ufe=app_do:amzn1.fos.18ed3cb5-28d5-4975-8bc7-93deae8f9840

If you want to go with a TB SSD, you go could with something like a San Disk G40 (https://www.anandtech.com/show/1759...-thunderbolt-usb-dualmode-portable-ssd-review)

USB 4 PERFORMANCE CHART, FROM https://www.owc.com/solutions/express-1m2

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

This is what you want. Pretty snappy and not expensive:

SAMSUNG T7 Shield Portable External Solid State Drive USB 3.2 1TB + 2mo Adobe CC Photography, IP65 Water Resistant, Compatible with PC / Mac / Android / Gaming Consoles (MUPE1T0K/AM), Beige

Samsung T7 Shield Portable SSD delivers high performance on-the-go, not matter the terrain. It has an IP65 rating for water1 and dust2 resistance, with Dynamic Thermal Guard to manage heat control. Transfer huge files instantly. USB 3.2 Gen 2 and PCIe® NVMe achieve soaring sequential read/write ...

www.amazon.com

Check ALL THREE colors.
For some reason, one color (right now, it's "beige") may be cheaper than another...

 

[theorist9]

OP:

This is what you want. Pretty snappy and not expensive:

SAMSUNG T7 Shield Portable External Solid State Drive USB 3.2 1TB + 2mo Adobe CC Photography, IP65 Water Resistant, Compatible with PC / Mac / Android / Gaming Consoles (MUPE1T0K/AM), Beige

Samsung T7 Shield Portable SSD delivers high performance on-the-go, not matter the terrain. It has an IP65 rating for water1 and dust2 resistance, with Dynamic Thermal Guard to manage heat control. Transfer huge files instantly. USB 3.2 Gen 2 and PCIe® NVMe achieve soaring sequential read/write ...

www.amazon.com

Check ALL THREE colors.
For some reason, one color (right now, it's "beige") may be cheaper than another...

I also mentioned that drive. But those 1 TB models in your AZ link are all used. I'd say spend $18 more to get a new one from Samsung's site.

I'm guessing Samsung is discontining them, replacing them with the T9 (though there were problems with the T9; not sure if those have been sorted out)--just a month ago you could get 1 TB T7's new for $80 on AZ, but no longer. Now you need to pay $104 on Samsung's site.

 

[bradman83]

I built my own external drive using a the Sabrent no-tool NMVE enclosure that you can find on Amazon for $30 and added in a reputable 2TB SSD for my photo archive backups. It's plenty speedy and I rally don't notice a huge performance difference versus my MBP's internal SSD.